While Galland and Schallmoser were boring in on the Marauders, SSgt Donald P Edelen, flight engineer/top turret gunner aboard Maj Luther Gurkin’s B-26, which was leading the 17th BG’s 34th BS, saw a flash out of the corner of his eye and called waist gunner TSgt Henry Dietz to check ‘nine o’clock level’ to see if he saw anything. Dietz replied in the negative, but then Edelen’s world went into surreal slow motion. Seconds after Dietz had said he could not see anything, Edelen heard a quick burst from a 0.50-cal, followed by Dietz exclaiming ‘I got one!’ over the intercom. Then, from his turret, Edelen looked Eduard Schallmoser right in the eye as he sped past the Marauder. After realising his rockets were not armed, Galland fired a quick burst at a third Marauder and broke left just as the rounds from TSgt Dietz’s machine gun struck the fuel tanks of the Generalleutnant’s Me 262.
The P-47-equipped 50th FG had been tasked with escorting B-26s of the French 11e Brigade de Bombardment, and among the pilots aloft that day was 1Lt James J Finnegan of the 10th FS. Leading ‘Green’ Flight in his assigned P-47D 42-28453 The Irish Shillalah, he had not seen any jets up to this point in his tour. This all changed when someone called ‘Jet bandits!’ over the radio and Finnegan looked around just in time to see two B-26s explode and two ‘darts’ streak through the bomber formation and break left and right. He decided to go after the jet on the left;
Just as JV 44 struck the B-26s from the 34th BS, 1Lt James J Finnegan of the 10th FS/50th FG heard the warning ‘Jet bandits!’ over the radio. He looked down in time to see two Marauders explode and an Me 262 diving away streaming fuel. Finnegan dived on Galland’s jet and fired two bursts that blew off the Me 262’s engine cowlings, shattered its instrument panel and wounded the pilot in the right knee (Robert Forsyth collection)
‘I turned over on my back, pulled tight on the stick and almost immediately had the enemy aircraft in my sights. I got off two quick bursts but couldn’t see if I had hit anything because the nose of my aircraft was pulled too high to get a good lead. However, I dropped my nose and observed what I thought were bits and pieces coming from the cowling. In addition, I saw smoke trailing from the wing.’
After the war Galland recalled the damage Finnegan’s burst had done to his already ailing Me 262;
‘A hail of fire enveloped me. A sharp rap hit my right knee, the instrument panel with its indispensable instruments was shattered, the right engine was also hit – its metal covering worked loose in the wind and was partly carried away – and now the left engine was hit. I could hardly hold her in the air.’
In an amazing feat of airmanship Galland made it back to his airfield, and despite it being strafed by P-47s as he approached, the veteran fighter ace was able to belly-land his Me 262 on to the grass and run for cover. Although Finnegan claimed a probable and ‘thought no more of it’, history has credited him and TSgt Dietz with shooting down the famed ‘General of Fighter Pilots’.
During the 25 April engagement with Generalleutnant Galland, 1Lt Finnegan was flying P-47D-28 42-28453 The Irish Shillalah. The downing of the Me 262 gave Finnegan his second kill. Although Galland’s Me 262 was destroyed when it crash-landed at Munich-Riem, neither TSgt Dietz nor 1Lt Finnegan were officially credited with a confirmed victory (Robert Forsyth collection)
Although Galland was out of the fight, the battle between JV 44 and the 50th FG raged on. While Finnegan was pursuing Galland, Capt Robert W Clark shot down another jet, with the pilot bailing out. In the brief and intense action, JV 44 had destroyed three B-26s – two from the 34th BS and one from the 95th BS. There were no survivors. Aside from a probable claim back on 26 November 1944 and Finnegan’s unofficial shared victory over Galland, Clark’s Me 262 was the only confirmed jet victory for the 50th FG.
Just before noon on 26 April Thunderbolts from the 27th FG were on a fighter sweep over Munich when Capt Herbert A Philo and his wingman spotted a lone Me 262 right in front of them just as they were about to strafe a ground target. The jet was right down on the deck when Philo came in and fired a burst that immediately sent the Me 262 crashing in flames. This was the only victory for Capt Philo, the sole jet victory for the 27th FG and the USAAF’s last confirmed jet victory of the war. However, there were still a few skirmishes, some of them deadly, to be fought in the final week of the war.
