Walter Borchers


Walter Borchers was a German Luftwaffe military aviator and wing commander during World War II. As a flying ace, he was credited with 59 aerial victories, including 43 nocturnal victories, 10 as a destroyer pilot and 6 four-engined bombers at day time, claimed in roughly 300 combat missions. Prior to his death he held the position of wing commander of the 5th Night Fighter Wing.

Biography

Walter Borchers was born on 22 January 1916 in Ofen in Ammerland, Duchy of Oldenburg as the third of three brothers, all of whom would be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross during the course of World War II. His brother, Major Adolf Borchers received the Knight's Cross on 22 November 1944 as Staffelkapitän of 11./Jagdgeschwader 51 "Mölders". A second brother, SS-Hauptsturmführer Hermann Borchers received the Knight's Cross on 16 October 1944 as commander of the I. Battalion of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 19.
Borchers was a member of the 5th Staffel of Zerstörergeschwader 76 at the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939. He became the Staffelkapitän of 5./ZG 76 in the fall of 1940. He claimed 10 aerial victories during the Battle of France and Battle of Britain.

Night fighter career

Following the 1939 aerial Battle of the Heligoland Bight, RAF attacks shifted to the cover of darkness, initiating the Defence of the Reich campaign. By mid-1940, Generalmajor Josef Kammhuber had established a night air defense system dubbed the Kammhuber Line. It consisted of a series of control sectors equipped with radars and searchlights and an associated night fighter. Each sector named a Himmelbett would direct the night fighter into visual range with target bombers. In 1941, the Luftwaffe started equipping night fighters with airborne radar such as the Lichtenstein radar. This airborne radar did not come into general use until early 1942.
Borchers' Staffel was transformed to the 8. Staffel of Nachtjagdgeschwader 3 in the fall of 1941, flying night fighter missions in Defence of the Reich. Borchers claimed his first nocturnal aerial victory on the night of 3 March 1943. He claimed his 12th and 15th against the United States Army Air Forces heavies—four-engined strategic bombers—in 1943. Still an Oberleutnant, he was made Gruppenkommandeur of the III./Nachtjagdgeschwader 5 on 22 April 1943, leading the Gruppe until 15 March 1944. In this position he claimed a further six nocturnal victories and four heavy USAAF bombers shot down.

Wing commander

He was promoted to Major and took command of NJG 5 as Geschwaderkommodore on 15 March, succeeding Egmont Prinz zur Lippe-Weißenfeld. He received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 27 July 1944 by which time he had achieved 45 aerial victories in total.
Having claimed an Avro Lancaster, Borchers was shot down and killed in action on the night of 6 March 1945 by a long-range British night fighter north of Altenburg. Flying Junkers Ju 88 G-6 "C9+GA" his air gunner parachuted to safety while his radio operator Leutnant Friedrich Reul was also killed. Borchers had been nominated for the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross which he never received. His victors were Wing Commander Walter Gibb and Flying Officer Kendall of No 239 Squadron, Royal Air Force, part of No. 100 Group RAF, flying a de Havilland Mosquito night fighter.

Summary of career

Aerial victory claims

According to US historian David T. Zabecki, Borchers was credited with 59 aerial victories. Foreman, Parry and Mathews, authors of Luftwaffe Night Fighter Claims 1939 – 1945, researched the German Federal Archives and found records for 32 nocturnal victory claims. Mathews and Foreman also published Luftwaffe Aces — Biographies and Victory Claims, listing Borchers with additional eleven aerial victories claimed as a Zerstörer pilot.
Victory claims were logged to a map-reference, for example "PQ 4317". The Luftwaffe grid map covered all of Europe, western Russia and North Africa and was composed of rectangles measuring 15 minutes of latitude by 30 minutes of longitude, an area of about. These sectors were then subdivided into 36 smaller units to give a location area in size.

Awards