Chasing the Demon

by Dan Hampton

  What was needed was a real fighter, one that could do several missions, be mass-produced, and sustainable in combat. The Germans, specifically Messerschmitt, catapulted into the future by pairing a successful engine to a swept-wing fighter design with Projekt 1065; the result was the Me 262 and the world’s first operational jet fighter. Scientists such as Hans von Ohain, Adolf Busemann, and Woldemar Voigt had remained enthusiastic about the possibility before the war, and after the conflict began, the National Air Ministry (RLM) could see its obvious potential for air combat.

  Heinkel had the obvious lead as the He 178 jet had flown in 1939. Its successor, the He 280 prototype, was completed during the 1940 Battle for France and first flew in March 1941 about the time George Welch was floating ashore on the Royal Hawaiian beach at Waikiki. The later-model Heinkel featured tricycle landing gear and the world’s first ejection seat on a production aircraft. But despite initial success, including out-dogfighting a Fw 190, Heinkel never enjoyed Messerschmitt’s favor with the Luftwaffe and RLM.

  After three years of research and development, Fritz Wendel took the initial jet-powered Me 262 off the ground from Leipheim on July 18, 1942, three months prior to Bell’s Airacomet and nine months prior to the Gloster Meteor. In April 1943, while Ken Chilstrom was learning the A-36 in Morocco, Hauptmann Wolfgang Späte first flew the fighter for the Luftwaffe. Cross-purposes at the top of the Nazi hierarchy, Allied bombings, the German penchant for endless tinkering, and the pronounced lack of engines seriously delayed fielding of the Me 262. Adolf Galland was one of those pushing hard for a thousand jets per month. He wrote:

  “The problem which the Americans have set the fighter arm is . . . quite simply the problem of superiority in the air. The enemy’s proficiency in action is extraordinarily high and the technical accomplishment of his aircraft so outstanding that all we can say is something must be done! We are numerically inferior, and always will be . . . I am convinced that we can do wonders even with a small number of greatly superior aircraft like the Me 262 or Me 163.”

  Even then its effectiveness was largely negated by Hitler himself. Convinced (rightly so) that the Allies would invade northern Europe, Hitler insisted that the Me 262 be employed as an unstoppable “Blitz” bomber best employed for lightning-fast strikes against the invasion fleet. The first operational deliveries of the 262 came in June 1944, as by the time the converted Me 262A-2a, known as the Sturmvogel (Stormbird), became operational with Kampfgeschwader 51, the Allies had landed and were themselves blitzing across France. Yet even in less than a year of operational flying, the 262 claimed over 500 Allied aircraft, and there is long-standing debate on what could have happened if the jet had been fielded just a year earlier.

  Had the early technical advantages been seriously exploited, developed, and pursued from 1939 on, the air war over Occupied Europe might have been very different indeed, but as we have seen, by 1943 the Germans had already lost the war. That fall there were 109 operational Me jets; 70 Blitz bombers, and 39 pure fighter versions. If the air-to-ground variant managed a monthly 2:1 kill ratio and the fighter maintained 3:1, then this would inflict a hypothetical Allied loss of 335 aircraft per month to the jet. During combat in one month alone, April 1944, the USAAF in Europe lost 683 aircraft and this was before the Me 262 became fully operational. According to the Army Air Forces Statistical Digest, a total of 27,694 aircraft were lost during World War II; 8,481 fighters, 8,314 heavy bombers, and 1,623 light or medium bombers—and this was just the Army.

  Fielding the jet a year earlier would not have had a significant tactical impact, and due to Allied bombing, shortage of scarce materials, and transportation issues, the Me 262 could not have been mass-produced during 1944 in sufficient numbers to overcome the sheer numbers of Allied aircraft. Also, at least 25 percent of the 564 jets produced in 1944 were not accepted as fit for combat. Late that year Hitler again changed his mind and decreed all jets would now be fighters. Due to the delays, alterations, and politics, only 1,433 Me 262s would ever be produced and barely 100 would see action at any given time. The Allies were certainly aware of the jet and, after an early mission where six jets shot down fifteen heavy bombers in a matter of minutes, were justifiably wary.