After Galland was shot down, command of JV 44 was passed to Oberstleutnant Heinz Bär, whose 200+ victory tally included 15 kills in the Me 262. On 27 April he was flying the six-cannon Me 262A-1/U5 when he led Unteroffizier Franz Köster and Major Willi Herget on a patrol that saw them get into a scrap with several flights of P-47s. Bär and Köster each claimed two Thunderbolts destroyed apiece – these victories gave Köster ace status, with six kills – and Herget recorded his 73rd, and last, success. Two days later Bär shot down another Thunderbolt while flying the Me 262A-1/U5 on what was almost certainly JV 44’s last operational sortie.
On 1 May Ninth Air Force P-47 pilots Capt James H Hall and 1Lt Joseph Richlitsky from the 367th FS/358th FG claimed an Me 262 as shared damaged. Two days later, the final jet encounter took place when 1Lts Arnold G Sarrow and Albert T Kalvaitis of the 365th FG damaged an Me 262 over Prague.
CHAPTER SIX
ALL THE KING’S MEN
When the Luftwaffe first deployed its new Me 262 jet bombers to France during the latter stage of the Normandy campaign, it was in very small numbers. They were quickly swept up in the retreat and there were no encounters with Allied fighters. However, as the invasion force pushed north into Belgium in late August 1944 there were occasional sightings, and the first German jet to be shot down fell to P-47Ds of the 78th FG on the 28th as described in Chapter Two. It was during the desperate fighting over the bridges in Holland, which had been audaciously seized in the ill-fated Operation Market Garden in late September, that jets ominously began to be seen.
During the early evening of 26 September, veteran ace Wg Cdr Geoffrey Page, Wing Leader of No 125 Wing, led another patrol to the Nijmegen area. During the course of the mission Flg Off Frank Campbell (who had four victories to his name) of No 132 Sqn, flying Spitfire IX PL257/FF-T, spotted an Me 262 that he chased and managed to damage before it flew off at high speed. Campbell’s close encounter gave the 2nd Tactical Air Force (TAF) its first claim against the Me 262. Two days later, Flt Lt James ‘Chips’ McColl (who was credited with three victories) of Spitfire IX-equipped No 416 Sqn damaged another near Nijmegen, whilst on the 30th No 441 Sqn ace Flg Off Ron Lake, again in a Spitfire IX, also damaged an Me 262.
All three of Wg Cdr John Wray’s jet claims came whilst he was flying his personal Tempest V EJ750/JBW. This aeroplane was subsequently written off in February 1945 when its pilot was forced to crash-land after being hit by flak. The fighter had by then been passed on to No 486 Sqn (Chris Thomas collection)
On 1 October the Tempest Vs of No 122 Wing, led by Wg Cdr John Wray, arrived at B80 Volkel, the most forward Allied airfield in newly-liberated Holland. Later that same day pilots from the wing had their first sightings of their new jet-powered foe, and a system of patrols was swiftly established. These proved inconclusive, however, as the Me 262s were easily able to draw away from the Tempest Vs.
During a sweep over Holland four days later, 12 Spitfire IXs (all fitted with the latest gyro gunsight) from No 401 Sqn, led by gunnery expert and 13-victory ace Sqn Ldr Rod Smith, were near Nijmegen when, at 1430 hrs, they spotted a Me 262 from 5./KG(J) 51 flown by Hauptmann Hans-Christoph Buttmann. Several of the Spitfires attacked, as Smith wrote later;
Whilst leading Spitfires of No 401 Sqn on 5 October 1944, Sqn Ldr Rod Smith helped shoot down the first Me 262 to fall to a Commonwealth unit. His quarter-share in the jet’s demise proved to be the Malta ace’s final claim (DND)
‘I sighted an Me 262 coming head on 500 ft below. He went into a port climbing turn and I turned to starboard after him, along with several other Spitfires. He then dived down towards the bridge, twisting and turning and half-rolling at very high speed. He then flew across Nijme
gen, turning from side to side. I saw a Spitfire get some strikes on him and he streamed white smoke from the starboard wing root. He flew on at very high speed still, and I managed to get behind him and fire two three-second bursts from approximately 200-300 yards. He zoomed very high and I saw strikes on him in the port and starboard nacelles. A small fire started in the starboard nacelle and a big one in the port nacelle while I was firing. I broke down to starboard under him and he turned down to starboard behind me. I thought at the time he was trying to attack me, even though in flames. He passed behind me and crashed in a field southwest of Nijmegen.’
Other pilots from Smith’s section had also attacked Buttmann’s jet, including Flg Off John MacKay, a future 13-victory ace, Flg Off Gus Sinclair, who claimed the Me 262 as his fourth, and last, success, Flt Lt Hedley ‘Snooks’ Everard, who was already an ace, and Flt Lt Robert ‘Tex’ Davenport, for whom the ‘share’ took him to acedom. More significantly, Buttmann’s Me 262 was the first jet to be shot down by a Commonwealth squadron.
