Chapter 10
The entry of the United States into the war in December 1941 could not have been welcomed by many in Germany but it would be some time before the Americans would influence the air war over Europe. Along the Channel Front the pattern during the first half of 1942 was similar to the previous year as JG 2 and JG 26 continued to counter the RAF’s incursions across northern France. The two Jagdgeschwader had also taken part in the highly successful Operation Donnerkeil during February when the Jagdwaffe provided an umbrella of more than 250 FW 190s and Bf 109s above three of the German Navy’s principal warships – the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen – as they made their daring daylight dash up the Channel.
The FW 190A was now fully embedded in the west and it would be some time before the RAF’s latest mark of Spitfire, the Spitfire IX, would appear in sufficient numbers to counter its dominance along the front. The newer Bf 109G had also started to replace earlier variants of the Bf 109, with the Gustav combining the airframe of the Friedrich with the more powerful DB 605 engine, and a reinforced wing structure and improved armament to enable it to fulfil a greater variety of roles.
While the air war over the Channel Front had become somewhat predictable during the summer of 1942, the air activity suddenly intensified on 19 August when the two Geschwader were called upon to help counter the large-scale Allied amphibious raid on the harbour town of Dieppe as the RAF provided air cover above the beachhead.
Due to the close proximity of their airfields to the town, JG 26 was the first to react just after daybreak with nearly thirty 190s of the I. Gruppe, led by Johannes Seifert, scrambled from their base at St-Omer. Once the scale of the attack had become clear, more FW 190s of Gerhard Schöpfel’s JG 26 were called upon with the II. Gruppe, led by Wilhelm-Ferdinand ‘Wutz’ Galland, Kapitän of 5./JG 26 and younger brother of Adolf Galland, scrambled from Abbeville, while the III. Gruppe, led by Klaus Mietusch, was scrambled from Wevelghem near Courtrai.
By mid-morning it had become apparent that the amount of Allied air activity was greater than anything ever seen before and so the FW 190s of Walter Oesau’s JG 2, based further west in the Normandy and Cherbourg area, were also called into action. Like Schöpfel, Oesau had excellent Gruppenkommandeure. Leading the I. Gruppe from Tricqueville was Oberleutnant Erich Leie, with Hauptmann Helmut Bolz leading the II. Gruppe from Beaumont-le-Roger while the III. Gruppe, based at Maupertus, was led by Hauptmann Hans ‘Assi’ Hahn.
The air activity peaked in the late morning, with the German fighters countering Allied fighters and escorting bombers attacking the invading forces. During the course of the day the two Jagdgeschwader flew 800 missions between them and accounted for nearly a hundred Allied aircraft for the loss of nineteen fighters.
JG 2 was in the thick of the action over Dieppe with fifty-nine confirmed victories for the loss of fourteen of its own fighters. The 9. Staffel, in particular, had been at the centre of the fight, with its Kapitän, Ober leutnant Siegfried Schnell, shooting down five Spitfires during the day to bring his overall total to seventy, and Oberfeldwebel Josef Wurmheller claiming six Spitfires and a Blenheim. Wurmheller had achieved his success despite suffering from a broken leg, the unfortunate result of an earlier crash-landing, but he still managed to claim three victories during the morning and three more during the afternoon before his seventh victim of the day, a Spitfire over the harbour, came in the early evening. Wurmheller was immediately promoted to Leutnant and the following evening claimed two more Spitfires north of the Normandy coast to take his total past sixty, for which he was awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross.
Other successes over Dieppe included Oberleutnant Egon Mayer, Kapitän of 7./JG 2. The Spitfire he shot down during a late-morning encounter was his fiftieth success of the war. Others to score during the same action included Erich Leie, who claimed his forty-second victim of the war, a Spitfire just a mile to the north of Dieppe, and Leutnant Günther Seeger of the Stab who claimed two Spitfires just further to the north to add to a Spitfire he had claimed earlier that morning; Seeger’s total now stood at twenty-two. Other JG 2 successes that day included two Spitfires during the late afternoon for Leutnant Erich Rudorffer, to bring his total to forty-five, a Spitfire for Oberleutnant Kurt Bühligen, who would become a centurion, and two Spitfires for Leutnant Julius Meimberg, who would go on to achieve fifty-three victories.
