Heinz Bar was born
on the 25th of March, 1913 at Sommerfeld, near Leipzig. As a
child, he took up gliding and became a qualified pilot for
powered aircraft by the age of 17. In 1937 he joined the
Luftwaffe and on September 25th, 1939 he scored his first aerial
victory. During the Battle of Britain he flew Bf 109E's
with JG 51. On July 2nd, 1941 he was promoted from
Sergeant to Leutnant and awarded the Knight's Cross. He
had scored 27 victories by then. On August 14th, now a
Oberleutnant, was awarded the Oak leaves to the Knight's
Cross, having achieved 33 more victories with JG 51 over the
Eastern Front. Once he was shot down 50 kilometers over Soviet
territory and despite a double fracture of the spine he managed
to make it back to German territory.
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After a long time in hospitals, he returned
to combat. On February 16th, 1942, now a Hauptmann with 90 victories,
was awarded the Swords to his Oak leaves. Shortly after that, he
was promoted to major, and made Kommodore of JG 77, based in Sicily.
During his time there, he suffered from ulcers and malaria. However, he
managed to score a further 43 victories before being invalided back to
Germany as a lowly Staffelkapitan with II./JG1. He was soon again in
command of a unit though, leading JG 3 in Home Defense duties. In April
1944 he scored his 200th kill.
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He flew the Me 262
for the first time at Wenzendorf in September 1944. In January
1945 he was posted to Lechfeld to command III./EJG 2. His
flying ability was so great that the Messerschmitt company
obtained his services to occasionally test fly the Me 262 for
them. He helped trial both the R4M
rocket and the Deichselschlepp winged-bomb in the last
months of the war, in-between combat sorties! While his primary
duty with III./EJG 2 was training pilots for the Me 262, he did
fly many combat missions, claiming at least nine victories with
this unit. The first was a P-51 on March 19th. He replaced
Galland, who was injured, as the commander of JV 44. He scored
several more victories with this unit, bringing his estimated
total to 220. |
He completed over 1000
missions and was shot down an incredible 18 times. In a tragic twist of
fate, Heinz Bar died on April 28th, 1957 after his light aircraft
crashed near Brunswick. He was 44 years old.
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