Flames in the Sky: Epic stories of WWII air war heroism from the author of The Big Show (Pierre Clostermann's Air War Collection Book 2)

by Pierre Clostermann

  The big four-engined aircraft were wreathed in the smoke of their innumerable heavy machine-guns and seemed to be dancing in his windshield and rushing towards him. He was in a tunnel of bombers and tracer bullets.

  He aimed at one haphazardly as he flew, and fired his four cannon and a salvo of twenty rockets all at the same time. Like incandescent arrows the rockets slipped smoothly along their runners and caught up the cannon shells converging on the B-17s tailplane.

  The next thing he knew he was flying in a cloud of aluminium debris. A severed wing with its two engines still turning was spinning down in flames, a body was falling dangling on an unopened parachute, and a ripped-open fuselage was vomiting thick white smoke. Bang in front of him under two oil-streaked wings the central turret of a second Fortress was spitting flame at him from its twin machine-guns. Hans opened up his turbines to their fullest extent, twisted to avoid a collision with the Fort, slipped between two others, and skimmed past another, which was going down in a spin and trailing an enormous plume of black smoke. Finally he emerged out of the box, climbing vertically through a cloud of fighters which were totally incapable of catching him.

  During those lively seconds he had lost sight of his companions. For a brief moment he caught sight of the familiar outline of a Messerschmitt 262 firing point-blank at a Fortress, which exploded in the air, dragging its neighbour down with it.

  By now the impeccable box had become dislocated. From one bomber going down in flames on its back he saw half a dozen of the crew jump, while the planes behind shied aside hastily, so as not to ram or collapse the parachutes.

  As he had some ammunition left, Hans attacked a second time, rather reluctantly. This time he chose the top layer of the first box, composed of Liberators. He aimed carefully at the one on the extreme right, making the little dot and the luminous cross of the gyroscopic sight coincide on his victim’s fuselage. He then released the rest of his rockets in one long salvo.

  With the Ez 42 it was impossible to miss! The Liberator, hit by several rockets, just disintegrated. Hans watched fascinated, at the same time moving out of range of the concerted fire of the hundreds of machine-guns. But he did not see the four Mustangs diving down at full throttle from immediately above him. The 262 shook from the impact of the .5-inch bullets. Hans broke so violently that the slots on his leading edge came open with a clang and con trails immediately formed on his wing-tips. He righted his plane as quickly as possible, but the A.S.I. had already passed the red mark at 600 m.p.h. and the Messerschmitt went into a convulsive pitching movement which hurled the pilot forward in spite of the tight straps of his safety-harness.

  Hans only succeeded in stabilising the motion of his plane a full sixty miles from the fight. Exhausted by the effort, he looked at his gauges—only eighty gallons of fuel left, hardly five minutes’ flying. He tried to call his Schwarmfuehrer, but his radio was dead, probably smashed by the Mustang’s bullets. He would have to be quick to land by daylight, as the sun was already low over Denmark.

  Hans got his bearings from the Weser and almost at once picked up Steinhuder Lake. Only three minutes now to his base.

  Going into a shallow dive he throttled back to 6500 revs, as one turbine was overheating. He was safe now, but that and the thought of his two successes failed to make him feel good. Those successes felt almost like defeats—they might be the last—and everything that he had built his life on was collapsing like a house of cards.

  Immediately over Steinhuder he flattened out at 2500 feet, throttling back to 3000 revs. The airfield must be quite close now, probably to the right of the blazing fires in Hanover.

  350 m.p.h.—he put down 10 degrees of flap to reduce speed still more and get his undercart down. The runway at Langenhagen stretched between the ruins and the charred pine-trees. Not a soul. How different from his first trips in Libya. Nobody left to help him down from the cockpit and congratulate him. No celebrations in the Mess round the newly broached barrel of beer. Would he even find somewhere to sleep free from the nightmare of being pulverised by a deluge of bombs?

  He pushed down the undercart lever and waited for the three separate jolts that would tell him that each wheel had locked . . . thud . . . one . . . thud . . . two . . . suddenly the whole world exploded before his eyes, a blinding flash as a shell smashed his instrument panel and a sudden pain as splinters lashed into his legs. Dead silence for a fraction of a second, then a terrific explosion as one turbine burst, tearing the wing off. The Messerschmitt turned over. Hans fumbled for the button of the seat-ejector mechanism, but his wounded arm was glued to his side by the centrifugal force. A second jolt as the other wing broke off. The earth rose straight up in front of him.