JG 26 accounted for thirty-eight Allied aircraft over Dieppe for the loss of just five of its own fighters. The most successful was Oberleutnant Kurt Ebersberger of the II. Gruppe who claimed four Spitfires during the day to bring his total to twenty-eight. Amongst the many other claims from JG 26 were two Spitfires for the Kommodore, Gerhard Schöpfel, bringing his total to forty, and for the three Gruppenkommandeure there was a Spitfire each for Johannes Seifert and Wutz Galland, while Klaus Mietusch claimed two Spitfires during the late morning encounter. Oberleutnant Fulbert Zink of the I. Gruppe claimed three victories during the day to bring his total to twenty-six.
Other multiple scorers from the Geschwader included Oberleutnant Rolf Hermichen, Kapitän of 3./JG 26, who claimed two victories during the day to bring his total to seventeen, Oberfeldwebel Emil Babenz, who claimed three Spitfires taking his total to twenty-one, and Oberfeldwebel Wilhelm Philipp of the fourth Staffel who claimed two Spitfires; Philipp would eventually achieve eighty-one victories. Another who would later become a high scorer was Feldwebel Adolf Glunz, also of the 4. Staffel, who claimed a Spitfire during the late morning over Dieppe, his twenty-first victim of an eventual total of seventy-two.
While the FW190A and Bf 109G were both excellent fighters, other new aircraft types under development had disappointingly failed to materialize and, as 1942 drew to a close, there was a danger that Germany was starting to lose the technical edge. But as long as the Luftwaffe continued to enjoy a certain level of dominance over the Channel Front and Germany during the day, there was seemingly little for the High Command to worry about, for the time being at least, given that there was no Allied fighter over Europe considered to be superior to those of the Jagdwaffe.
Although the pattern of Bomber Command raids would continue at night, the air war over Germany was about to see a sudden and dramatic change by day. Many senior American commanders considered that night bombing lacked accuracy and had proved to be wasteful, and so decided that American bombers would take the air war to Germany by day. They felt that precision bombing, which at that stage of the war could only effectively be carried out in daylight, would make better use of American resources and so plans were drawn up to defeat the Luftwaffe in the air and on the ground, and to destroy Germany’s aviation industry to the point that it could no longer pose a threat to an Allied invasion of Europe.
When the American Eighth Air Force prepared to wage war against the Reich in January 1943, there was no American fighter (or British one for that matter) with sufficient range to escort the bombers all the way to their targets. There was also an air of arrogance amongst some American commanders that the defensive armament of the American bombers, such as the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-24 Liberator, was sufficient to prevent any great losses. Some even believed that no escort was required at all.
Seemingly the Luftwaffe’s High Command, including Göring and Jeschonnek, had little respect for the American air force and believed that heavy four-engine bombers could be shot down in large numbers. Jeschonnek would soon become better informed on the performance and potential of the American bombers, and would subsequently change his mind, but his views were not shared by Göring or Hitler. Jeschonnek faced a difficult problem, which was not helped by concerns within the Luftwaffe about the capabilities of its existing fighters compared to improvements being made to Allied fighters at the time.
The first large American raid was carried out on 27 January by a mixed force of B-17s and B-24s against the North Sea naval base at Wilhelmshaven. The combination of poor weather conditions, which hampered navigation, and an intercepting force of FW 190s off the Dutch coast meant that only half of the bomber force, all B-17s, made it to the target area where they encountered the Bf 109Gs of I./JG 1. The 109s carried out a conventional stern attack against the bomber formation but were met by heavy return fire from the B-17s.
This first encounter against such numbers of heavily armed American bombers resulted in only a handful of bombers being claimed for the loss of five Bf 109s. One of the bombers was claimed by Oberleutnant Hugo Frey of 2./JG 1 who would go on to become one of the highest scoring B-17 destroyers.
Over the following weeks there were further attempts by the American bombers but poor weather in the target areas hampered the raids, as did the FW 190s and Bf 109s of JG 1. One young pilot to gain early success against the Americans during these opening exchanges was 21-year-old Leutnant Heinz Knoke of 2./JG 1 who claimed his first American ‘heavy’, a B-24, on 26 February 1943.
