Model by Harald May
I./KG 54 supported the Afrika Korps from December 1941 -
February 1943. The unit flew missions in North Africa and from bases in Sicily
against Malta, and later Allied supply convoys. In December 1942 the Gruppe was
down to just 50 percent of its authorised strength. After refitting in Germany,
the Gruppe returned to Italy. I./KG 54 then attacked ports along the Allied
held coast of North Africa until December. II./KG also operated in North Africa
from October 1942 - May 1943. The Gruppe lost 30 machines before its
withdrawal. II./KG 54 then continued operating throughout the Italian Campaign,
making all out efforts against Allied shipping, with LT 350 torpedoes in the
Gulf of Naples. The Gruppe lost 18 Ju 88s during these operations.
1942
A newcomer to the North African arena was I./KG 54, whose Ju
88s were tranferred from Eleusis on 1 June 1942 to divide their strength between
Tympakion, on Crere, and Derna, in Libya. The unit's introduction to the desert
war was not without incident. It lost one of the four machines sent to bomb Bir
Hacheim on this date when 'B3+AH' failed to return. The desert fortress,
stubbornly held by the Free French, would finally fall ten days later after
being pounded into submission by an estimated 1400 individual sorties flown
against it by the Luftwaffe.
Just two weeks after Pedestal, on 1 September 1942, KGr. 806
was redesignated to become III./KG 54 (the first III./KG 54 having been
disbanded back in July 1940 at the start of the Battle of Britain!).
Towards the end of August 1942 LG 1's Gruppen had been
joined on Crete by elements of I./KG 54 and KG 77. And whereas the former were
employed primarily on convoy protection duties, the other units provided the
Afrika Korps with at least a measure of direct support during the Alam Haifa
fighting. But after this, and for the next seven weeks, another lull was to
descend over the Western Desert. With Rommel busy regrouping, the Ju 88s of LG
1 together with those of KG 77) returned to their nocturnal harassment of the
ports around the Nile Delta.
At this same time, however, the newly appointed commander of
the British Eighth Army, a certain General Montgomery, was finalising the plans
and preparations for his own EI Alamein offensive. It would prove to be the
turning point of the war in the west - 'The Stalingrad of the Desert', as one
German historian later described it. Hitler's inability to decide whether to
invade Malta or to capture Cairo had resulted in his forces' achieving neither
objective. It was a fatal error.
When the Battle of EI Alamein opened at 2200 hrs on 23 October
to the thunder of 1000 Allied guns, it marked the beginning of the end of the
war in the Mediterranean. And for the Ju 88 Gruppen in-theatre it heralded the
start of almost 20 months of near constant retreats, growing losses and
eventual withdrawal.
1943
The end of the war in North Africa was now in sight, and
this fact was reflected in the dispositions of the Mediterranean Ju 88 units as
of early March 1943, which clearly showed where the final battles were expected
to be fought. Of the seven Kampfgruppen then operational in theatre, only one -
II./LG 1 - was still based on Crete. Two, II./KG 30 and III./KG 77, were
operating out of Sicily, targeting mainly the Eighth Army in southern Tunisia
and its lines and ports of supply in Libya. And the remaining four (III./KG 26,
I. and II./KG 54 and II./KG 76) were in Sardinia, from where they were ideally
situated to mount raids along the Algerian and northern Tunisian coasts and
against Anglo-American force closing in on Tunis from the west.
During this period it is reported that several Ju 88
Kampfgruppen also deployed small detachments to southern Tunisia, these
including II./KG 30, whose aircraft operated briefly out of Gafsa, and 1./KG
54, which was based on the coast at Sfax. These so-called Kommandos were
presumably intended to provide direct tactical support to the embattled Afrika
Korps, but it was all too little, too late. On 28 March Momgomery's Eighth Army
breached the defences of the Mareth Line and began driving north towards Tunis.
With Sicily rapidly becoming untenable, the early summer of
1943 witnessed yet further reorganisation of the Ju 88 Kampfgruppen in the
Mediterranean. In the immediate aftermath of the Tunisian campaign, I. and
II.1KG 54 both returned to the Reich for re-equipment, leaving just III./KG 54
to transfer from Catania to Grottaglie in Italy. I. and III./KG 77 likewise
disappeared from the order of battle, which meant that only II./KG 77 remained
in Italy, based first at Foggia, before then moving to Rome-Ciampino.
