Me 109K-4

Messerschmitt Me 109K-4   'Yellow 2'   Wrk Nr 332506?
11./JG 3, Pasewalk, March 1945.

The Messerschmitt Me 109K was the last production sub-type of Willy Messerschmitt’s fighter, the production of which had continued throughout the Second World War; the Me 109K first appeared in September 1944. It differed from its immediate predecessor the Bf 109G in having a more powerful engine, the DB 605’s usual 1550 horsepower being boosted to 2,000hp for take-off by the use of methanol injection. The Me 109K had the taller tail of later G models, and the clearer-view, but still cramped, late model Erla Haube cockpit canopy (sometimes known as the “Galland” canopy); armament was two 13mm MG131 cannon and one 30mm, MK 108 firing through the spinner. The Me 109K was fitted with a retractable tailwheel.
Me 109K “Yellow 2” was photographed at Pasewalk, near Stettin, in March 1945 in the closing stages of the Eastern Front campaign, and is believed to be Werk Nummer 332506, which was shot down in combat with Soviet Yakovlev fighters on 18 March 1945. It wears the late war camouflage colours of 81 braunviolett and 83 grun over 76 lichblau, with the fuselage pattern varying in such a way that the cowling could have been a replacement part. The aircraft belonged to Jagdgeschwader 3 “Udet”; the black vertical bar, unusually for this unit, outlined white, behind the fuselage indicated III Gruppe, and the yellow of the individual number that it was assigned to 11 Staffel.