Two days later on April 19, after a brief respite the day before, III./JG-7 engaged a formation of B-17s of the 3rd Air Division as they targeted the marshaling yards at Aussig, Czechoslovakia, while B-17s of the 490th Bomb Group targeted Prague. As they turned into the bomb run, two Me 262s made a head-on pass and shot down the lead B-17. Three P-51s of the 357th Fighter Group flown by Capt. Ivan L. McGuire, Lt. James P. McMullen, and Lt. Gilman L. Weber gave pursuit. McMullen claimed a solo kill, while McGuire and Weber shared the second kill. Captain Robert Deloach of the 55th Fighter Group also claimed a kill, when he pursued two jets that flew through the formation, as one Me 262 shot down the B-17G flown by 1st Lt. Robert Glazner of the 444th Bomb Group. The crew bailed out and all were captured, but liberated a few days later.{10}
III./JG-7 had a bad start to their day when sixteen of their jets had just managed to get airborne over Prague when they were jumped by P-51s of the 357th Fighter Group, led by Lt. Col. Jack W. Hayes, who waited with his flight until the right moment. The Mustangs dropped rapidly and ambushed the flock of jets, with kills for one jet each confirmed for Hayes, Capt. Robert S. Fifield, Lt. Paul N. Bowles, and Lt. Carrol W. Othsun. Damaged claims were filed by Lt. W. J. Currie, Lt. G. A. Zarnke, Lt. F. A. Kyle, and Lt. D. C. Kocher. One of these kills was undoubtedly a jet flown by Unteroffizier Reischke of I./KG-54, which crashed at Slanem, Czechoslovakia, while the second was a III./JG-7 aircraft, although the pilot was not identified. Reischke’s victor was more than likely Fifield, whose account coincided with the German record of events. Reischke’s left turbine caught fire and he rolled over into the ground.{11}
JG-7 had managed to claim the following victories: Schöppler, Grünberg, Göbel, Bohatsch, and Späte all scoring one B-17 each; while Leutnant Mai of I./KG-54 also claimed a heavy bomber.{12} Späte’s account was quite vivid as he described this event in detaiclass="underline"
“We approached from the southwest, still climbing when we saw the formation. I was the leader technically, but Grünberg pulled ahead. We did not have rockets, and his jet pulled away from me faster. I saw him fire as we closed to about four hundred meters, and the bomber he hit immediately started burning on the outside right motor, smoke pouring out. I heard Bohatsch also call out ‘Horrido!’ for his bomber. I then fired at the one to the left and just behind, my cannon shells walking into the fuselage, then the tail section just seemed to break off. The bomber started floating down in two large sections, and I saw at least eight parachutes open several minutes later.
“Grünberg’s bomber then began to burn even more and it dropped out of the formation. He came around and hit it again, and this time it was finished. I saw it drop beneath the cloud cover, but saw no parachutes. I then pulled around for another run, hit another bomber, but not much damage, and as I pulled up and to the right, I looked up and saw a B-17 falling down on top of me, so I pushed the stick hard forward and then hard back. I think the B-17 missed me by about twenty meters distance, and the men were bailing out. Then we saw the fighters, and I was out of ammunition, so I ordered the group to head back. I wanted to rearm, refuel, and catch them on the way out. When we arrived at the base, there were smoking wrecks all over, our jets that had been ambushed on takeoff. Very sad.”{13}
This would prove to be the last engagement for III./JG-7 against the American bomber streams. Foreman and Harvey state: “This was the end for III./JG-7 in the west. Never again were its aircraft engaged by American fighters. A few jets were seen over Ruzyne in the last days of the war, but these avoided combat. Most British and American raids had ceased by 25th April and the Germans, in a desperate last-ditch effort to deny more of their territory to the Russians, threw their last reserves into actions on the eastern front. No information to this aspect of the war has ever been forthcoming from the Soviet Union however, but it must be assumed that III./JG-7 was from that time almost exclusively employed against the Red Air Force.”{14}
During his interview, Wolfgang Späte confirmed the assessment by Foreman and Harvey: “At this time III./JG-7 was totally eliminated from being an effective combat unit. This was no secret, and I applied to Galland for a transfer to his JV-44. The rest of the surviving aircraft and pilots were then given orders to work as ground attack aircraft, once they were given more rockets, and they spent the rest of the war killing tanks, and even getting a few Soviet aircraft from what I understand. It was the end, really, and Galland had the only real active unit. It seemed ironic that once I landed back at the airfield, and saw the damage, my adjutant came to me and told me about Steinhoff. It was already spreading like the influenza around the jet fighter community.”{15}
With III./JG-7 effectively out of the fighter versus bomber war in the west, only I and II./JG-7 remained to operate as under-strength units that would never again mount a great threat for the rest of the war. Despite their losses, they were not out of the war completely.
April 25, 1945, was a big effort by the Allies to hit not only German industry but also the jet airfields that were known to be active. The 4th Fighter Group flew their last mission of the war and their mission was to attack the airfield at Prague/Ruzyne, the former lair of elements of III./JG-7, which was then occupied by KG-51, also working against the Soviet tanks entering Czechoslovakia and Austria.
While having their attention diverted to the Soviet hoards in the east, III./JG-7 was ordered to attack the recently American-occupied airfield at Fürstenfeldbruck, which was the action that saw Oberfähnrich Hans-Guido Mütke land his fuel-starved jet at Dübendorf, Switzerland. Again the 17th Bomb Group would be engaged by a few jets although without any great effect, due to the successful fighter escorts keeping the predators at bay. The 344th BG B-26s were also saved from jet attacks by their P-51 escorts from the 370th Fighter Group, with Lt. Richard D. Stevenson and Lt. R. W. Hoyle sharing a jet kill, the last for the Ninth Air Force in the war.{16}
The 17th Bomb Group was lucky, but other American bomber units were less so. On this day, I./JG-7 had several pilots score kills against the enemy air armada: Major Späte claimed three B-17s; with one B-17 each claimed by Unteroffiziers Schöppler and Engler, Oberfeldwebel Göbel, and Leutnant Kelb (a former Me 163B Komet pilot with two kills), while former JG-7 luminary Unteroffizier Köster (who joined JV-44) claimed two P-51s. While I./JG-7 lost a jet at Ruzyne with the pilot killed in action, they also lost another flown by Oberfeldwebel Hermann Buchner, whose story regarding his last mission of the war was well chronicled by Foreman and Harvey:
“We flew an operation against four-engine bombers in the area of the Steinhuder Lake. We broke through the heavy fighter escorts and attacked the B-17s with our guns, saw hits, but then the Mustangs dived on us and we had to break away and try to escape. Our formation broke up and so I tried to find an airfield in the north. The flight time remaining for my return flight compelled me to fly to Bremen.
“I reached Achym, near Bremen, but as I flew over it I saw that the base had been overrun by British troops and armor. I then headed east, and reached Rotenburg airfield on my last drops of fuel. I could not see any Allied fighters in the area. In any case, I was fully occupied with my landing and was about to touch down when I was surprised to see gunfire hitting my right wing. As I landed, the fighter hit my engine nacelle. The fighter was going fast and flew over my aircraft. The engine began to burn as I tried to bring the aircraft to a halt.