Knoke achieved his success using a frontal attack and from slightly below the bomber. The initial head-on pass had damaged the bomber sufficiently to force it away from the relative safety of its formation and from then on he was able to mount further attacks from above and behind as the return fire from the bomber diminished. A fire broke out and then the wing broke away as the bomber entered its final lunge to earth, spiralling and spinning as it fell, before exploding and disintegrating shortly before it hit the ground. It was the young Knoke’s third kill of the war and his victim that day was the first B-24 shot down over German soil. Although it had been a victory it had proved hard work, as it would always be when coming up against large formations of heavy well-defended American bombers.
While poor weather conditions during the opening weeks of 1943 meant that the American bombing campaign against the Reich got off to a slow start, penetrations into Germany soon deepened and increased in numbers. Those bombers that survived the initial encounters over the North Sea then had to run the gauntlet of several Jagdgruppen as the large bomber formations made their way across Germany to their targets. Then, because their transit over Europe could take several hours, the American bomber crews had to face the German fighters again during their return as the Jagdgruppen had been able to land and refuel before rejoining the air battle once more.
Units equipped with the Bf 109Gs and FW 190As started to inflict heavy losses on the American bomber groups and on average one in seven American bombers carrying out daylight raids over Europe did not return; this figure would become nearly one in five during the coming months. While the Bf 109G offered less punch when it came to bringing a heavy bomber down, the very capable FW 190A-5 was already becoming the scourge of Allied bomber crews over Europe. Its engine was mounted slightly further forward than earlier variants, in an attempt to rectify problems of over-heating that had been experienced since the early days of production, and in addition to its 20 mm cannon, the MG 17 machine guns, which lacked the firepower needed when attacking large aircraft such as heavy bombers, had been replaced by two MG 131 13 mm machine guns.
The optimum range for the FW 190 pilot to open fire was within 400 yards of his target as the trajectory of the rounds would fall away if firing from beyond. Furthermore, the pilot had a limited number of rounds for his larger-calibre weapons and so it was vital that ammunition was not wasted. This meant sitting in a line-astern position and closing gradually on the target but when attacking a bomber the fighter was vulnerable and predictable, and so it was not uncommon for him to open fire too early. This was particularly the case when attacking a four-engine bomber with a large wing span, which made it difficult to assess the range to the target visually and because he would usually be under fire, not only from the bomber he was attacking but also from others within the tight bomber formation.
The Luftwaffe’s tactics were evolving all the time, some of them proving to be quite radical. For example, Heinz Knoke of 2./JG 1 and his colleague, Leutnant Dieter Gerhardt, developed the idea of aerial bombing a tight bomber formation using a time-fused 250 kg bomb dropped from 3,000 feet above the bombers to break up the formation. Knoke used this novel tactic for the first time on 22 March 1943 against a formation of B-17s. With the additional weight of the bomb under his fuselage, it took Knoke more than twenty minutes to climb to the height of the bombers at 30,000 feet and by the time he had reached sufficient altitude for his attack, the B-17s had already bombed their target of Wilhelmshaven and were now heading for home. The technique used by Knoke required him to sit above the formation, even though he was under continuous fire from the bombers, while he lined up his attack. He edged forward until he was above the lead bomber, having to dip his wing periodically to align himself accurately above the B-17. Then, having fused the bomb, Knoke released it and climbed away looking over his shoulder to see the impact.
The bomb detonated in exactly the right spot amongst three B-17s, tearing off the wing of one and causing damage to two more. The B-17 he brought down crashed into the sea west of Heligoland killing its crew and Knoke became the first fighter pilot known to have brought down an enemy aircraft with a bomb. He rightly received plaudits from the hierarchy and his new tactic reverberated around the American crews. However, this tactic was short-lived as the carriage of a 250 kg bomb reduced the high-altitude performance of the 109 and the technique required to deliver the weapon meant that the fighter was always vulnerable to attack. But Knoke was a great tactician and knew how to get the best out of the 109. He would finally be credited with thirty-three victories, earning him the Knight’s Cross days before the end of the war.
