Me 262 Silver HIll

Few aircraft have had so many “might have been” stories attached to it than the fabled Messerschmitt Me 262, the world’s first operational jet fighter. Some alternative histories postulate that the introduction of the Me 262 in mid-1943 would have thwarted the D-Day invasion, leading to vastly different outcomes for the war. These include (a) a German victory after either defeating the Soviet Union or concluding separate peace with it (b) the United State’s use of the first atomic bomb upon Berlin to finally defeat Hitler or (c) an uneasy peace which gave Hitler time to get his own nuclear weapons and thus create a totally different version of the Cold War.

Most of these stories, including some very well done television presentations, rely on blaming Adolf Hitler for destroying the war-winning possibilities of the aircraft by insisting that it be used as a bomber rather than as a fighter. However appealing they are to the layman, these versions are both wrong and short-sighted.

As a systematic date by date perusal of events reveals, Hitler’s net effect upon the fate of the aesthetically beautiful twin-jet fighter was probably more helpful than harmful. First of all, Hitler’s intense and often quite knowledgeable interest in armament production spurred the development and output of new weapons. His intuitive selection of his architect, Albert Speer to succeed Fritz Todt as Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions did much to overcome inherent faults in the chaotic German system of management. It also reaped the fruits of some of the previous sensible decisions made on German aircraft production.

But most important, when Hitler made the recommendations so often cited as decisive to the fate of the Me 262, the ultimate results were already out of his hands. The real causes of the relative ineffectiveness of the Me 262 should not be attributed to a series of bad decisions and assumptions made when the war was going wrong for Germany. Instead the blame must be placed upon a variety of conflicting personalities and decisions that characterized the Nazi regime—and one baleful decision that occurred in February 1940.

Before outlining the series of circumstances and the bad decision, it is interesting to investigate the origins and operational career of an aircraft that has fascinated people to for more than half a century to the extent that it was reinstated “in production” in 2002. (Sidebar I) The Me 262 was not the world’s first jet. That honor belongs to the Heinkel He 178, flown by Erich Warsitz on 27 August 1939, a few days before the outbreak of World War II. The flight lasted about five minutes, with the pilot reporting that the aircraft “had no vibration and no torque like a propeller engine. Although top German leaders, including Ernst Udet and Erhard Milch witnessed the flight, there was little interest in the aircraft or the engine Dr. Hans von Ohain created to power it.

The lack of official interest may have stemmed from a preexisting program, Project 1065, that led eventually to the Me 262, called “the Turbo” by its pilots, and the Schwalbe and Sturmvogel by others. Issued to the Messerschmitt firm in late December, 1938 by the Technical Branch of the State Ministry of Aviation, the project called for a research aircraft to be powered the Bayerische-Motorenwereke GmbH (BMW) P3302 gas turbine engines. This axial-flow design engine (known as the TL-Strahltriebwereke) was intended to develop about 1,300 pounds of static thrust. The engine was based on work initially done by the Bramo company, which BMW had acquired in the summer of 1939.

Engineers around the world had deep reservations about the application of the gas turbine engine to aircraft, the general feeling being that fuel consumption would be so high as to make the idea impractical. Nonetheless, the capable German engineers at BMW and elsewhere were allocated limited funds for research and development even of projects that seemed unlikely to succeed.

For Project 1065, Professor Willy Messerschmitt appointed Dr. Woldemar Voigt to lead a team of engineers to design an aircraft for test engines that were supposed be available in 1939. The new aircraft, while a research vehicle, was intended to be developed into a Luftwaffe fighter. Voigt’s initial design reflected the general lack of knowledge about both the jet engine’s potential power and its potential difficulties. It was a simple low wing monoplane with the characteristic straight Messerschmitt single-spar wing and a conventional “tail-dragger” landing gear. The engines were to be mounted in the wing roots.

As the BMW 003 engine grew in size and weight, the original Project 1065 was redesigned as a much larger aircraft, with engines moved from the wing roots to nacelles beneath the wing. Having learned much from the ill-fated placement of the Bf 109 landing gear, the Me 262’s gear retracted inward, being stored in an enlarged forward lower fuselage area that gave the fighter its “shark-like” appearance.

The BMW engine encountered further development problems. Its weight increase caused the Messerschmitt engineers to employ a fix long used by aeronautical engineers—sweeping the wing back to adjust the center of gravity. The design eventually had about 18 degrees of sweep-back, enough to give it a modern appearance and help a little in reducing drag at high speeds.

The first prototype, the Messerschmitt Me 262V1 flew on April 18, 1941, powered not by jets but by a work-horse Junkers Jumo 12 cylinder liquid cooled piston engine used on aircraft such as the famous Ju 87 Stuka. Test pilot (and holder of the world’s absolute speed record of 469.22 mph) Fritz Wendel found the aircraft, to have relatively pleasant flight characteristics–once airborne.

The piston engine was fortuitously retained on the next major test flight, when two BMW 003 engines were fitted to the prototype. The March 25, 1942 flight by Wendel was hair raising, as both jet engines failed shortly after a long take-off run, and he had to drag the airplane around nose-high for a quick landing.

In the meantime, Anselm Franz was developing what he later described as his “bread-board” jet engine, the 1,850 pound static thrust Junkers Jumo 004, and a decision was made to install a pair of these in the Me 262 V3 prototype. The brave Wendel made an attempt at takeoff early on the morning of 18 July 1942, but found that the take-off attitude of the aircraft effectively blanked out the elevators, so he had to abort on the short runway at Leipheim. A decision was made that he should “tap” the brakes at about 112 mph so that the nose would dip down and the tail would lift. He did that at 08:40 AM, and launched the world’s first operational jet fighter into the air and into history.