  Hans knew this was the end. He seemed quite calm. Yet in the Hitler Jugend they had not taught him to pray.

  In the shooting-box they had followed the unfolding of the drama, and they had all instinctively winced when the Messerschmitt hit the ground. It was only then that they saw the two R.A.F. Tempests, shooting like arrows up into the low clouds. Why had the flak not opened up? Night began to creep up the hillside.

  NOTE ON THE MESSERSCHMITT 262

  In 1938, shortly after the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke had been taken over by its technical director, Willy Messerschmitt, and had assumed his name, the company began working on the design of a jet-propelled fighter.

  Messerschmitt wanted a very fast plane, capable of outdistancing enemy fighters. He therefore evolved a slender, beautifully balanced swept wing, and fitted it to a pear-shaped fuselage. The first prototype flew with a Jumo 211 mounted in the nose and driving an air-screw, since the new turbo-jets were not sufficiently developed. That was early in 1940.

  In 1941 Heinkel-Hirth He 58 jet units became available, but gave so little thrust that the new fighters were unable to get off the ground.

  Nearly two years elapsed before the Junkers engineers came along with a new turbo-jet unit. It was the Jumo 004A. Here at last was the solution of Messerschmitt’s problem.

  He slung two of these jets under his wing, and tapered his fuselage to a perfectly stream-lined nose, in which he mounted four 30-mm. cannon.

  On the 3rd January 1942 the Messerschmitt 262 jet flew for the first time. It did not have a tricycle undercarriage at that time, and taking off turned out to be a perilous business, the jet streams flinging large chunks of concrete and earth about.

  Later prototypes flew, with tricycle undercarriages, and immediately showed phenomenal speed. The Ministry, however, was not interested and the prototype, though it continued its tests, sank back into obscurity.

  In the end the weight of American daylight bombing over Germany forced General der Flieger Galland to take up the question again and an initial series was ordered. Unfortunately Hitler saw a demonstration of the plane, was very impressed and decided to use it as a bomber for reprisals against England. It was one of Hitler’s ‘irrevocable’ decisions and Goering did not dare oppose it. However, after six months’ argument and discussion, Galland persuaded Hitler to change his mind.

  Messerschmitt 262s began to come off the assembly line and by November 1944 four squadrons were equipped with them. Goering never forgave Galland and had him replaced by Gollob.

  Gollob, besides being a firm believer in the Messerschmitt 262, was a superb fighter-pilot and an outstanding engineer. He speeded up production and worked hard at perfecting the armament.

  The Messerschmitt 262, the first jet fighter to be used in battle, revolutionised aerial warfare. If it had not been for the six months lost through Hitler’s interference it would have reversed the situation in the skies over Europe.

  The Messerschmitt 262, with a total power of 2600-lb. static thrust, had in 1944 the same speed as the F-84 Thunderjet with 5000-lb. thrust today. It had a margin of speed of more than 120 m.p.h. over the most up-to-date fighters possessed by the Allies at that time. Its armament, four 30-mm. cannon, was formidable.

  The colossal amount of work that had gone into the design
and production of the plane can be gauged by the fact that it incorporated developments which even now cause American, British and French engineers to scratch their heads. Special parachute harness with portable oxygen-bottle for baling out at high speeds and great-heights. Angle of incidence of tailplane adjustable during flight to change the plane’s trim at supersonic speeds; swept wing; multiple ailerons and servo-operated controls; self-ejecting seat; gyroscopic sight; radar; air-to-air rockets, etc. There was even a two-seater radar version, i.e. an all-weather fighter.

  Gollob’s use of anti-aircraft rockets on the Messerschmitt 262 was a bold leap into the future—just how bold can be judged by the fact that in 1950 the Americans were still using .5 machine-guns. In a few years’ time someone will no doubt re-invent the R4M, although it had reached perfection in 1945. The Russians have been quicker off the mark.

  Luckily for the Allies, Messerschmitt 262s equipped with the Gollob combination of Ez 42 sight, R4M rocket and 30-mm. cannon were only used on one occasion. When our troops got to Lübeck the R.W. factory was producing 25,000 R4Ms a month, but the Messerschmitt 262 assembly plant had been pulverised. As for the Messerschmitts already on squadron, they were immobilised from March 1945 by lack of spares and also by the very close watch kept on the airfields from which they operated.

