Interesting photo

[Eric Queen]

I was going through some junk, and came accross this photo I thought was kind of interesting. Notice the fliegerbluse worn by the Olt. in the middle is absent of collar tabs and a breast eagle. At this late date ( late 1943 ) it is certainly strange to see a blouse without an eagle, and one can only assume it was removed for some reason. I thought this pic could have been taken prior to a field upgrade of the blouse ( from Lt. to Olt. ) but that would explain the collar tabs but not the breast eagle. Just thought I would post it and see what you guys thought.

Eric

[Willi Z.]

Eric, my first thought is that the Leutnant took an EM Fliegerbluse and stripped off the collar tabs and the breast eagle.....maybe he decided that he would rather wear no insignia than EM insignia?? Then, I noticed that the NCO on the left also wears no collar tabs....very strange.....

Willi

[Willi Z.]

Maybe the Oberjäger on the left just got promoted......since he is now a 1 gull NCO, maybe he was a 3 gull Obergefreiter until recently, and decided to pull the collar tabs off till he could get the right tab, rather than pull some gulls off.

Willi

[Eric Queen]

Thanks Willi for the comments. I agree that its a bit stange and all we can really do is speculate at this point.

I encourage others to post additional images that are a little different or unusual.

Thanks,

Eric

[Bill petz]

Interesting Photo

Eric,

That photo went for far too much as well. I had bid on it for awhile until it got out of my price range.
My thoughts go along with you and Willi and could be tied into promotions in the field. They also may have been issued a replacement flieger blouse with no proper insignia available at that particular time. I've seen and have photos with the same absence of insignia. Unfortunately as stated before I don't have the means to put any photos up. I also haven't decided to be an associate member yet. I'm in limbo and may be going back to the states in the near future. - Bill

[Jean-Loup]

The blouses look realy new. I would go with them being distributed with no insignia; otherwise there might be a faint trace of the insignia the guys tok off. Maybe...

JL

[Prosper Keating]

Interesting to see those lines across the print. I have several SS-FJ photos with these lines running across the image, as if the rollers in the camera or the developing machine were damaged.

PK

[Jason von Z.]

Can't say I know much about FJ...

...but I am currrently researching a book on the Luftwaffen-Feld-Division. One thing that has come up while examining the original period photograhs that I am collecting for the book, is that quite often personnel from the field divisions on the Eastern Front are seen wearing the fliegerbluse without any collar tabs or eagles. It is actually very common in field division photos, although I have yet to determine an actual reason for it. This tunic configuration appears on personnel from divisions who had only been at the front a few months, as well as 'veteran' units like the Feld-Regimenter that pre-existed the divisions by almost a year. It is interesting to me that now an FJ photo pops up with the same insignia-less fliegerbluse. I guess it really was a Lufty thing.

I also have a couple photographs from the field divisions where the NCO collar tress is only the length of the "bottom part of the collar" (sorry for this unclear description), and does not actually extend up the length of the collar - very strange. I thought I had remembered seeing a note about that somewhere in a reference, but could never find it again after seeing the photos. Ever seen anything like that on FJ personnel?

While I'm at it, how about what photos of what appears to be early-war photos of Luftwaffe personnel in Army uniforms (not just tunics) but with Luft eagles on the tunics. Any thoughts?

I can post some scans of the above, if necessary. Thanks in advance for the help, and sorry for tagging on to this thread...I just thought these questions were relevant to the questions raised by this particular FJ photo.