Despite its evident potential, the Me 262’s progress was hindered by ill-advised decisions, some made long before, and some continuing to be made by a mixed bag of people. Of these, the most surprising was Willy Messerschmitt himself, the man who “owned” the Me 262 design. Messerchmitt displayed an extremely short-sighted concern about maintaining the current high profits from the Bf 109 and the projected Me 209 production lines and permitted Me 262 development to stew on a backburner without adequate resources.

Incalculable damage was also done by the head of the Technical Department, Colonel General Ernst Udet. A 62-victory ace, great aerobatic pilot and alcoholic, drug-ridden bon-vivant, Udet was incompetent to supervise the development and procurement of aircraft for the Luftwaffe. But his very incompetence made him an ideal choice for Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering for it meant that he was not a threat. Udet committed suicide on November 17, 1941, and was succeeded by a man Goering feared as a competitor, Field Marshal Erhard Milch.

Milch, a pilot in World War I and the successful Managing Director of Deutsch Lufthansa, had both industrial and command responsibilities in World War II. This made him conservative, and he did not embrace the introduction of the Me 262 at a time when he was struggling along with others to increase German aircraft production by significant amounts. . Milch sided with his long-time enemy, Willy Messerschmitt, in preferring the Me 209 as late as March 31, 1943. This position was supported at the time by Lieutenant General Adolf Galland.

Things began to change on 22 April 1943 when Galland finally got to fly the airplane. A 104 victory ace, Galland saw in the Me 262 as a solution to the current Allied aerial strength and to their imminent aerial superiority. And, after an even more enthusiastic recommendation by Galland after his second flight in the aircraft on 22 May, Milch committed himself to mass production of the Me 262 at the expense of the Me 209.

Supervising everything, if in an indolent, capricious manner, was Reichsmarschall (technically the highest military rank in the world) Hermann Goering. The perfect symbol of the deep corruption of the Nazi regime, Goering was often in open conflict with Galland. And, as we shall see, it is Goering who ultimately was the most at fault for the inability of the Messerschmitt Me 262 to influence the outcome of the European air battle.

While the bureaucratic and developmental battles were raging, the crucial work for the ultimate success of the Me 262 program was being conducted by Franz’s team at Junkers. Their initial Jumo 004A design was built in small numbers, and could thus use the necessary high grade steel that the temperatures generated by a jet engine required. These initial engines had a satisfactory 200-250 hour service life. Unfortunately for the engine, Germany was in desperate straits for such materials as chromium, molybdenum, nickel, titanium and tungsten and the new advanced submarine construction program had a higher priority than jet engines. The 004B4 production engine had to be built with only about one-third of the necessary materials that high grade steel required. The primitive turbine blade design, rigidly mounted, imposed such stresses that the inferior metal used in the compressor blades failed often and early. These and other factors resulted in a service life of only 10 to 25 hours for the 004B4 engine.

Initial production rates on the 004B were very slow, and the introduction of the Arado Ar 234 jet bomber 1943 added to the requirement for them. The 004B was not put into mass production until June, 1944. Production built slowly, and it was not until September 1944 that sufficient engines were in the pipeline to permit delivery of 90 Messerschmitt Me 262s. By then much had happened to blunt any possible effect of the aircraft on the outcome of the war.

Origins of the Myth of Hitler’s Bungling

The limping Me 262 program had completed only a few prototypes by mid-1943, but their performance commanded ever greater respect. At this time an often overlooked aspect of Hitler’s interference with the Me 262 program took place when he formally asked Milch to risk reducing the number of fighters produced by exerting too much effort on the Me 262.

Oddly enough, this occurred even as Hitler frantically sought a means to repel the Allied invasion he expected in the spring of 1944. While no one could predict exactly where the Allies might choose to invade, Hitler rightly concluded that the best chance to defeat the invasion was at the onset. Then the Germans would have numerical superiority and the Allies would be enmeshed in the inevitable confusion of an amphibious invasion. As he did so often in making decisions during the war, Hitler drew on his own infantry experience, and decided that if he could keep the Allies contained for the first few hours necessary to route the German forces to the invasion point, he could defeat the invasion. From this came his concept of using fast bombers to break through the inevitable Allied air superiority. Whether they dropped bombs accurately or not he expected a constant bombing of the invasion beaches would “keep the enemy heads down” for those vital first few hours. Given the alternatives available to him, it was not a bad concept.

He passed his ideas on to Goering, who was at last firmly behind the Me 262 program. On a visit to the Messerschmitt plant on 2 November 1943, Goering asked Willy Messerschmitt if the Me 262 had any bombing capability. The wily Willy, knowing full well that little or no effort had been given to making the Me 262 a bomber, answered that it could carry two 500-kg or one 1,000-kg bomb, and that the design changes necessary to do so could be effected in “two weeks or so.” Ever-eager-to-please, Goering conveyed this to Hitler, who at last consented to visit the Rechlin test center on 26 November to see the Me 262 and other weapons. In the meantime, on 12 November, Milch had at long last committed the Me 262 to full production.

Paranoid and surrounded by his own requirements for heel-clicking sycophants, Adolf Hitler was rightly suspicious of claims made for production quantities and delivery dates on armaments demonstrated to him. Two Me 262 pre-production prototypes were prepared. The first flamed out, aborting its takeoff, but the second performed well enough. Hitler’s approval was reflected in a telegram Goering received on December 5th, in which Hitler asked that jet fighter bombers be developed for “front commitment by the spring of 1944.” He intended to use them to keep the enemy heads down.

Hitler had now conferred top priority status on the program, something that accelerated it in a fashion nothing else could have done, and which more than offsets the harm his later insistence on employing the aircraft as a fighter bomber did. But in totalitarian Germany, bombed by day and night, and beset by overlapping chains of command, conflicting priorities and competing forces within the Nazi party, Hitler’s orders lost their priority did not have much effect. Speer decided that it made sense not to stop existing production for the Me 262, but to build new facilities for it and allocated the resources. Enthusiastic Nazi party satraps, Otto Saur and Karl Sauckel, planned to use empty mines as production facilities, guaranteeing to produce 1,000 Me 262s a month by March, 1945, nine months after Hitler wanted them most.