  In spite of everything, about four hundred Messerschmitt 262s were used in combat and the Allies found them a considerable nuisance, in spite of their superiority in numbers.

  The dimensions and performance figures of the Messerschmitt 262 were as follows: wing-span 41 feet, length 35 feet, wing area 234 square feet, total weight 8 tons. Maximum speed over 560 m.p.h, Take-off run with 12 m.p.h. head-wind, nearly 1100 yards.

  CHAPTER NINE

  UNDER THE SIGN OF THE DIVINE WIND

  The Japanese Kamikaze[15] suicide-planes were to bring a curious medieval touch of savagery not unmixed with nobility into the Pacific campaigns of 1944-45. The origin of the name Kamikaze has to be sought in the folklore of Japan, in the naïve and impassioned chronicles of her heroic antiquity.

  In 1223 the Mongol invasion of Kubla Khan swept over China, which was quickly submerged. The cruel Tartar’s spies were not long in bringing news of the snow-flanked volcanoes and flower gardens of the Yasukina Isles, a country of tranquil beauty and peace.

  In 1285 the massed fleet of junks, collected from the rivers and coasts of China, carried the terrible warriors to Formosa. When the smoke from the ravaged homesteads cleared, there were the blue islands etched against the horizon.

  In 1281 the invasion fleet was sailing towards Japan when it was dispersed and annihilated by the sacred tornado unleashed by Tenshi, the Son of Heaven. The Nipponese Islands were saved. This was Kamikaze, the Divine Wind.

  The Allies first learned the significance of this word in tragic circumstances, at the time of the Leyte landings in autumn 1944.

  It was under this name that special units of volunteers were formed, men who undertook to crash their bomb-loaded planes on to American ships. In this war of modern technical weapons, of complex amphibious operations utilising every resource of science, radar, and even the first guided missiles, reports on the Kamikazes were at first received with polite incredulity. Yet what if they were true!

  Our civilised conscience could accept total sacrifice in its noblest form, in the heat of battle or in a paroxysm of suffering or despair—Max Guedj in Norway; Lieutenant Keenan, mortally wounded, crashing his fighter on the torpedo that was going to blow up his ship. Or else in connection with desperate missions where pilots were pretty well certain they would never return, but where nevertheless the element of chance or superhuman skill might succeed in cheating the rules of probability—the Fairey Battles at Maestricht in 1940, for example. And I am certain that at such moments a glimmer of hope still burned, however faintly, in the hearts of those men.

  We have also seen the generous and heroic impulse of the man who covers his chief’s body with his own so as to receive the bullet himself—Maridor, for instance, hurling his Spitfire XIV into the VI diving on the hospital, or Thomas Mansergh, V.C., remaining at the controls of his blazing Stirling to allow his crew to bale out.

  On the other hand, the psychology of the Kamikaze pilots, with its complete detachment, its total disdain of death, its monstrous cold-bloodedness, is hard for a European to grasp, and harder still for an American. It is not only too easy but also quite erroneous to explain it all away on the basis of some vague ‘Oriental fatalism’. This attitude, with which the Japanese are often credited, is the exact opposite of the principle which motivated these special units of the Imperial Air Force. They were the instrument by which destiny was to be reversed and the implacable logic of military rules broken.

  In war fatalism is passive. The Japanese showed us the value of passive resignation when their troops underwent crushing bombardments on Pacific atolls. The weight of explosive poured in one week on some troop positions on Tarawa, day and night, makes the most concentrated artillery hammering at Verdun look like chicken-feed. And yet immediately afterwards the attacking troops were met with fanatical resistance. A normal European soldier would have been driven out of his mind, and lost all will to fight.

  Then what is the explanation? It is not too easy to find.

  Shintoism, the national religion of the Japanese, had been re-established in all its pomp by the Mikados at the time of the restoration. This religion, based on a legendary explanation of the birth of the world, affirmed the divinity of the Mikado and, by extension, of his people and his empire. This mystical belief, sublimated in Bushido, the warriors’ creed, was in keeping with the aspirations of the Samurai caste and the military class. The Divine Empire’s political aim, the unification of the eight corners of the world under one roof—Hakko Ishui—was the direct consequence.

