Luftwaffe Night Fighter Ace Lippe-Weißenfeld with Artwork from His Victim

In wartime Britain, the strip cartoon character ‘Jane’ was hugely popular with British service personnel, her antics being eagerly followed every day in the Daily Mirror. Such was her following that she became an extremely valuable asset in boosting the morale of troops on the frontline and with civilians at home. Always appearing in the cartoons with ‘Jane’ would be her Dachshund dog, ‘Fritz’. Based on a real-life model, Chrystabel Leighton-Porter, she was drawn by the artist, Norman Pett, in adventures where she would invariably lose her clothes – or most of them. Meanwhile, faithfully yapping at her heels, would be little ‘Fritz’, with the pair becoming popular mascot adornments on military vehicles and aircraft.

One of those aircraft was a Royal Air Force Wellington of 9 Squadron, X3713, ‘J – Jane’, which was shot down on the night of 20/21 June 1942 during a bombing raid against Emden. Its pilot was Wing Commander L V James DFC, who was flying on his first operational flight as Commanding Officer of the squadron, although he was a veteran of some 27 operational sorties with other units. Wellington X3713 carried the code letters WS – J, and inevitably became ‘Jane’. At the time of her loss, ‘J – Jane’ was already a veteran of fifteen previous bombing sorties. The Wellington crashed at Leenstertillen-Leens, in the Netherlands, having fallen victim to Oberleutnant Egmont Prinz zur Lippe-Weißenfeld of 5.Staffel / II.Gruppe / Nachtjagdgeschwader 2 (NJG 2), his 26th confirmed victory. That night, Weißenfeld also shot down two other British bombers, a Halifax of 76 Squadron near Groningen and another Wellington, this time of 75 Squadron, over the sea near Ameland.

However, it was the wreck of ‘J – Jane’ which Weißenfeld visited and where he found this artwork painted on the crumpled nose of the Wellington, together with 15 bomb symbols. The trophy was duly cut from the wreckage, framed and hung in the officer’s mess at 5./NJG2’s home airfield, where Weißenfeld was pictured admiring the artwork by Propaganda-Kompanie photographer Walter Doelfs. Weißenfeld went on to score 51 aerial victories but was killed in a flying accident on 12 March 1944.

Source :
Iron Cross magazine issue 5 - 2020