Real life production proceeded slowly, so that it was not until April, 1944, that fifteen pre-production aircraft were allocated to Erporbungskommando 262, to train pilot and develop combat tactics. It was in that same month that Hitler discovered that no Me 262 were as yet to deliver bombs, and he delivered his much quoted line “Not a single one of my orders have been obeyed.” Goering jumped on the band-wagon with a bit of spin, declaring that the airplane was a “super-speed bomber” rather than a fighter-bomber.

Time was running out for Hitler, Germany and the Me 262 program. On June 7, 1944—one day after the day he needed the Me 262 the most—Hitler ordered that the initial production of the Me 262 be as a bomber only, although limited testing of its fighter properties could be continued. This had the usual effect of disrupting production lines, priorities and deliveries, but still had no real effect upon the program. Engine shortages had restrained Luftwaffe 1944 acceptances of the Me 262 to 28 in June, 59 in July, 20 in August, 91 in September, 117 in October and 315 in November—when Hitler had already withdrawn his infamous order to use it only as a bomber.

About 1360 Me 262s were completed, and it is estimated that some 300 actually engaged in combat, where they had a significant effect upon Allied thinking and planning. Given the slow introduction of both the aircraft and the engine, Hitler’s decision on the use of the Me 262 had no effect whatsoever upon the conduct of the war.

The blame, as previously noted, lay squarely at the feet of Hermann Goering, who in February, 1940, long before France had been defeated, decreed that the development of jet engines be stopped because the war would be over by 1940-1941, and such engines would be of no use. His words had immediate effect; in 1940 only about 35 engineers were actively engaged in creating jet engines. The first large order for jet engines (80) did not occur until 1942. Unfortunately for the Luftwaffe, it apparently possessed no great courageous leaders such as the USAAF’s Ben Kelsey, Cass Hough, F.O. Carroll or Pete Warden, officers who were wiling to defy instructions and do what they knew to be correct for their service.

Hitler was responsible for much that was evil—the war, the Holocaust, millions of deaths—but he was not responsible for the failure of the Me 262 to alter the course of World War II. His big mistake was not in making the Me 262 a fighter bomber—but for selecting the corrupt dilettante Hermann Goering to lead his Luftwaffe.

SIDEBAR I: “NEW PRODUCTION ME 262S”
The late Steve Snyder, pilot, businessman, and founder of the Victory Air Museum, was the driving force behind bringing the Messerschmitt Me 262 back into flight. Snyder was determined to have an exact replica of the Me 262 produced, changing only those elements that compromised safety. He formed Classic Fighter Industries and entered into a two-year negotiation with the United States Navy to obtain the use of a Messerschmitt Me 262 B-1a two-seat aircraft located at the Willow Grove NAS, Pennsylvania. The aircraft had been outside for years and was badly deteriorated. Snyder offered to restore the aircraft and return to the Navy if he could use it as a pattern from which parts could be duplicated for new production aircraft. Snyder contracted with Herb Tischler’s Texas Aircraft Factory in Fort Worth Texas to undertake the project. Tischler had previously restored three Grumman F3F and one G-32 biplanes with complete authenticity. Construction began in 1993, but a variety of problems ensued and the effort was ultimately transferred to a new firm in Seattle in 1999. Sadly, Snyder was killed on June 19 of that year in a crash of his North American F-86 Sabre.

The new firm Legend Flyers, was headed by Robert “Bob” Hammer, a veteran engineer from Boeing, and creator of the home-built jet “Zipper” also holds the U.S. patent for the wing of the B-2. Hammer had a staff of about twenty experts, some paid and some volunteer, and they directed their effort to getting the first two examples of the remanufactured 262 into the air. The reproduced aircraft are very authentic. The most important variation is the use of reliable General Electric GE85 engines in place of the Junkers Jumo 004Bs. Other improvements include better brakes, strengthened landing gear components and similar safety measure. The first ME-262 reproduction (a two-seater) took off for the first time in December 2002 while the second flew in August 2005.

SIDEBAR:2 THE COMPETITOR

Messerschmitt arch rival, the Ernst Heinkel Aircraft Company, used its own resources to develop both jet engines and a prototype fighter, the He 280, designed by a team led by Dr. Heinrich Hertl and Karl Schwaerzler. It was awarded a contract for its development in March, 1940, as a back-up to the Me 262. Although incorporating some advanced ideas, such as an ejection seat and a tricycle landing gear, the He 280 encountered problems with the engines designed by Dr. von Ohain. It made its first powered flight on April 2, 1941, but neither Udet nor Milch were enthusiastic about the radical nature of a jet fighter. Nonetheless, test results were encouraging and the aircraft demonstrated its combat potential in a convincing “dog-fight” with a Focke Wulf Fw 190. Early in 1943 a contract was let for 300 He 280B-1 fighter bombers, powered by the Junkers Jumo 004 engines, and capable of a top speed of 547 mph. Heinkel’s manufacturing capacity was already overwhelmed, and a decision was made to have the Seibel firm build the He 280B under contract. However, with the characteristic quick-flip-flop Luftwaffe management of the time, the He 280 program was officially cancelled on March 27, 1943. There were several reasons. These include Heinkel’s other production commitments, the Me 262’s superior range and the fact that both aircraft required the scarce Junkers Jumo 004 engine. Heinkel would re-enter the jet fighter field with the notorious He 162 “Volksjäeger” in the fall of 1944.

On the Prowl

The famous “Big Week” portion of Operation ARGUMENT was a perfect storm of air power, thrusting the Luftwaffe into an irreversible decline and making the June 6, 1944 invasion of Europe possible. The sharp end of ARGUMENT’s spear was the heroic men who manned the bombers and fighters which relentlessly pounded Germany during that now fabled week in February. But behind them was a fascinating array of upended doctrine, logistics mastery, courageous decision making, and unprecedented supremacy in intelligence gathering.