At the beginning of April 1943, JG 1’s four Gruppen were split into two pairs and a new third Gruppe was added to each pair to form two separate Geschwader. From this came the new JG 11 under the command of Major Anton Mader with responsibility for the protection of Germany’s North Sea coastline while JG 1, now commanded by Oberstleutnant Hans Philipp, was responsible for protecting the more westerly approaches to the Reich over Holland.
The Luftwaffe had managed to maintain its fighter strength in France at around 200 FW 190s and fifty Bf109s but the increase in Allied air power in north-west Europe led to Hitler ordering the numbers of fighter units allocated for the defence of the Reich (called Reichsverteidigung) to be increased. Jagdgruppen were recalled from other theatres as five Gruppen were deployed along the continental coastlines of the English Channel and the North Sea, the main approach routes for the American heavy bombers. Two of the Gruppen were allocated to Luftflotte 3 and became responsible for defending the outer airspace of north-west Europe, while the other three were allocated to Luftwaffenbefehlshaber Mitte (later to become Luftflotte Reich) for the defence of Germany. This increased the total number of Bf 109s available for defending Germany to nearly 200: I./JG 3 at Mönchengladbach led by Major Klaus Quaet-Faslem; I./JG 11 at Jever under Hauptmann Günther Specht; and III./JG 54 at Oldenburg under Hauptmann Siegfried Schnell.
Two specialist units were also formed to counter the increasing number of high-level reconnaissance sorties over Germany, usually flown by RAF Mosquitoes. These were Jagdgruppe 25 (JGr 25) at Berlin under the command of Herbert Ihlefeld and Jagdgruppe 50 (JGr 50) at Wiesbaden led by Hermann Graf. These were elite units, equipped with pressurized Bf 109G-5s and with some of the finest pilots. Their aircraft were amongst the first to be fitted with WGr 21 air-to-air rocket launchers mounted in a tube under the wing and designed to bring down heavy bombers. The idea was for the weapon to be fired at a large formation in the hope that it would achieve a direct hit or at least cause enough devastation to break up the bomber formation. While it was a good theory the reality was the tubes caused drag and reduced the fighter’s performance and so very few units used the weapon when flying against escorted bomber formations.
Other variations of the Bf 109G included the G-6 Kanonenboote, designed as a bomber-killer, which had the option of being armed with two 20 mm cannon in underwing gondolas. Units operating this sub-variant included III./JG 3 led by Walther Dahl, which was tasked as one of the anti-bomber Jagdgruppen. The unit commenced its work-up during June 1943 and although the build-up would, at times, be frustratingly slow, the concept proved worthwhile and it was not long before the Gruppe was achieving some success.
JG 3 was fortunate to have some notable pilots. These included many veterans of the Eastern Front such as Wilhelm Lemke of 9./JG 3 with more than a hundred victories, Hans-Joachim Kirschner, the long-serving Staffelkapitän of 5./JG 3 and holder of the Oak Leaves with more than 150 victories, and Hans Schleef of 7./JG 3 with more than ninety.
Not all of the greatest tactical leaders were high scorers. An example was Major Günther Specht, Kommandeur of II./JG 11, who was considered to be amongst the finest fighter commanders, although he was only credited with a modest thirty-four victories during the war. Specht led his Gruppe on every mission and after each one would write a detailed and analytical report. His unit quickly gained a reputation as one of the finest Jagdgruppen and Specht was soon leading combined formations against the American heavies, although he had become increasingly critical of the relatively weak armament of the Bf 109.
The intensity of the bombing campaign increased at the end of July 1943 when the Allies launched Operation Gomorrah, known to the Americans as ‘Blitz Week’, a six-day continual bombing campaign by day and night against key targets in the Reich, particularly Hamburg which was devastated after a series of night raids by the RAF’s Bomber Command. The Jagdwaffe enjoyed much success during the days of the Allied offensive but there were also losses, such as Major Karl-Heinz Leesmann, Kommandeur of III./JG 1 and holder of the Knight’s Cross with thirty-three victories, who was lost on 25 July over the North Sea having been shot down by the B-17 he was attacking.
