German Air Force

“White 11” in Italy

IMC Archives

Aided by a serviceman on the right wing, the pilot of the Focke-Wulf FW 190F-8 “White 11” of the Luftwaffe’s I./SG4 (I.Gruppe/Schlachtgeschwader 4) taxing somewhere in Italy, 1944. The aircraft, seemingly with the swastika and wing cross obscured for night missions (at least one post-war censorship, but I don’t believe it), is armed with a SC250 (Sprengbombe Cylindrich 250) 250 kg bomb at fuselage centerline. Equipped with FW 190F and G, employed in air-to-ground and night harassment missions against the Allied lines, was based in Italy from October 1943 to July 1944 when returned in Germany for deployment on Eastern Front. The Italian bases of this unit, formed 18 October 1943 in Piacenza, Northern Italy, from II./Sch.G. 2, were Viterbo, Rieti, Diavolo, all in Central Italy, and afterwards in Northern Italy, again Piacenza and lastly Airasca, Piedmont. The Gruppenkommandeure during the deployment in Italy was Maj Werner Dörnback, Maj Heinrich Zwipf and again Maj Werner Dörnback. Victor Sierra