Oddly enough the most important consequences of Big Week were not understood by Allied commanders until many months after the war had ended, when newly gathered information on the German effort was analyzed. Those consequences revealed the vast differences in the German and American perceptions of the scale on which air warfare should be conducted, and lay bare the superiority of USAAF leadership over that of the Luftwaffe.

Three elements of the USAAF leadership deserve special notice. The first was the brilliance of the men behind Air War Planning Document-1 (AWPD-1), the planning effort which so correctly estimated the size of the USAAF—and its losses. They did their important work in a few days, based on their long experience. The second was the massive USAAF effort to catch up on logistic requirements, which had been largely overlooked. It was achieved over a much longer period time, and its ultimate success was in large part due to Major General Hugh Knerr. The third was the flexibility of USAAF leadership. When it recognized its offensive doctrine was wrong, it reversed course and executed new methods efficiently.

Big Week: Buildup and Execution

The Casablanca Conference of January 1943 was studded with divisive issues. The United States wanted an early invasion of Europe, while Great Britain preferred to peck at the periphery of Hitler’s extended empire. The Brits prevailed, and it was decided that the victory in North Africa would be followed by campaigns in Sicily and Italy. The invasion of France—Operation OVERLORD–was to be delayed to the spring of 1944—if then.

The British leaders were also dubious about daylight bombing, their own efforts in that sphere having been defeated by the Luftwaffe in the early months of the war. Major General Ira C. Eaker saved the day for the USAAF doctrine of daylight precision bombing. An accomplished speaker, he sold Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill on the Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO) with a powerful phrase: “bombing around the clock.”

Given the code name POINTBLANK, but also known as “the Eaker plan,” the CBO was intended to progressively destroy the German military industrial and economic system, undermining the will of the German people to resist. The USAAF was to strike precision targets by day, while the RAF continued its night area bombing campaign. POINTBLANK was planned for four phases, each of three months, culminating in the spring of 1944.

As time passed, requirements for the land campaigns diverted resources from the Eighth Air Force effort, causing dissatisfaction with the Eaker plan and concern about its ultimate results. A more refined strategy, code name ARGUMENT, was developed, focusing on a series of coordinated attacks by the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces against the highest priority German targets in central and southern Germany. These were factories producing aircraft, aircraft components and anti-friction bearings.

The planned combined operations were complicated by an awkward air command structure. The generally disliked Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was named air commander in chief of the Allied Air Expeditionary Force (AEAF). As things worked out, the RAF continued to prosecute its night area bombing campaign under Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, whose goal was to “dehouse” Germany and win the war without an invasion. In the meantime, the American air forces slowly built up strength.

During 1943, the USAAF, new to combat, overestimated the damage caused by its raids and underestimated the resourcefulness of the Germans in restoring damaged factories to production. And despite increasingly hard evidence to the contrary, it persisted in its belief that heavily armed bomber formations could successfully fight their way to the targets without fighter escort. The loss of a total of 120 aircraft on the 17 August and 14 October 1943 raids on Schweinfurt and Regensburg finally disproved the theory. The Luftwaffe convincingly demonstrated that it could still exercise local air superiority when out of the range of Allied fighters. The situation demanded that long range escort fighters be provided.

By the end of 1943, General Henry H. Arnold was distinctly dissatisfied with the work of his air forces in Europe. He felt that the huge resources devoted to them had not yielded commensurate results. Arnold was famous for his pointed if not always grammatical instructions, and on 27 December 1943 he clarified things for Lieutenant General Eaker, Eighth Air Force Commander, and Major General James H. Doolittle, newly appointed commander of Fifteenth Air Force. After assuring them that they now had adequate means at their disposal, he wrote “Therefore, my personal message to you—this is a MUST—is to Destroy the Enemy Air Force wherever you find them, in the air, on the ground and in the factories.”

Arnold’s assurance that the two generals had adequate means at their disposal was not entirely accurate. The Eighth Air Force was just beginning to have adequate numbers, maintenance depots and replacement crews and aircraft. The Fifteenth Air Force was in the process of building up, but was in no way yet comparable to the Eighth. And the essential element to achieving Arnold’s directive, the North American P-51 long-range escort fighter, was just entering service in Europe.

Yet the pressure was on. Planning efforts were hampered in part by Leigh-Mallory, one of the few air commanders who did not believe that air superiority was essential to the invasion. Leigh-Mallory’s baleful influence on organizational matters was mitigated in January 1944 when Lieutenant General Carl “Tooey” Spaatz was named Commander, United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe (USSTAF). Spaatz (who, Jimmy Doolittle said, “never made a bad decision”) selected an able organizer, Major General Frederick Anderson as deputy.

There were other personnel changes as well. Soon to be Lieutenant General Doolittle succeeded Eaker as Commander, Eighth Air Force. Eaker bitterly protested the move, for it came when he, for the first time, possessed the means to carry out his mission. Nonetheless he accepted his assignment as Commander in Chief, Mediterranean Air Forces in soldierly fashion. Lieutenant General Nathan F. Twining became commander of Fifteenth Air Force. (Twining, who began his service life as an Army private, was en route to four stars and becoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.)

It is worth noting that all through the war, American leaders were far more rigorous in their treatment of commanders than were either the British or the Germans. Arnold had extremely strong personal ties to Eaker, but when he lost confidence in him, he unhesitatingly removed him.

In 1944, the weather was bad over Europe during January and early February so that USAAF bombing was conducted primarily by radar. The delays permitted both the Allies and the Germans to build their forces to their respective peaks, and in doing so emphasize the vast difference in their basic philosophies.

