JG 6

Jagdgeschwader 6
Active	1944–45
Country	Nazi Germany
Branch	Luftwaffe
Type	Fighter Aircraft
Role	Air superiority
Size	Air Force Wing
Nickname(s)	Horst Wessel

Jagdgeschwader 6 (JG 6) Horst Wessel was a Luftwaffe fighter-wing of World War II. JG 6 was created on July, 1944 from the remnants of the Messerschmitt Bf 110 equipped unit Zerstörergeschwader 26 (ZG 26, 26th Destroyer Wing) which had suffered severe losses as a bomber-destroyer unit in the Defence of the Reich during early 1944 against the Allied bomber offensive. JG 6 inherited the honorific name Horst Wessel from the Zerstörergeschwader it was created from.

In July 1944 the unit hastily converted at their Königsberg/Oder airfield onto the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, with an intended role as air superiority fighters and ground attack. For the latter role the aircraft were fitted with tubular launchers for the Werfer-Granate 21, 21 cm Nebelwerfer based mortar rockets. The third group was immediately renamed Kommando Nowotny — the first front-line unit to fly the Messerschmitt Me 262A jet fighter in operational combat — and replaced by another squadron with 4 Staffeln, flying the Messerschmitt Bf 109G.

With the minimum of training JG 6 then served on the Western and Eastern Fronts, up until the end of the war in May 1945.

The elements of JG 6 were initially based near Charleville-Mézières from 21 August. In the months after the Normandy invasion the numerically superior Allied fighter forces had destroyed most Luftwaffe fighter units sent against them over the expanding beachhead. JG 6 proved no exception, its inexperienced pilots suffering heavy casualties.

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