  Yet the Americans had purposely chosen another stratagem until the war was won. Their leaders correctly decided that U.S. research would focus on revising and perfecting existing aircraft designs, which were all created prior to Washington’s declaration of war on December 7, 1941. So the time, funds, and resources were to be expended on mass-producing existing airplanes rather than chasing phantoms. It worked, obviously, because the Allies did achieve air superiority and won the war, but had Germany not invaded Russia in 1941 and devoted the resources to fielding a jet in 1942 before America could effectively intervene, the war, and history, could have well gone another way.

  Six

  The Brave

  Strawberry Bitch, Aluminum Overcast, F-Bomb, Cocktail Hour, Boobs Not Bombs, Reluctant Dragon: and thousands more. American B-17s of the Eighth Air Force’s 97th Bomb Group arrived at High Wycombe, England, during May 1942, and the first heavy bomber combat mission was launched on August 17 against a French rail yard near Rouen-Sotteville. Over the next three years Allied bombers would drop some 1.7 million tons of bombs, 70 percent of the total dropped on the Reich, on strategic facilities like ports, rail yards, factories in Germany and France. At least 10,000 missions would be flown during the next three years and 47,000 flyers, roughly the equivalent of three U.S. Army divisions, would be lost in combat, yet these casualities did not make the Allies consider a negotiated settlement, nor did German defenders gain enough time to effectively field Hitler’s last resort: the weapons of the Wunderwaffe. These included poison gas delivery systems for tabun and sarin, drones, electromagnetic cannons, and directed energy weapons that induced magnetic-interference-stalled aircraft motors. From AEG Siemensstadt in Berlin to GEMA-Werke in Silesia (and dozens more like them) potentially lethal wonder weapons were in various stages of completion all over the Reich.

  Yet it was the psychological effects that held a particular fascination for Hitler, who could never forget his devastating World War I experiences from artillery. In fact, the term “psychological warfare” likely originated from Weltanschauungskrieg, or “worldview warfare.” An early example were the Jericho sirens mounted on the B-1 variant of the Ju-87 “Stuka,” but as long as Germany was winning the war such ideas were interesting notions at best.

  Two events changed all this: the Battle of Britain and the invasion of the Soviet Union.

  By September 1940 it was obvious that the Luftwaffe had failed to gain air superiority over the channel, and Sea Lion, the invasion of England, could never go forward without it. Battling the Royal Air Force was decidedly different from fighting the valiant but outclassed Poles, or the dazed, ineffective French Armée de l’Air. In the five months between the fall of Dunkirk and the suspension of Sea Lion, the Germans lost at least 2,870 aircraft of all types and over 4,000 superbly trained, experienced aviators. Glaring technical, tactical, and strategic weaknesses within the Luftwaffe had been revealed. There were no long-range fighters or heavy bombers—they weren’t needed for what had been developed primarily as a tactical, close-air-support type of air force. Yet to pound British ports, factories, or radar installations into submission this is exactly what was required, and it was the lack of such aircraft that provided the impetus for the initial vengeance weapon: the V-1 rocket, and its successor, the V-2.

  The rocket did not require air superiority, did not need fighter protection, and could, if used en masse, inflict considerable damage against critical targets. Conceived by Dr. Fritz Gosslau of Argus Motoren, the 27-foot, 4,750-pound V-1 was first launched under its own power on Christmas Eve 1942. The Allies were well aware of the guided weapons project, called Vulcan, and specifically targeted its known production facilities. On a moonlit night in mid-August 1943, nearly 600 RAF heavy bombers struck the Peenemünde Army Research Cen
ter in northern Germany.* Though this and other raids delayed V-1 operations, the first rocket hit London in the East End on June 13, 1944, impacting near Grove Road between Victoria Park and Canary Wharf.

  Numerous defensive measures were taken, which included barrage balloons, decoys, and the employment of fighters as interceptors though the piston-engined fighters were rarely quick enough to catch the missiles. Cheap and lightweight, the V-1 used a simple pulse jet engine that, though primitive, unquestionably demonstrated Germany’s technical lead. Once ignited, a pulse jet squirts fuel into a simple combustion chamber and ignites it. The resulting blast, or pulse, of energy compresses through a narrow aperture. This results in highly accelerated exhaust that creates thrust. A pulse jet did not require magnetos or igniters and would burn any type of petroleum, even low grades captured from the Soviets.