Mounting frustration at the highest USAAF command levels led to the issuance on 13 February of a new definition for the CBO, emphasizing the immediate importance of defeating the Luftwaffe by striking the highest priority targets. The RAF’s Bomber Command was ordered to area-bomb cities harboring these targets, but in the event, much of the British effort was directed at installations being prepared for the V-1 flying bomb.

Big Week began with a Big Gamble on February 20, when weather forecasts were so bad that the “master of the calculated risk” Jimmy Doolittle advised against launching. He and other commanders were concerned about losses that might be incurred by icing and collisions as thousands of aircraft made their long climb through the overcast. Yet Spaatz, backed as always by Anderson, did not waver. He gave the order to go.

Things began amazingly well. The Eighth Air Force dispatched 1003 bombers and 835 fighters and the RAF provided sixteen fighter squadrons for escort duties. A total of 2,218 tons of bombs were dropped on thirteen designated targets and 145 targets of opportunity. Against Anderson’s doleful fears that 200 bombers might be lost, only 21 were shot down, along with four fighters. The bombing results were good, with heavy damage meted out to factories in the Leipzig (which had been heavily bombed by the RAF the previous night), Bernberg and Brunswick areas.

Three men were awarded the Medal of Honor for this mission. One went to a badly wounded pilot, 1/Lt. William Lawley, who managed to bring his damaged B-17 back to Great Britain, saving seven wounded crew members. Two others were awarded posthumously to Sergeant Archie Mathies, a ball turret gunner and navigator Lt. Walter Truemper. On their second mission, the two men made a gallant attempt to save the life of wounded crew members by flying their B-17 back when their pilots were killed or disabled. Sadly, they were killed in an attempted landing.

During Big Week, the able Allied intelligence system gathered information which validated USAAF tactics and gave insight into just how much the attacks were diminishing the Luftwaffe.

On 21 February, 861 bombers and 679 fighters were launched, but the results were far less satisfactory, largely due to unexpected cloud cover. On 22 February, the Eighth attacked with 799 bombers. For a wide variety of reasons only 255 missions were credited as successful sorties. Two Bombardment Divisions were recalled, the 1st due to multiple collisions during the climb, the 3rd because of it inability to establish a coherent formation on the way to the target. Forty-four heavy bombers of the Eighth Air Force were shot down, more than 17 percent of the effective force. The Fifteenth Air Force lost 14, bringing the days’ total to 58—perilously close to October 14th’s 60 losses.

The Luftwaffe responded to the massive pressure being applied. It drew fighters from the vast Eastern front for the defense of the Reich. Old tactics were polished and new methods employed including attacking formations on their way in, rather than attempting to down them over the target and on the return trip. Many Luftwaffe units flew multiple missions, landing and rearming away from their home base.

The next day weather brought a stand-down that was welcomed by air crews of both forces. But on 24 February, important targets were selected at Rostock, Schweinfurt, Gotha and Eisenach. These were the primary factories producing the Messerschmitt Bf 110, Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and anti-friction-bearings. Attrition and wear-and-tear brought the total number of Eighth Air Force bombers down to 505, and of these 451 made successful sorties. Losses were heavy again, with 44 bombers, 33 of which were B-24s, being lost. The Fifteenth Air Force lost 17 bombers in its attack against Steyr.

The bombing was good at Schweinfurt but it was less productive than the previous 14 October raid for as the Germans had already begun their dispersal program. Schweinfurt, like many German facilities, was no longer so rich a target as it had been, but its defenders still extracted a high toll for the attack.

On 25 February the Allies got a break, with good weather forecast for almost every worthy target in Germany and occupied Europe. Once again Messerschmitt plants were the primary targets, with the Eighth Air Force attacking Regensburg, Augsburg, Stuttgart and Furth. The Fifteenth was assigned targets at Regensburg-Prüefening.

The weary Luftwaffe mustered its primary strength against the Fifteenth, and shot down 33 heavy bombers of the 176 dispatched. The Eighth, which dispatched 738 successful sorties, lost 31 bombers.

Although the bombing was accurate, the enemy aircraft factories had also begun dispersing. The Germans were surprised at the hardiness of machine tools in the face of high explosive attacks (fires from incendiary bombs did far more damage). They found that even comparatively sophisticated equipment could be moved to primitive facilities and have their productive capability restored in relatively short order.

In sum (and the figures vary from source to source) the Eighth Air Force launched 3,300 heavy bombers while the Fifteenth launched 500. The Eighth and Ninth Air Forces put up 3,500 fighter sorties. Almost 10,000 tons of bombs were dropped at a cost of 247 heavy bombers (including those damaged beyond repair) and 28 fighters. RAF’s Bomber Command dropped 9,198 tons of bombs in 2,351 sorties, and lost 157 bombers. Claims were made for 600 enemy fighters, well over the actual totals, but none-the-less a severe blow to the Luftwaffe.

Allied leaders were satisfied with the number of German aircraft believed to have been shot down or destroyed on the ground on airfields and in factories. Nor was the satisfaction diluted by the continued lack of coordination between Bomber Command and Eighth Air Force, and the fact that many missions went awry. Yet the fight with the German Air Force continued until the end of the war. The Luftwaffe became ever smaller and less capable, but never harmless.

The immediate effects of Big Week were important, for they reduced the number of aircraft and crews available to the Luftwaffe. Yet the two most important effects of the heroic operation came later. The first was the aircraft production lost because the German high command subsequently formalized and accelerated the requirement for aircraft factories to decentralize. Where Big Week caused an estimated two month loss in production, the decentralization caused a four month loss. And even more important, the extensive decentralization of production made all German transportation arteries—roads, rail, canals, even bike-paths—profitable targets for the far ranging fighter bombers. In this ironic denouement, and contrary to USAAF doctrine, it was the fighters and not the bombers that finally brought German production to its knees and rendered it ineffective.