Tempest V pilots were also increasingly seeing Me 262s along the German border with Holland, and on 13 October V1 ace Plt Off Bob Cole of No 3 Sqn claimed the first jet victory for the Hawker fighter. Whilst flying north of Aachen in JN868, he spotted the Me 262 flown by Unteroffizier Edmund Delatowski of 3./KG 51 and dived on the unsuspecting jet. Despite coaxing his fighter up to 480 mph, Cole was unable to close the distance. However, Delatowski’s jet then inexplicably slowed, and the RAF pilot took his chance;
‘I closed in to about 500 yards and fired one short burst, dead astern, which missed. I closed in to about 150 yards, still dead astern, and fired another short burst. The enemy aircraft immediately exploded just as a doodlebug does and many pieces flew off, including what looked like a plank six feet long.’
The injured Edmund Delatowski somehow managed to bail out.
That same day Flt Lt Tony Seager (who would be credited with two victories) damaged an Me 262 over Grave, in Holland, for No 80 Sqn’s first claim against a jet. These were, however, isolated successes, although 2nd TAF fighters often forced the jets to jettison their bombs and turn back. In order to increase its pilots’ chances of success, No 122 Wing decided to have a small number of manned Tempest Vs on standby at Volkel, ready to scramble for the jets’ bases so as to catch them at their most vulnerable when approaching to land short of fuel at mission-end. In response, the Luftwaffe positioned ‘flak lanes’ around its airfields and mounted its own defensive patrols with Fw 190s and Bf 109s.
During one such airfield patrol on 3 November, the No 122 Wing Leader Wg Cdr Wray, in his personal Tempest EJ750/JBW, spotted two Me 262s flying southwest whilst he was at 18,000 ft. On sighting him, the enemy pilots turned back. Wray, using his height advantage, dived after the right-hand jet, and, closing at high speed, opened fire ‘before he got out of range. Suddenly a large piece flew off the aircraft and he flicked over on to his back and disappeared downwards into cloud in an inverted position. I followed, but the thickness of the cloud made it impossible for me to maintain contact’. Although John Wray claimed the Me 262 as damaged, Oberfähnrich Willi Banzhoff of Kommando ‘Nowotny’ crashed near Hittfeld and was killed. That same day other patrols strafed and damaged jets on their airfields near Osnabrück, such as Rheine and Bramsche.
RAF intelligence staff sift through the shattered wreckage of Hauptmann Hans-Christoph Buttmann’s Me 262 five miles northeast of Nijmegen. The personnel on the right have rigged up a pump in an attempt to drain the water-filled crater created by the 5./KG(J) 51 machine when it crashed (© IWM CL 1350)
By now the Luftwaffe was increasingly using the Me 262 as a defensive fighter, rather than as a bomber, resulting in some of the daylight raids by Bomber Command Lancasters and Halifaxes being intercepted by them – such as on 27 November when Spitfire IXs of No 1 Sqn escorting a Lancaster raid on Dortmund spotted jets for the first time. Tempest V pilots also engaged more jets in early December, the first of these encounters occurring on the 3rd when Flt Lt John ‘Judy’ Garland of No 80 Sqn spotted an aircraft flying at low level whilst he was attacking a train near Rheine;
‘I identified it as an Me 262. I closed to 400 yards and the Hun turned sharply to port, climbing to approximately 150 ft. The jet then appeared to do a high-speed stall, followed by a complete flick roll. As he straightened up, the cockpit hood flew off. Closing to 150 yards, I fired one one-second burst but saw no strikes. The enemy aircraft immediately went into a flat spin to port and crashed into a small wood.’
The Me 262 was from I./KG(J) 51, and its pilot, Knight’s Cross holder Oberleutnant Hans-Joachim Valet, was killed. Garland would subsequently claim an additional three victories before VE Day.
Flying from B88 Heesch five days later (8 December), No 442 Sqn pilots on an armed reconnaissance mission over enemy territory optimistically chased a trio of Me 262s in their Spitfire IXs but were unable to catch them. However, on the 10th, No 56 Sqn’s Flt Sgt Jackson attacked Leutnant Walter Roth’s Me 262 Wk-Nr 170281 of I./KG(J) 51 in his Tempest V, claiming the aeroplane as damaged when, in fact, the jet crash-landed.
