Major Walter Nowotny
Major Walter Nowtny was born on the 7th of December at Gmund. On October
1st, 1939 one month after the Invasion of Poland Nowotny joined the Luftwaffe.
Nowtny scored his first victories near the island of Osel, that is located
in the Baltic by shooting down three I-153’s in 1941. But he was hit in
combat so he had to ditch his aircraft in the Baltic Sea. He then spent
his next three days inside his dinghy, and using his hands as paddles,
until he reached some land. On September 4th 1942 four week after shooting
down seven Russian aircraft in a single day he was awarded the Knight’s
Cross of the Iron Cross right after scoring his 56th victory. Then on the
25th of October 1942, Nowotny was promoted to command the 9./JG54 or the
famous “Green Hearts” when he was only 21 years old. Then he scored nine
kills on August 13th of 1943, and even scored seven more on the 21st of
that month. During September of 1942, his kills reached up to 200. Then
he received the Oakleaves and Swords on September 22nd and was the 37th
holder of these awards. By mid-October of 1943 his kills reached up too
250 victories. and becoming the first pilot in history to reach that number.
Then he received the Diamonds. Becoming the youngest ever at the age of
22 and only eighth recipient of Germany’s highestmilitary award. Then his
career was temporarily halted because he was assigned command of the Schulegeschwader
or the SJG 101, is a training unit for the new pilots, which was based
in Palau. Even though it was a unpopular assignment for the veteran pilots,
Nowotny once again brilliantly succeded, and earning a reputation of a
first class instructor. Right after that, he was given the command of the
very first jet fighter unit. The name was Kommando Nowotny, given to him
because of the momentuos task of developing tactics for the use of the
new jets. Major Nowotny achieved two victories on the day he died in November
of 1944 it was a P-51, and a B-24 bomber. This brought his total up to
258 victories. After the death of Nowotny, Kommando Nowotny was disbanded
because everyone was demoralized bye the loss of their leader. Parts of
the squadron were used to form and elite group the Jagdgeschwader 44, commanded
by Adolf Galland.