Croatian Do-17Z and Pilot

Colourised by Doug Banks

 

 

A Croatian Oberfeldwebel pilot of 10.(kroatische)/Kampfgeschwader 3 standing by his Dornier Do 17Z on the Eastern Front, ca. October 1941.

 

     The Croatian Air Force Legion (Croatian: Hrvatska Zrakoplovna Legija), or HZL, also known as the Croatian Legion, was a foreign volunteer unit of the Luftwaffe raised from volunteers drawn from the Independent State of Croatia. When formed in August 1941 it was designated 10.(kroatische)/Kampfgeschwader 3 and began training at the Grosse Kampfflieger Schule 3, in Greifswald, Germany, the squadron was equipped with Dornier Do 17Z aircraft.

 

    When it arrived on the Eastern Front on 25 October 1941, their first area of operations was near Vitebsk, Belarus. The rest of the Bomber Squadron's assignments were in the Northern Sector of the Eastern Front, including the bombing of Leningrad and Moscow. On 9 November 1941, the Squadron was congratulated by Feldmarschall Kesselring for its actions thus far. The Squadron moved its base to Agram (Zagreb), Croatia in March 1942.

 

     Officially redesignated 15.(kroatische)/Kampfgeschwader 53 in June 1942 while based at Agram. The unit began moving about from base to base from June until December 1942. The exact areas are uncertain, but one base was at Korowje-Selo, Russia and another was at Seschtschinskaya, Russia. After flying some 1,500 sorties on the Eastern Front, the Squadron and its aircraft were re-deployed to Croatia in December 1942, to help combat the growing Yugoslav Partisan threat to the Axis forces on the Yugoslav Front. The unit was disbanded in June 1944 and the men of the unit were used to form the bomber wing of the Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia (Croatian: Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske, ZNDH), and was designated 1./(Kroat.)KG after having flown its nine Dornier Do 17Z bombers from Russia back to Croatia. The Dorniers proved a welcome addition to the strike power of the Axis forces fighting the Yugoslav Partisans on the Yugoslav Front.

 

     The Dornier Do 17, sometimes referred to as the Fliegender Bleistift ("flying pencil"), was a German light bomber produced by Claudius Dornier's company, Dornier Flugzeugwerke. It was designed as a Schnellbomber ("fast bomber"), a light bomber which, in theory, would be so

fast that it could outrun defending fighter aircraft.

 

 

Dornier Do 17Z of 15.(kroatische)/Kampfgeschwader 53