Anti bomber pilots - one of the most important groups of defense of the Reich. Set of the pictures - Part 1

Engine oil is pumped from a bowser into the tank of Oberleutnant Egon Mayer, Fw190 White 7 of 7./JG2, summer 1942

Fw190A-3 'White1' of the Staffelkapitan of 10. Staffel, Oberlautnant Friedrich Eberle at Bergen-op-Zoom, in Holland, May 1942

Hauptmann Hermann Staiger, staffelkapitan of 12./JG26 . One of the leading anti-bomber pilots

Major Klaus Mietusch, Gruppenkommandeur of III./JG26 Mietusch was one of the 'old hares' of JG26, having been with the Geschwader since 1938

Major Wilhelm Ferdinand Galland, Kommandeur of II./JG26 (second from left) who was killed in action over Holland at 17 August 1943

Mechanics and armourers attend to an Fw190 of 4./JG26 at Abbeville in the summer of 1942

NCO pilot from JG2 leansdown to study a table-top model of a B-17 fitted with wire cones to indicate the fields of fire from the defensive guns.

Oberleutnant Hugo Frey, Staffelkapitan of 7./JG11, jumps from the cockpit of his Fw190 following sortie over Germany in the autumn of 1943

Oberleutnant Josef Wurmheller, Staffelkapitan of 9./JG2, chats with a technical officer. Fw190 A-6 Yellow 2 (WN 530314), 1942

Pilots and groundcrew of II./JG2 wait at readiness. Messerschmitt Bf 109G-6 White 1 is fitted with underwing MG151 20 mm cannon

Pilots of 3.JG11 wait at cockpit in their Fw190s at Husum in the late summer of 1943. Machine had a Staffel emblem of a cartoon pistol imposed on a red heart against a yellow backround, with the motto 'Wer  zuerst chiesst hat mehr vom Leben' ('he who shoots first lives longest')

Emblem of 3./JG11 with motto: 'Wer  zuerst chiesst hat mehr vom Leben' ('he who shoots first lives longest')

All pictures come from Luftwaffe Viermot Aces 1942-45, Robert Forsyth