Franz Schwaiger

Franz Schwaiger (1 February 1918 – 24 April 1944) was a Luftwaffe ace and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross during World War II. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership - for the fighter pilots, it was a quantifiable measure of skill and success.

Military career
Schwaiger was born on 1 February 1918 in Ulm in the Kingdom of Württemberg within the German Empire. Following flight training as a fighter pilot in the summer of 1941, he was posted, as an Unteroffizier, to 6. Staffel of Jagdgeschwader 3 "Udet" (JG 3—3rd Fighter Wing). This squadron was part of II./JG 3 under the command of Gordon Gollob and fighting with Army Group South. Schwaiger quickly earned his first air victory, on 16.08.1941, but by the end of the year had reached a total of eight victories at which time his unit was rotated back to the Reich for rest and re-equipping.

A short secondment for his Gruppe to the Mediterranean Theatre, from January to April 1942, yielded no further success for Franz, but upon their return to the Eastern Front in May he started scoring steadily. Again covering Army Group South and the advance across the Ukraine toward Stalingrad, he scored his 20th victory on 31 July. The next week he was transferred to 2./JG 3, in the same sector. He scored his 30th victory on 17 August, and his 40th on 29 September, between which he had been transferred again, this time to 3./JG 3. Promoted to Feldwebel in early October, he scored his 50th victory on the 9th before being awarded the Knight's Cross, for 53 victories, on 29 October.

At the start of 1943 as the disaster at Stalingrad unfolded, and with 56 victories, Franz was sent for officer-training. Commissioned as a Leutnant, he returned to I./JG 3 as their highest-scoring pilot. In the intervening months the Gruppe had been recalled to Germany for Defence of the Reich duties against the increasingly intensive bombing raids of the 8th United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). This was a completely different type of aerial warfare - at high altitude and against the slow but very heavily armed box-formations of American bombers. Based around the industrial Ruhr heartland and Holland for the next year, he slowly added to his score.

Squadron leader and death
On 28 February 1944, I. Gruppe moved to Burg bei Magdeburg where the 1. Jagd-Division (1st Fighter Division) was concentrating fighter forces. In March, Schwaiger was appointed Staffelkapitän (squadron leader) of 1. Staffel of JG 3 following the death of its former commander Leutnant Hans Frese on 8 March. On 24 April, the USAAF Eighth Air Force sent 745 heavy bombers, escorted by 867 fighter aircraft, against the German aircraft industry. At 12:15, I. Gruppe took off and joined up with other elements of JG 3. At approximately 13:15, the Luftwaffe fighters intercepted a bomber formation north of Augsburg. The Luftwaffe fighters flew several attacks against the bomber formation. Following this engagement, Schwaiger made a successful forced landing in his Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-5 (Werknummer 110186—factory number) near Neuburg an der Donau but was then killed by strafing North American P-51 Mustang fighters after he had left his aircraft. Command of 1. Staffel remained vacant until 10 May when Hauptmann Ernst Laube was appointed its Staffelkapitän.

Aerial victory claims
According to US historian David T. Zabecki, Schwaiger was credited with 67 aerial victories. Mathews and Foreman, authors of Luftwaffe Aces — Biographies and Victory Claims, researched the German Federal Archives and found records for 56 aerial victory claims, plus one further unconfirmed claim. This figure of confirmed claims includes 55 aerial victories on the Eastern Front and one on the Western Front.

Victory claims were logged to a map-reference (PQ = Planquadrat), for example "PQ 4931". The Luftwaffe grid map (Jägermeldenetz) covered all of Europe, western Russia and North Africa and was composed of rectangles measuring 15 minutes of latitude by 30 minutes of longitude, an area of about 360 sqmi. These sectors were then subdivided into 36 smaller units to give a location area 3 x in size.

Awards

 * Flugzeugführerabzeichen
 * Front Flying Clasp of the Luftwaffe
 * Iron Cross (1939)
 * 2nd Class
 * 1st Class
 * German Cross in Gold on 29 October 1942 as Unteroffizier in the 3./Jagdgeschwader 3
 * Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 23 October 1942 as Unteroffizier and pilot in the 6./Jagdgeschwader 3 "Udet"