When II./JG 27 arrived in North Africa during the latter half of September 1941, it had amassed a total of 141 aerial victories over France, the English Channel, the Balkans, and the Soviet Union.

The most successful individual pilot was the Gruppenkommandeur, Hauptmann Wolfgang Lippert, who landed in Libya on September 29, fifteen days after his twenty-ninth birthday.

By that time, his score stood at twenty-six. Lippert was a veteran from the Condor Legion in Spain, where he had scored four victories. When he assumed command of II./JG 27 on September 4, 1940, his score stood at eleven.

Twenty days later, Hauptmann Lippert was awarded with the Knight's Cross. On October 25, 1940, he bagged two Hurricanes for his nineteenth and twentieth kills. Under Lippert's command, II./JG 27 developed into the most successful JG 27 Gruppe during the Battle of Britain, with sixty victories against twenty-five pilot casualties.

On November 23, 1941, Lippert was shot down over British-held territory in Libya during a combat with 24 SAAF Squadron Bostons and RAF 229 and 238 squadron Hurricanes. He was probebly the victim of the Australian ace Clive "killer" Caldwell.

Hptm. Lippert manage to bail out of his crippled Messerschmitt, but broken both his leggs and was taken prisoner. Ten days later, he died of an embolism at General Hospital 119 in Egypt, after both is lags were amputated.

In total Wolfgang Lippert scored 30 confirmed victories.