A Look Back at Big Week

The advent of Big Week found the Luftwaffe at the peak of its strength in many ways. Its flak force had grown in numbers and capability, as had Luftwaffe fighters, recalled from the Eastern front. Luftwaffe units were well led by veterans, and up to this point, green pilots were still being given training when they reached operational units. The ratio of experienced leaders to new comers was still large enough to allow the Luftwaffe to inflict severe casualties. It is a tribute to the courage and skill of its crews that despite the enormous losses incurred during Big Week, the Luftwaffe still retained the vitality to defeat the Bomber Command’s night offensives in the spring of 1944.

But there was one basic truth that Luftwaffe courage and skill could not overcome: it was too small to deal with air warfare on the scale that the United States now planned to wage. German planners had been myopic, somehow willing to begin the Second World War with an air force that was numerically about half the size of the one it possessed at the end of the First World War.

In democratic United States, when President Roosevelt called for 50,000 aircraft per year, the aviation industry responded eagerly to the call. In autocratic Germany, when Adolf Hitler called upon the aviation industry to produce 50,000 aircraft a year, he was simply ignored. Even more damaging, the Luftwaffe was often given priorities behind those of the Army and the Navy.

In contrast, in the United States, a small group of brilliant men produced AWPD-1 in September 1941. Despite its calling for enormous forces, it was immediately—almost routinely–accepted. Just four men, all bomber advocates, distilled their years of Air Corps Tactical School training into AWPD-1. They boldly stated that the USAAF would require 251 combat groups, 105,647 aircraft and 2,164,916 airmen to win the war—and their prediction was uncannily accurate. Field grade at the time, they all became flag officers, and one was awarded the MOH. They were General Harold L. George, Major General Haywood “Possum” Hansel, Jr., General Lawrence S. Kuter and Brigadier General Kenneth N. Walker (posthumous MOH). The nation owes them much.

Unfortunately, logistics had been given insufficient emphasis, and for many months the goal of producing entire aircraft had priority over production of adequate spare parts. Many officers struggled to rectify the situation, but one who deserves special mention is Major General Hugh Knerr, whom Major Jon M. Sutterfield has called “the single greatest influence on the capabililties and effectiveness of USAAF logistics.”

Knerr stepped on more toes in his turbulent career than even Billy Mitchell. But maverick though he was, Knerr knew his logistics and enabled the Eighth Air Force to build the vital supply systems, maintenance depots and statistically valid reporting systems. He greatly enabled Big Week and the subsequent vastly expanded bombing operations of 1944 and 1945 to succeed. Never known as a diplomat by his flyer colleagues, Knerr nonetheless worked successfully with the U.S. Army, Navy, and the British military to sharpen the Eighth Air Force’s aerial spear.

In vivid contrast, there was a total failure by German leadership to understand the quantities of aircraft and equipment that air warfare required. This began with the Füehrer Adolf Hitler and extended through Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering and 44 year old Colonel General Hans Jeschonnek, Luftwaffe Chief of Staff. Jeschonnek exemplified the arrogance and naiveté of upper-level Luftwaffe leadership in 1942, when he cheerfully remarked that he would not know what to do with a production of more than 300 fighters per month.

The Luftwaffe was further handicapped by Goering’s choice of World War I ace Ernst Udet to be the Luftwaffe’s Generalluftzeugmeister, in charge of production and development. Beset by drugs, alcoholism and failure, Udet committed suicide on November 17, 1941 after making one incredibly bad decision after another. (Jeschonnek committed suicide on August 19, 1943, Hitler on April 30, 1945 and Goering on October 15, 1946.)

On the Luftwaffe’s plus side, the very capable Field Marshal Ernst Milch fought vainly to restore order in both production and maintenance, and to a lesser degree, logistics. Had he been in Goering’s place, Milch could have made the war much more difficult to win.

Germany entered the war in 1939 with just under 3,000 first-line aircraft, and maintained a remarkably low rate of production through 1942. Under Milch’s leadership, and later fostered by the ability of Albert Speer’s deputy, Karl-Otto Sauer, to muster the incredible energy and ability of German industry, production began to rise despite a corresponding rise in Allied bombing efforts. German production peaked at just over 40,000 aircraft in 1944 when there were no longer the pilots or the fuel to use them effectively.

The return of bad weather ended Big Week and forced Spaatz to order radar bombing attacks, including the first American daylight assaults on Berlin. The Germans were still able to react fiercely in the defense of their capital, and inflicted heavy losses, destroying 69 Eighth Air Force bombers on March 6, and another 37 on March 8. But again they did it at cost they could no longer afford.

The Luftwaffe was now worn down by the battle of attrition. Beset by losses, training difficulties and fuel shortages, it was no longer able to contest the Eighth Air Force incursions as it had done in 1943. The German air force was still able to husband its dwindling forces and make occasional savage attacks. It still managed to introduce a series of new weapons. But the Luftwaffe had lost the war in the planning stage. Its provincial leaders, almost none of whom had the breadth of vision of their USAAF opponents, completely miscalculated the quantity and quality of the forces required for successful air warfare. Big Week proved this when at last the fully developed Luftwaffe came into combat with the fully developed USAAF.

Take a look at the following URL which is just a sample of Fred Johnsen’s work. An old friend, Fred has been a great museum director, writer, publisher, collector, film producer, vidoe maker, you name it, he has done it. Make note of his web-site, shown clearing on this URL, and watch a side slip that pushed beyond the envelope of flying skill.

The Enterprise hitches a ride to the Big Apple

The following was written by my old friend, Leo Schefer.

Shed a Tear for the Enterprise

Its 1985 Arrival Stimulated Creation of the NASM Hazy Center
As the Space Shuttle Discovery arrives on April 17th, shed a tear for the Enterprise it will replace. Without the Enterprise, there might never have been an Udvar-Hazy Center at Washington Dulles to provide a perpetual home for the Discovery. This is the story of how Washington Dulles became home to the Enterprise.