The US Ninth Air Force joined the European air war at the beginning of August 1943, operating from bases in North Africa, but often suffered losses inflicted by I./JG 4 and IV./JG 27 operating out of Romania and Greece. There then followed a series of shuttle raids carried out by American bombers operating from bases in England and then landing at Allied bases in North Africa.
The tactics employed by the American formations at times bordered on futile and this period marked the Jagdwaffe’s finest hour in northwest Europe. Three raids in particular led to heavy losses for the American bomber crews. The Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission on 17 August, the deepest penetration yet by the Americans, resulted in sixty B-17s lost plus more than 170 aircraft damaged, of which four were later scrapped (approximately 20 per cent of the attacking force). This was followed by a disastrous attempt against Stuttgart on 6 September that resulted in forty-five B-17s failing to return, ten of which fell to the fighters of the Kanonenboote-equipped III./JG 3. A further attempt against the ball bearing factory at Schweinfurt on 14 October, known as ‘Mission 115’, resulted in the loss of another sixty B-17s and nearly 140 aircraft damaged, with seven of those scrapped (a total loss of approximately 29 per cent of the attacking force).
The Luftwaffe was now enjoying some of its finest moments, so much so that the Americans temporarily suspended daylight deep-penetration missions until the bombers could be provided with some suitable fighter cover. Amongst the most successful Jagdgeschwader was JG 27 led by Oberstleutnant Gustav Rödel, but the wide dispersal of his four Gruppen gives an indication of the problems faced by a Geschwaderkommodore during early 1943; I./JG 27 had returned from North Africa and was assigned to Luftflotte 3 in northern France, II./JG 27 was based in Sicily and Italy to protect the supply convoys, III./JG 27 had remained in Crete and the Greek islands and IV./JG 27 had been formed in Greece to protect the Romanian oilfields at Ploesti.
While command and communications proved an occasional problem for a Kommodore such as Rödel, most things had been going the way of the Jagdwaffe so it came as something of a shock during September when the Bf 109Gs of Anton Mader’s JG 11 encountered more than a hundred P-47 Thunderbolts fitted with drop tanks over Germany’s North Sea coastline. The JG 11 pilots initially believed the fighters were friendly FW 190s; it was only when their 109s came under attack that it became clear what was going on.
More than twice the weight of many of its contemporaries, the P-47 Thunderbolt was the largest and heaviest single-engine, single-seat propeller-driven fighter aircraft ever built.34 The addition of belly tanks and wing tanks meant that the P-47 was able to fly deeper into occupied Europe, with fighter escort missions lasting more than five hours. While the appearance of American fighters over Germany was not entirely unexpected, German intelligence reports stating that P-47s had been brought down as far to the east as Aachen had been largely ignored. Göring believed such cases to be insignificant and that American fighters could only have reached so far by being shot down or damaged at height, and the aircraft then having glided eastwards where they eventually crashed.
The Jagdflieger quickly learned how best to deal with the escorting fighters. Once they had located an American formation coasting in over Europe they would often shadow the bombers from a safe distance until the escorting fighters had reached the limit of their range and turned for home. The waiting pack of Jagdgruppen would then strike at what was now an unescorted bomber formation. Using this tactic of patience paid dividends and dozens of bombers could be downed in as many minutes.
Personal scores continued to increase as the Jagdflieger became more familiar with the American tactics. Amongst the leading B-17 destroyers was Anton Hackl, now Kommandeur of III./JG 11, already a holder of the Oak Leaves with more than 120 victories. Hackl would go on to claim thirty-two heavy bombers amongst his final tally of 196 victories, for which he would be awarded the Swords. He would be one of only a small number of flyers to serve with the Jagdwaffe through the entire war.
Although the P-47C started to appear in increasing numbers, the American pilots often lacked combat experience and their tactics were initially poor as they struggled to provide suitable protection for the heavy bombers. The Thunderbolt simply could not match the manoeuvrability of the Bf 109G, or the later Bf 109K, nor could it match the rate of climb, although very few Thunderbolts were actually lost in air combat. Similarly, while the P -38 Lightning offered good range as an escort fighter, it also struggled in combat against the FW 190A and the Bf 109G.
