“Willi” Batz was serving in the Luftwaffe as a flight instructor at the beginning of WWII. He repeatedly applied for transfer to a combat unit, but was rejected until the beginning of 1943. He was then posted to JG 52 on the Eastern Front, claiming his first victory over an Il-2 Shturmovik on 11MAR43. He was quickly promoted to Staffelkapitän of 5./JG 52, where he continued to score steadily.
He was injured during a bombing raid on his airfield in April 1944, and was promoted to command III./JG 52. On 31MAY44 Batz downed 15 Soviets over four sorties, his best day. Wilhelm Batz survived the war with 237 aerial victories, flying to the West to surrender to the Americans with his Gruppe rather than face Soviet captivity.
The model depicts Batz’ last Messerschmitt, a Bf 109K-4 at Neubieberg, Germany on 08MAY45.
Inch High Guy 
Nice piece of history thanks for this
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Thanks Fen!
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Great piece Jeff , I feel this colour scheme is my favourite for the Bf 109🤔🤓
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Thanks Pat! The German schemes got really interesting during the last months of the war!
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Very nice! These 109s really offer countless opportunities to model makers regarding camouflage, markings, variants as well as interesting stories behind the machines and people who flew them!
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There is an outstanding modeler here who builds almost nothing other than 109s!
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Oh yeah, I am well aware of Barry’s work! Actually there’s a guy here in Slovenia with same passion – supposedly he has more than 300 109s built, but unfortunately he doesn’t post his work online, so I’ve seen just a few that he took out to some model shows. Truth be told, although I like 109, I prefer 190 and I am thinking of starting a similar project – not in that scale, but yeah in a spiritual way at least.
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The 190s would make a great theme! I have been working on Experten with over 100 victories, so the best of both worlds. Surprisingly, there are a few Experten from JG52 with little documentation, hopefully Claes Sundin’s upcoming book will fill in these gaps.
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