On this day, the 8th and 9th US Army Air Forces conducted another strategic raid on the Reich, this time the targets were the cities of Braunschweig and Münster. The Allied air forces by 1944 focused more on the destruction of the German population and as a result of this, the number of civilian casualties would be 14 times higher that of the previous year.

In the USAAF after battle reports one could read the following: "524 B-17s and 244 B-24s are dispatched to attack airfields in western Germany and aircraft factories in the Brunswick area. Due to unfavourable weather conditions, only 68 B-24s hit the primary target and 639 bombers hit secondary targets and targets of opportunity. 205 B-17s hit Brunswick and 47 B-17s hit the secondary target at Münster. 29 B-17 and B-24 s are lost, 321 damaged: casualties are 4 KIA, 10 WIA and 278 MIA. 5 fighters are lost with 4 MIA. The US force claimed during the days fighting a total of 53 Luftwaffe aircraft in the air, with another nine probable and 17 damaged."

In response the Luftwaffe dispatched 327 fighters to intercept the raiders although due to the weather conditions only 173 managed to engage the enemy. During this clash the defenders filed claims for a total of 39 bombers and five fighters for a loss of 25 fighters, with 12 pilots killed and another four wounded.

One of the 18 Gruppen that took off this day was Sturmstaffel 1 equipped with 11 heavily armored and armed Fw 190 A-7 "Sturmjäger". During the air battle, II. and IV./JG 3 accompanied Sturmstaffel 1 as they were directed against the 1st Bombardment Wing.

After attacking the B-17s, the Sturmstaffel pilots filed claims for six Viermots with another three probable and an additional three damaged. One of the Gruppe pilots claiming a B-17 this day was Flieger Wolfgang Kosse who had been transferred to the Sturmstaffel "in order to rehabilitate himself" following a courts martial and demotion from his rank of Oberleutnant while with JG 5.

Another Sturm pilot, Uffz. Gerhard Vivroux, downed a B-17 at 11:15 hours between Hamm and Dortmund, claimed as his second Abschuss. On the debit side, Sturmstaffel 1 lost four machines with two pilots killed and one wounded.

Fw. Gerhard Vivroux was seriously wounded in action on 6 October 1944 such that he never to returned to active duty. By this time, he had claimed a total of 11 Abschüsse, all but one of them four-engine bombers.

The "Sturmjäger" variant of the A-7 was fitted with 5 mm thick armor plates on the sides of the fuselage and the extra armor-glass on the sides of the cockpit canopy, with this aircraft showing repaired battle damage on its rudder.

Note that this profile, as a left handprofile was published earlier in my Profile Book No 12 as profile No 80. One of the very few machines depicted from both side, just one of the 20 machines of the over 3 000 profiles made to date.

This was one of eleven new profiles made during this week, most of them would be published in my upcoming Profile Book No 18, to be published in 2026.