One week later, Wg Cdr John Wray attacked his second Me 262 when, on the morning of the 17th, he was warned of jets in the area and sighted two aeroplanes from 11./KG(J) 51 near the River Rhine. Ordering his wingman after the No 2, he pursued Me 262A-2a Wk-Nr 110501/9K+BP flown by Leutnant Wolfgang Lübke, who was at low level. The No 122 Wing Leader subsequently wrote;
The Wing Leader of Tempest-equipped No 122 Wg was Wg Cdr John Wray, whose only air combat successes were both against German jets. Although he was awarded a damaged claim following his first encounter with a Messerschmitt jet on 3 November 1944, he had in fact shot the Me 262 down. Wray was credited with destroying his second Me 262, on 17 December, however. Finally, Wray damaged an Ar 234 on Christmas Day, this aeroplane also being wrecked in the subsequent crash-landing (Chris Thomas collection)
‘I was going flat out at about 450 mph, but losing ground. He was about 200 yards ahead, but drawing away. The visibility was not too good at the time, and I realised that I might lose him. I opened fire, and fired about a four-second burst, but with no apparent results. I had hoped to at least get him weaving. Then he started to turn slowly, so I set off again. By this time he was right on the deck, and I was slightly above him, and found that I was catching him up. I opened fire again, and there appeared to be strikes on the wings. He started to weave violently, which was not too clever at that altitude, but this allowed me to close to about 300 yards. I was about to fire again when his port wingtip hit a building on the edge of the Rhine and he pitched straight into the river.’
This was Wray’s second success against a jet in six weeks, his victory coinciding with the German offensive in the Ardennes that saw a spike in enemy air activity and increasing encounters with jets whenever the dreadful winter weather allowed. An improvement in conditions saw aerial action continue over the Christmas period, which resulted in some rewarding ‘presents’ for several units.
At midday on Christmas Day, Spitfire IXs of No 411 Sqn were flying in support of US ground forces around Bastogne, in Belgium, when the engine in the aircraft of Flt Lt Jack Boyle’s wingman began misfiring. Both pilots duly broke off from the rest of the unit and headed back to Heesch. As they approached the airfield Boyle spotted an Me 262 beneath him. He dived and, with his speed registering in excess of 500 mph, opened fire and hit one of the jet’s engines;
‘He immediately dived for the deck as an evasive tactic, but with only one engine he couldn’t outrun me. I scored several more hits before he clipped some tall tree tops and then hit the ground at an almost flat angle. His aircraft disintegrated in stages from nose to tail as it ripped up the turf for several hundred yards until only the tailplane assembly was left, and it went cartwheeling along just below me and at about my speed. Fire and smoke marked his trail.’
Oberleutnant Hans-Georg Lamle of I./KG(J) 51, who had just bombed Allied forces in the Belgian city of Liège,
was killed. His demise gave Boyle the second of his six victories.
Several hours later, Spitfire XVIs from No 403 Sqn, led by Sqn Ldr Jim Collier, were out for a patrol over Malmedy, in Belgium, when they came across a Kette of three Me 262s flying in large circles southwest of Aachen, on the German border. As the Spitfires approached, two of them made off under full power, but the third continued circling, apparently unaware of the impending threat. As Collier came within range he opened fire, observing strikes on one wing. The enemy pilot then attempted to escape, but Collier maintained his position and continued to fire, seeing white smoke beginning to stream from the Me 262’s left engine. The jet then slowly rolled on to its back and its pilot, Feldwebel Hans Meyer of I./KG(J) 51, bailed out before his aeroplane crashed. Collier’s notable victory was his fifth claim, of which three were aircraft destroyed.
Future six-victory ace Flt Lt Johnny Boyle of No 411 Sqn shot down the Me 262 of I./KG(J) 51’s Oberleutnant Hans-Georg Lamle on Christmas Day after shepherding his wingman back to B88 Heesch (PAC)
At the same time as Collier was scoring his final kill, eight Tempest Vs of No 486 Sqn were patrolling nearby, and Flt Lt Jack Stafford, a V1 ace, made his first step to acedom against manned aircraft when he too spotted an Me 262;
‘I broke up towards him and commenced firing at extreme range. I maintained my fire up to about 400 yards, and I saw pieces fall away from his port unit. As the enemy aircraft passed overhead, several red balls fell from it and he was slowed considerably. I fired and it commenced diving, leaving a trail of white smoke. He then rolled on his back and I saw the pilot bail out, observing that his parachute did not open properly.’
Stafford’s No 2 was fellow V1 ace Plt Off Duff Bremner, who also attacked the jet;
Allied Jet Killers of World War 2 Page 10