  The warrior who sacrificed himself in the interests of this mystique took his place among the divine hierarchy according to a complex code of honour. A moral system based on blind and unconditional devotion to the fatherland as incarnated in the person of the Emperor was bound to produce fanatics. So, when the Japanese military were forced to admit American material superiority and saw their visions fade of offering the Emperor absolute hegemony over the Pacific, the rules of Bushido imposed suicide on them. Only hara-kiri could expiate their fault and save face. So it was that the Kamikaze idea was born, early in 1944.

  At first, contrary to what Allied propaganda led us to believe, those who came forward were mostly from among the most highly cultured Japanese, and there was certainly more enthusiasm for this weapon among the higher officers and the survivors of the regular Air Force than among the middle-class conscripted pilots. In any case, hara-kiri and other forms of ritual suicide were the prerogative of the nobles and the ruling classes.

  Kamikaze thus became what might be called a utilitarian form of hara-kiri practised by the Imperial Air Force. It must also be admitted that the leaders of a race which had produced the Yamato[16] and the Zero had a shrewd idea of the practical value suicide-planes would have. They were the first to set the example.

  This was not the Greek philosopher drinking hemlock, or the vanquished Roman general falling on his sword. It was the soldier, not only saving face and his own honour, but also bringing the benefit of this act to the service of his country. The symbolic Bushido gesture quickly became a frightening weapon of war.

  * * *

  Major Katushige Takata of the Imperial Army Air Force was the first to perform a deliberate Kamikaze. At Biak on 17th May 1944 he hurled his Zero upon an American destroyer, killing twenty-three men and causing the loss of the ship through fire.

  A few days later a Naval Air Force officer, Lieutenant Kobi, crashed his twin-engined Betty, carrying two torpedoes with contact fuses, into the side of a British aircraft-carrier in the Indian Ocean.

  There had previously been some isolated cases—in the naval battles round Guadalcanal particularly—of pilots whose planes were in flames or too bad
ly damaged to return to base, ramming American ships. But those could be put down to outbursts of rage or hatred and were not the result of a preconceived and carefully executed plan.

  The Kamikaze idea fired public opinion in Japan. The enthusiasm, sedulously fostered by propaganda, reached to our eyes fantastic proportions. The candidates were to all intents and purposes deified, and honours and large pensions were bestowed upon their descendants. Clothed in ceremonial black or white robes, purified by invocations to the gods, their heads carefully shaved, they were the subject of positive worship by the populace before they joined their special units.

  In July 1944 seventeen units were formed, each equipped with twelve Zero (Zeke 52) fighters with two 500-lb. bombs clamped under the wings. Fourteen of these units, mostly Naval Air Force ones, were sent to the Philippines when the American invasion was threatening. Via Singapore, they came down towards the Sunda Islands, finally establishing their bases on the airfields at Dulag, Tacloban and Tolosa, on Leyte.

  Their opportunity was not long in coming. On 13th October the American Fleet under Admiral Halsey entered Leyte Gulf through the straits of Surigao. At dawn on 14th October Vice-Admiral Masabumi Arima personally led three Kamikaze squadrons into the attack. One hour later he crashed his plane on to the deck of the aircraft-carrier Hornet, while his thirty-five pilots made their own choice among the other ships—and there were plenty to choose from. When it was all over, the. last plane down and the last A.A. shell fired, the Hornet limped away, and had to be withdrawn from service for the time being. The aircraft-carriers Franklin and Hancock were hit and suffered numerous casualties, as did the Reno. Three troopships and the cruiser Houston were sunk.

  By the end of 1944 the fourteen units had accomplished their task with impressive success. On 21st November, for instance, Tokyo radio announced that the Kamikazes would prevent the cruiser Nashville, carrying MacArthur’s staff, from leaving Philippine waters. On 13th December one single crafty Kamikaze, ignoring the concentrated A.A. of the entire naval squadron, calmly identified his objective and planted himself on the Nashville’s bridge at 550 m.p.h. Result, 127 killed, 163 wounded. Admiral Strubble escaped by a miracle; he was hurled against a door by the blast, but got off with a broken rib; General Drunkel and Colonels Muthe and Monrisey were put hors de combat.