Its not known if it was this Dora-9 the the Gruppenkommandeur Oblt. Oskar Romm on 21 March claimed downing one of several Il-2s that had attacked his Gruppe's base at Prenzlau.

During this attack, a small number of Focke Wulfs had managed to get airborne during the attack, and two more Shturmoviks were claimed by D-9 pilots Fw. Oskar Bösch and Lt. Karl-Alfred Schulte for their 16th and 3rd claims, respectively.

Romm continued to fly missions after this episode, but five weeks later he would end up on the receiving end over the front area where Soviet forces had just broken through, as he recounted:

"My last combat mission was on 24 April 1945, to the south of Stettin, when, with my wingman, I attacked a formation of Russian Shturmovik ground-attack aircraft. I selected full emergency power, and with our superior speed we went right through the Russian fighter escort without difficulty. I was just about to open fire on one of the Ilyushins when my cooling gills suddenly opened automatically and the oil and coolant temperature gauges showed that the engine was overheating. Either my engine had been hit by enemy fire or it had suffered a failure. I broke off the action by rolling over onto my back and pulling away in a steep dive. The Russian fighters endeavoring to follow were soon left behind and abandoned the chase."

Fortunately Romm managed to nursed his "Dora" back towards the German frontline. Over German-held the Junkers Jumo engine burst into flames and finally cut out and as he found himself to low for a safe bail out he belly-landed near Brüssow, 20km northwest of Prenzlau.

In the crash Oskar Romm suffered a fractured skull, facial lacerations, concussion and other minor injuries. Fortunately, his landing was observed by soldiers at a nearby divisional headquarters, and they radioed his position to the local Luftwaffe command. The soldiers rescued him from his aircraft and took him to their headquarters, where an army doctor tend to him.

Some hours later Romm was collected from the area of the crash by personnel of IV./JG 3 and taken firstly to a Luftwaffe hospital at Wismar and then, four days later, to another hospital at Timmendorfer-Strand on the Baltic coast near Travemünde, his war was thereby over.

This Dora is really interesting, as it is one of the Fw 190 D-9 pre production and test aircraft, dubbed V53. It is know that it was damage in an air raid on 5 Aug 1944. Repaired and close to two month later on 26 September is had completed its 100rd flight. It was delivered to IV./JG 3 by then based at Prenzlau in March 1945, here it was said to be flown by Oblt. Romm.

Please note the overpainted StamKZ "DU+JC" on the fuselage and that it has en complete engine cowling power-egg exchange, now sporing for Junkers a typical RLM 82 camouflage.

I found a new photo of this machine during the week, the photo taken from Petrick archive and foud on my friend and college Neil Page website "Falke Eins".

This profile was one of four profile made during the week, I must confess that I had been tie-up with other stuff, like some serious model building!