Citation 8./Schlachtgeschwader 2 Immelmann

[Ralle84]

Hi Gentlemen,

who signed this citation?

Thank you.

[hucks216]

That's Rudel's signature.

[Ralle84]

Great. Thank you very much.

I did not dare to believe it is Rudel´s signature.

According to his flight log Beneking was a tank and ship hunter as well
He destroyed at least 3 tanks and a 5000 BRT ship at Tornio on October 6th 1944.

Here is a pic of the whole grouping

[Simon O.]

I can see from the Schlachtflieger urkunde that he transferred to nachschlachtgruppe 8 as i recognise Johan Trnka's sig.

Here's the reported sinking of a Finnish ship at Tornio on the 6th Oct.44 as reported by 20 Geb.Armee

[Brian R]

Simon - Thanks for posting the teletype. It makes for some great background info given the Gold spange doc, the flugbuch and the fact that this group came to live with me in New York .

Here is a clearer pic of the Gold citation. Interestingly, the first name does not match. However, I'm willing to bet this is a clerical error as I bet there was not another Beneking on 2./NSGr. 8. The sorties in the flugbuch match the number he would have needed for this award.

This is my first Schlachtflieger Clasp and I'm guessing this Gold version is quite rare. Ironically, I did a search on the forum and turned up very little, with the exception of the Mazurek award with pendant. That is a rare bird!