At the beginning of 1945, the I. Gruppe of Jagdgeschwader 7 was at Unterschlauersbach near Nürnberg where it was in the midst of forming up, and on January 8 was moved to Brandenburg-Briest. At the beginning of February, the pilots were essentially fully retrained for the Messerschmitt Me 262, the only thing lacking being tight formation flying and traffic control practice.

On 9 February, the Gruppe had 12 machines and moved to the Kaltenkirchen airfield. The choice of Kaltenkirchen was soon found to be a mistake since the place was directly in the approach path of the Allied bomber formations. This meant that prowling enemy fighters were usually over the airfield before the Gruppe was able to take-off.

On 1 April the airfield in Kaltenkirchen was abandoned and the unit relocated to several other airfields. By 3 April, the unit had almost reached its full establishment strength of 36 Me 262s with 33 machines then operational. However, on the 9th and 10th of April, the Allies bombed the remaining jet fighter bases which were badly hit. A large part of the I. Gruppe's organization and a large proportion of the machines were destroyed.

Thereafter the remaining Turbinjägers were flown out to northeastern Bavaria in southern Germany ending up at Brandis on 12 April. When the ground personnel finally arrived at their new base the Me 262s and their pilots were to be relocated once more, this time to Prague-Rusin in Czechoslovakia. However, the relocation dragged on for several days because of the bad weather.

On 16 April Allied fighter-bombers hit the jet bases once more causing heavy damage among the grounded aircraft that littered Brandis airfield. Nevertheless, what was left of the Gruppe departed for Prag-Rusin. Here they would fly only individual missions, mostly in Rotte or Schwarm strength. On 6 May Prague-Rusin came under Russian artillery fire for the first time.

As a consequence, the remaining machines moved to Saaz on 7 May. Here most of the machines were blown up on the day of the capitulation 8 May 1945. However, a few pilots lucky enough to have an operational machine flew them towards the west. One of those pilots was Uffz. Günther Engler, who, following his last combat mission, landed together with Lt. Hans Dorn during the early evening hours at the now British-occupied base at Fassberg, where they were promptly taken prisoner.

Not much is known about the Uffz. Günther Engler of "White 7", other than he arrived at JG 3 in the spring of 1944. As one of the "Nachwuchs" (new-growth) pilots he distinguished himself by downing his first aircraft as early as 24 April 1944, a B-17 claimed southwest of Ingolstadt. He would add another three victories while flying in JG 3, one more B-17, a Spitfire and finally a P-51 Mustang shot down in the Falaise area on 20 June 1944.

He was then transferred to JG 7 flying the Me 262. Here he would file his first on 14 February, a B-17 claimed over Kiel, followed by a Lancaster on 9 April. His seventh and last confirmed victory was another B-17 that fell to his guns on 25 April west of Prague.

"White 7" was completed in early December of 1944, with the boundary of the upper surface colors high on the fuselage sides. The lower two-thirds of the RLM 76-painted fuselage and tail were probably modified at the unit level with an application of RLM 81 and 82 in a streaky pattern to improve ground camouflage. The simple white swastika is unique and rarely seen on Me 262s. As well, the machine's Werknummer was applied only to the port side of the fin.

This aircraft, surrendered to the British as a fully operational and serviceable aircraft, was thus selected for further study. As far as is known it was not assigned an Air Ministry number or RAF serial number. Nevertheless, on 27 May W/Cmdr. Schrader was assigned to transfer the aircraft from Fassberg to the RAF's collection point at Schleswig. At a stop-over at Lübeck-Blankensee its nose wheel failed to extend upon landing and the machine suffered damage to its nose.

Its fate is murky after this event due to poor record keeping. It may have been repaired and flown to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough on 6 September 1945 where it was tested regularly until 29 November. Another account has it remaining at Lübeck unrepaired up to 1 October and ultimately scrapped there. It may also have been set aside for the French and transferred to France via rail.

This profile was included in my Profile book No 13, as profile No 130.