  Launched originally from fixed sites along the Pas-de-Calais, the rocket reached speeds in excess of 400 miles per hour and could fly its 1,870-pound warhead to London in about twenty-five minutes. By mid-June, 500 flying bombs had been dispatched, though the Normandy landings necessitated a shift of launch sites to the north. But the Luftwaffe had another nasty surprise for the Allies in the form of the world’s first combat jet fighter: the sleek, swept-winged Schwalbe. First blood was probably drawn on July 26 when an Me 262 damaged a photo-reconnaissance RAF Mosquito Mk. XVI from 540 Squadron.* The next day several Gloster Meteors from 616 Squadron, Britain’s first operational jet unit, were in action over Kent against the flying bombs. Possessing the speed to catch the V-1, the Meteor and Hawker Tempests destroyed some 80 percent of the incoming missiles.

  With the lurking potential of the Wunderwaffen, the operational employment of jet aircraft, and missiles came the modern age of aerial warfare. It had definitely begun, albeit on a small scale—and it had to be stopped. The Allied solution, really the only effective response possible, was total air superiority. Control of the skies meant the risk of invading Europe could realistically be taken and a foothold then gained, and held, on the Nazi-occupied continent. Air superiority meant regular, dependable supplies, and unfettered movement of matériel and troops to conduct offensive action on the Allies’ terms. This would drive the Reich into a truly defensive, reactive posture and eventually force an unconditional surrender that would end the war. With air superiority all this was possible—and without it none of it would happen.

  The Royal Air Force did not risk its few Meteors in air-to-air combat, and its Spitfires and Tempests, though exceedingly fine aircraft, had relatively short combat ranges.* The American jet program had yet to field an operational aircraft so the burden of air superiority over the Reich fell to long-range USAAF conventional aircraft: the P-47 Thunderbolt, the P-38 Lightning, and, above all, the North American P-51 Mustang. They were named Slender, Tender, and Tall; Iron Ass; Glamorous Glen; Grim Reaper; She Wouldn’t Wait; Passion Wagon; and hundreds of other, deeply personal, funny, or inspirational names chosen by its pilots. To the rest of the world they were Mustangs; more specifically, the Merlin-engined North American P-51D.

  Unquestionably the pinnacle of piston-engined fighter design, the Mustang was the quintessential propeller-driven fighter. Every contour was a derivative from a geometrical shape; beautiful, to be sure, but this also meant the blueprints could be expressed algebraically and all associated templates easily mass-produced. Initially a private venture between North American Aviation and the British Air Ministry for the NA-73X prototype, an initial 320 aircraft contract was signed on May 29, 1940. A scant 102 days later the first Allison-engined Mustang rolled out at Mines Field, Los Angeles, on September 9, 1940—two days after the bombing of London began.*

  The culmination of hard-learned combat lessons, the Mustang’s flexible design allowed continuous evolution against changing threats. Visibility from the beautiful bubble canopy was superb and, unlike the Spitfire or Bf 109, the P-51’s landing gear retracted inboard toward the fuselage, maintaining a heavier center of gravity and permitting thinner wings. With a wide, twelve-foot wheel base, operations on marginally prepared forward strips were much safer. Pilot inputs were incorporated into the cockpit layout, and the result was a relatively roomy design with all the essential switches, gauges, and controls in sensible locations—thus freeing the pilot up to fly and fight. Yet for all its deadly beauty the Mustang, along with every other piston-engined fighter, could only fly so fast or turn so hard. This was due to the inability of even the most powerful piston engines to overcome the aerodynamic drag forces acting on the aircraft as it approached transonic speeds.

  During dives they did get closer to the speed of sound than aircraft ever had before, but at their own peril. Lockheed test pilot Ralph Virden died in late 1941 when he could not pull his P-38 out of a high-speed dive, and the culprit was compressibility. Test pilots discovered during testing, and combat pilots in combat, that the P-51 could achieve about 0.84 Mach before it was in danger of going out of control. Due to its thinner wings, a Spitfire had actually reached 0.92 Mach in a dive. Measuring the local speed of sound, that is, based on the current altitude, temperature, and pressure, was not a new idea. Austrian physicist Ernst Mach had conceived of the value during the nineteenth century, and modern aerodynamic engineers knew that exceeding the speed of sound in an aircraft was theoretically possible, especially with rocket motors or jet engines.