In the early 1980s, the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) on the Mall was only able to display less than 10% of the nation’s air and space collection. Walter Boyne, then the Director, had encouraged aviation enthusiasts in the Nation’s Capital to form a support group to work for the museum’s expansion at Washington Dulles. The group was a collaboration between the Aero Club of Washington, the National Aviation Club, and the fledgling Washington Airports Task Force, and was called the Air and Space Heritage Council. The group’s initial work focused upon a change in the Smithsonian’s priorities to allow the NASM expansion, upon congressional legislation to authorize the expansion, and upon funding the expansion. British Aerospace, now BAe Systems, and Delta Airlines nobly contributed staff time.

Then in March 1985, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) offered NASM the Enterprise, which had become surplus to the space agency’s requirements. The Enterprise was the shuttle prototype used for atmospheric flight testing. It was not equipped for space, and was thus no longer needed by NASA.
The NASA letter was a formality, as the NASM had first refusal on all of the space agency’s surplus equipment. The NASM had nowhere to put the Enterprise, and NASA’s Cape Kennedy team preferred to keep the vehicle in their own space park. The Air and Space Heritage Council urged Boyne to accept the NASA offer, which he did.
Boyne’s acceptance of the Enterprise crystallized a practical focus on the NASM expansion. Twelve sites were available in Dulles Airport’s buffer zone. Sid Dewberry donated his company’s expertise, and the site the Hazy Center now occupies was selected that July. The Dewberry team went on to conceptually design and cost an initial shuttle hangar for the new museum. The Dewberry design was never built, but it bears a strong resemblance to the space hall of the existing Hazy Center.

Where there’s a space shuttle, there’s a visitor stream and concession revenues, which could be used to retire a bond issue to fund the Dewberry proposal. Fairfax County’s EDA was willing to float the bond issue, and Crestar bank, now SunTrust, was willing to underwrite the issue.

The task of bringing the Enterprise from Florida to Washington became the key priority. The Aero Club decided to hold the 1985 Wright Memorial Dinner in the only hangar then existing on Dulles Airport, as this would provide a fitting venue for an Enterprise handover ceremony and salute to the Wright Brothers. Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush was invited to officially hand the Enterprise over to the NASM. He accepted, and the elements seemed to be coming together to launch the NASM’s expansion at Washington Dulles.

Then, in October, disaster struck. Congressman Sidney Yates chaired the Smithsonian’s Appropriations Committee in the House. Yates’ priority was art museums, and he didn’t want an expansion of the NASM – at that time the
Smithsonian’s newest museum – to override art priorities. Yates called Smithsonian Secretary Robert McCormick Adams, who promptly called NASA and cancelled the Enterprise’s trip to Washington.

As chair of the Air and Space Heritage Council at the time, I called NASA Administrator Jim Beggs, a keen supporter of the project, but he was in launch control for the next space shuttle mission and could not be disturbed. His deputy stonewalled and the conversation went round and round for about an hour, until finally, in desperation, I thought to ask: “What am I to tell the Vice President?” I had arrived in the United States 186 years late and still had a pronounced English accent. The irritated voice on the phone said: “Whose Vice President?” “The Vice President of the United States,” I replied, “and Senators Garn, Glenn, Goldwater, and Warner.” All were strong supporters of the expansion.“Oh,” said the NASA voice, no longer sarcastic. “I’ll call you back.”

Tom Morr, then President of the Washington Airports Task Force, realized that NASA would now call the Senators, and he promptly alerted their staffs. About two hours later, NASA called back to say, “We’re bringing it up.” Delivery was set for November 17. Who should it be consigned to, NASA asked? Surprised that even a space shuttle required an individual recipient, I suggested they consign it to Keith Meurlin, the then Operations Manager at Washington Dulles, and this NASA did.

The Congress and the Administration now had one of their hissy fits over the budget. As we approached the end of their fiscal year (October 31), NASA had been provided with no continuing resolution. NASA hadn’t been forbidden to work without pay, and the Kennedy delivery team nobly continued with their work and paid their travel expenses with their personal credit cards. The late Victor Trapasso, the owner of a new hotel on the edge of Dulles provided reduced cost accommodation, and Bill Hazel donated a plethora of ancillary equipment, from small supporting cranes to Xerox machines, to help the 70-man NASA team unload the shuttle from its carrier aircraft. On the North American continent, there were only three mobile cranes capable of lifting the shuttle off its 747 carrier aircraft. The nearest were in New Orleans and Montreal. David Gehr, then the head of VDOT in Northern Virginia and later its Commissioner, had to be tracked down one Saturday morning to help the NASA team figure out how to get the giant crane from the rail head at Gainesville to Dulles Airport. At that time, Route 28 was still only a two-lane country road.

The carrier aircraft’s schedule needed to make the Dulles delivery was now tight, and another worry emerged. NASA only had one shuttle carrier aircraft. Unloading at a remote location had not been done before. Any ding by a crane to the carrier aircraft, let alone an incident, would temporarily ground the shuttle program.

The Enterprise duly arrived in the twilight of November 17th, the carrier aircraft was parked on the run-up block for Runway 30, and the unloading began the next day, watched by interested members of the public. Life was simpler in those days. The Enterprise was unloaded without incident in glorious fall sunshine, and was duly handed over by Vice President Bush at that year’s Wright Memorial Dinner. The shuttle was parked outside the hangar, a 50-year old DC-3 was behind the head table, and approximately 2,200 people attended the black tie event.

The Smithsonian was offered a Space Hangar, fully funded to house and display the Enterprise as the first stage of a major NASM expansion at Dulles. The offer was not accepted. It took another decade of persistent, hard slog by air, space and education leaders in the private sector and in government before real progress was made on the creation of what is now the Udvar-Hazy Center. But the delivery of the Enterprise created a strategic presence that ultimately ensured the museum’s expansion and its location at Washington Dulles. So, hats off to the Enterprise as it moves on to a new welcome at The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum on the west side of Manhattan.

