Soviet aircraft engineers dismantle the MG.17 machine guns from the nose of a German Bf-109 fighter

Soviet aircraft engineers dismantle the MG.17 machine guns from the nose of a German Bf-109 fighter somewhere in the area of Stalingrad, shortly after Operation Uranus - November, 1942.

This is possibly a 109 from Kalach or Karpovka airfields which were crucial German fighter and attack airdromes during the Stalingrad campaign before they were overrun by Russian forces in November.

On November 19th, 1942, the Soviet Southwestern Front launched “Operation Uranus”, the encirclement of the embattled German 6th Army at Stalingrad. Much of the Soviet attack focused on the positions of the Third Romanian Army to the north and west of Stalingrad.

The Romanians had been expecting an attack for quite some time and called for close air support. None could be provided, a thick fog had grounded the majority of German and Romanian squadrons that crucial day and would continue to do so for the next week or so.

The Soviets managed to launch several attack sorties that day, around 600 total sorties between the 17th and 16th Soviet Air Armies (VA.) Luftflotte 4, which oversaw Stalingrad and surrounding areas, only managed to launch 104.

Both the Germans and the Romanians struggled to get a proper idea of the scale of the Soviet attack, their reconnaissance flights were either unable to take off, stay on course, or spot anything on account of the weather.

The Soviets struggled as well, only the most experienced pilots were selected to fly reconnaissance missions. On November 21st, the weather improved slightly and both sides launched aerial attacks on one another’s forces.

German bomber group I./KG flew three Gruppe sized missions against Soviet troop concentrations that day and the dive-bomber wingStG 2 “Immelmann” conducted 141 sorties to support the Romanian Armies whose situation was rapidly deteriorating.

Hauptmann Joachim Langbehn, 5./StG 2’s Staffelkapitän, crash landed his burning Ju-87 Stuka in no man’s land, but he and his radio operator were rescued by Leutnant Teigler who landed his plane besides them in no man’s land and picked them up. This was a relatively common practice among both sides on the Eastern Front where possible.

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