  Supersonic flight and jets were exciting and, most believed, they were the future. However, neither would end the conflict, and winning World War II remained the focus of the Allied governments. Oil storage, refining, and distribution targets were the priority, for without oil the entire Nazi war machine would die of thirst. Wartime requirements were seven to eight million barrels per month, and this was cut to the bone without any large-scale, offensive action. The Allies knew the German weakness even before the war and estimated that if enemy oil production could be reduced by 50 percent, then the Reich would fracture. This Achilles’ heel was one strategic reason behind Operation Barbarossa—the invasion of Russia—and Hitler’s second fatal error.

  Besides oil, by late 1944 bombing had disrupted the advanced aircraft programs and production of the wonder weapons. It had completely shut down the manufacturing of submarines, particularly the deadly Type XXI and Type XIII U-boats. Ammunition production was drastically impacted to the point where field units rarely had enough bullets or mortar rounds and the virtual nonexistence of nitrates resulted in many artillery shells being packed with rock salt. Transport vehicle production was similarly devastated; Daimler-Benz, a huge manufacturer of vehicles, engines, and spare parts, was effectively wiped out during raids on Stuttgart. Opel, Germany’s largest maker of trucks, was bombed to bits during a series of raids on its Brandenburg factory. Ford Motors had developed interests in Germany since the mid-1920s, and through its factory in Cologne it made Maultier half-tracks for the German army and turbines for V-2 rocket motors. Incredibly, after the war both General Motors, which had owned Opel since 1931, and the Ford Motor Company both sued the U.S. government for wartime damages to its German-based businesses.*

  Critics of the bombing offensive often point to its failures, if they can be called that. Steel production was minimally impacted and conventional aviation manufacturing actually increased due to superb German damage control and reconstruction efforts. Some 50 to 60 percent of the Reich’s ball bearings, essential for machines of all types, were manufactured by the Svenska Kullagerfabriken (SKF) plant at Schweinfurt, and the main facility in Göteborg, Sweden. Schweinfurt was attacked multiple times between August and October 1943 and, during a single mission on August 17, 1943, sixty B-17s were shot down with at least eighty more irreparably damaged.

  Without ball bearings the flow of critical war matériel throughout the Reich would grind to a halt.* Schweinfurt was heavily defended by over 100 anti-aircraft guns, including the lethal Flak 18 and 36 types, at least nine big 150 cm searchlights and artificial fog generators. Eighth Air Force raids slowed production by a drasti
c 30 to 35 percent, yet the shortfall was immediately made good by enormous reserves within the Reich, SKF Sweden, and extra shipments from its largest plant—in Philadelphia.

  Reaching a wartime peak of about 1,800 per month in December 1944, tanks and armored vehicles continued to roll off assembly lines, and aircraft production was also generally unaffected by the bombing. In 1941 German factories had produced 360 fighters per month, but under Erhard Milch, the Reich’s air minister, this increased to 1,000 per month by mid-1943. Fifty percent of these fighters were made in only two locations: Regensburg in Bavaria, which made the Bf 109, and the Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerk outside of Vienna.

  Yet even with the might of the Eighth Air Force pounding away at it, materially the Luftwaffe was not truly hampered by Allied bombs until early 1944. Albert Speer admitted in his memoir that until 1944 nothing had been destroyed that could not be rebuilt, but the constant combat cost the Luftwaffe its irreplaceable fighter pilots. Aircraft could be manufactured, and eventually peaked at about 1,500 fighters per month, but pilots were a different matter altogether. It took eighteen to twenty years to raise a man, and the Reich didn’t have that much time. The opening months of 1944 cost the Luftwaffe 1,684 fighter pilots, including nearly 60 experten: aces. So critical was the shortfall that young men began arriving at frontline units with less than half the flying time of their Allied adversaries, and they rarely survived their first few missions.