Leo J. Schefer
April 16, 2012
(703) 572-8714

I Could Never Be So Lucky Again: An Autobiography of James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle with Carroll V. Glines

This is one of those extremely rare literary pairings where the top man in a field collaborates on his autobiography with a top writer who knows the subject. “Jimmy” Doolittle is regarded by everyone as a seminal figure in aviation, a record-setting recipient of the Medal of Honor and a leader in science. “Cee Vee” Glines is unquestionably one of the top aviation writers, and has specialized in brilliant biographies. A USAF Command Pilot, Glines doesn’t make any of the mistakes that a non-aviator might, no matter how excellent a writer—c.f. Tom Wolf’s “The Right Stuff.”

Jimmy Doolittle (date unknown)

One can immediately sense how closely the two men worked together, for the books reads exactly as if Jimmy Doolittle is talking to you. Doolittle is famous for his frank, friendly but succinct style, and the autobiography brings you the not the essence but the very being of a man whose extraordinary career spanned nine decades.

Doolittle is best known for leading the famous 18 April 1942 raid on Tokyo, and the book begins with the ultimate insider’s look at that fateful mission. No one knew it better nor could recount it as well as Doolittle. He presents the raid from start to finish, bailing out of a fuel-empty North American B-25 in the wilds of China. The general details of the mission are well known, but far from being the failure that Doolittle considered it at the time, the raid achieved much more than had been planned for it. President Roosevelt and Doolittle’s seniors had hoped that the sixteen-bomber strike would boost American morale at a time when all military news was catastrophic. The raid boosted morale enormously, but more important, the Japanese reacted to the loss of face with an ill-considered decision to attack Midway Island. This set them up for the defeat that reversed the course of the war.

Every decade of Doolittle’s long life was exciting and productive. The book paints a moving portrait of Doolittle’s humble hard-scrabble beginnings in Nome Alaska. There young Jimmy, a fighter from the age of five, proved that poverty, a relatively small stature, and no apparent advantages would not bar success, no matter what the odds. His combatant nature is revealed when, at age twelve, his father falsely accused him of lying. In his invariably laconic style, Doolittle writes simply “I didn’t lie then and I don’t lie now. I told him that when I was big enough, I was going to whip him.”

Doolittle had to whip many people, airplanes and events in his lifetime, and he did it always with the same deductive thought processes that made him, in Glines’ words, a “master of the calculated risk.” A boxing coach brought his flailing aggression under control and introduced him to the subtleties of anticipation, feinting and balance, all qualities he would use in aviation. A five foot, four inch bantam-weight he fought successfully as an amateur and a professional just before meeting his first love and acknowledged salvation—Josephine Daniels, his beloved “Joe.”. “Joe” became the keel and rudder of the ship of his career, and as Bob Hope’s wife Dolores said at a 1984 Criss Award ceremony: “He spent 45 years in the air. Joe Doolittle spent 45 years waiting for him to land…”

The true meaning of the book’s title becomes apparent as the incredible details of Doolittle’s life are recounted—a sometimes madcap Air Service flying, earning both masters and doctoral degrees in science at MIT, and his many racing triumphs. These included winning the Schneider Cup and both Bendix and Thompson Trophies, flying the hottest aircraft of the era. At any time, a single miscalculation could easily have ended in a crash, for it was Doolittle’s custom to push his aircraft to the limits, and when science demanded, beyond. Racing fans will revel in his approach to the then notorious Gee Bee R-1 as he says “…I didn’t trust this little monster. It was fast but flying it was like balancing a pencil or an ice cream cone on the tip of your finger” He decided that “it would be prudent to stay outside of the rest of them (the other racers) and climb before the pylons, dive before each turn, but remain outside.”

As thrilling the accounts of his legendary flying are, many people will find the autobiography’s most rewarding gift to be an understanding of the depth and breadth of Doolittle’s vision, scientific capacity and leadership qualities in peace and war. Only Glines’ experience as a pilot could enable him to convey so well the manifold achievements that Doolittle often glossed over.

The modern ability of pilots to fly safely on instruments in heavy weather and at night can be traced back directly to Doolittle’s work with cockpit instruments and “blind flying.” He himself said that “This work was, I believe, my most significant contribution to aviation.” Doolittle comments on his first true instrument flight on September 24, 1929 in his typical low-key manner. After a quick recital of being the first person to take off, fly a circuit and land while completely on instruments, he ends by saying “However, despite all my previous practice, the approach and landing were sloppy.” This is roughly like Alexander Fleming saying “I discovered penicillin, but my Petri dish had a smear on it.”

Although Doolittle violated military custom by leaving the service to serve in the reserves for a decade, he returned to it in 1940 with gusto. The Tokyo Raid was but the beginning of his contributions, for he rose to command the mighty 12th, 15th and 8th Air Forces. At the 8th he changed the course of the war by putting its fighters on the offensive, rather than just being bomber defenders, and in doing so broke the back of the Luftwaffe.

This is a marvelous book that improves with each re-reading because it is so content laden. Glines was the perfect person to write the book with the author, letting Doolittle be Doolittle, but making sure that incredible number of salient facts are presented. I urge a reader new to the book to scan the Career Summary on page 517. It will prime your pump for the staggering series of accomplishments that one of America’s greatest heroes achieved in both civil and military roles. He is, to my knowledge, the only man to be awarded both the Medal of Honor (for the Tokyo Raid) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom . No library should be without this book, and no writer should attempt either an autobiography or a biography without studying its style.

(Editor’s Note: For a completely different perspective on the raid, read “The Doolittle Raid’s Ringside Seats” presented by Defense Media Network.