While American fighter pilots initially lacked combat experience, they did not lack ability as pilots. Their flying training in the United States had been long and they arrived in the European theatre with typically between 300 and 400 flying hours. They were generally very capable pilots, well taught as far as aircraft-handling was concerned, and they were instilled with an aggression and confidence about their abilities and in the aircraft they flew.
Gradually, the early advantage of the Jagdflieger, born mainly of his previous combat experience and the superior tactics he used, was slowly being eroded. The Jagdwaffe had to adapt its tactics to meet the changing air battle and decided to use one Gruppe of fighters to counter the American escorting fighters while two Gruppen attacked the bombers. Those tasked with the anti-bomber role were equipped with the high altitude Bf 109G-5/6s. Produced from early 1943, the G-6, powered by the improved DB 605A engine, became the standard sub-variant. It was unpressurized and differed from earlier Gustavs by the inclusion of two cowling-mounted MG 131 13 mm machine guns rather than the nose-mounted MG 17s, in addition to the hub-firing MG 151 20 mm cannon.
As more American fighters appeared over Germany, the Jagdwaffe suffered increasing losses as Göring again blamed his pilots rather than recognizing there might be a problem elsewhere. Criticism worsened following a heavy raid against Frankfurt when the local Gauleiter (political leader) complained personally to Hitler about the Luftwaffe’s failure to protect the city and Hitler, in turn, passed on his annoyance to Göring.
In a meeting with his High Command, Göring insisted something needed to be done and decided that his fighters should be fitted with barographs to provide evidence that the aircraft had climbed to a sufficient height to engage the American bombers and for those aircraft not already fitted with a gun camera, one would now be fitted to provide further evidence that the fighter had engaged in combat. There was even talk of employing aerial observers or commissars.
Not for the first time, Göring had doubted the courage and ability of his units and the direction he now gave was very clear. As far as he was concerned there were no reasons whatsoever why his Jagdgruppen could not engage the bombers. Poor weather would be no excuse, nor would the lack of ammunition or a weapon malfunction; as far as Göring was concerned his fighters could still ram the bombers. He even went as far to state that any pilot returning to his airfield without a victory, or at least without having visible signs of air combat, such as damage to his own aircraft, would face a court martial!
Once again, there was no question of his pilots lacking courage. Göring’s allegations were completely unfounded and had he taken the trouble to ask the American bomber crews who had been on the receiving end of such aggression, they would never have agreed with him. The direction given to the men under his command had clearly demonstrated Göring’s lack of belief and confidence in them and simply drove a wedge between him and the Luftwaffe that he led.
Somewhat fortunately for the Jagdgruppen, the heavy American raids during early October provided an opportunity for the Jagdwaffe to claim considerable success. For the time being at least they managed to keep their leader off their backs but the fierce air battles inevitably resulted in casualties and one to fall was Oberstleutnant Hans Philipp, Kommodore of JG 1. On 8 October, Philipp, holder of the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, and with a quite staggering total of 206 victories, was shot down and killed near Neuenhaus while engaging P-47s escorting a raid against Bremen and Vegesack.
It was a painful loss but the Reich defenders had done so well in such a short period of time that the second half of October saw just one American raid. While the Allies were not prepared to continue suffering such losses, the American raids had sent shivers through the German High Command.
The balance of experience levels on the front line was now changing. Just a year before, fewer than half those flying with the Jagdgruppen were new to the front line and the majority had at least some level of combat experience but the pendulum had now swung to the point that fewer than half had any combat experience at all. Defence of the Reich was not Hitler’s highest priority. He had seemingly lost faith in Göring and had lost confidence in the Luftwaffe. Jeschonnek, having decided that he could no longer work with Göring, and who had come under an increasing amount of criticism from Hitler, committed suicide.
Jeschonnek was replaced by Günther Korten, who recognized the importance of maintaining a strong fighter defence of Germany, even if this meant depleting units on other fronts. One of Korten’s first tasks was to transfer a number of fighter units back to Germany from the Eastern Front and these withdrawals would soon lead to Germany conceding air superiority in the east. Further changes to the hierarchy during the autumn of 1943 included Josef Kammhuber being sent to command Luftflotte 5 in Norway to replace Hans-Jürgen Stumpff, who now returned to Germany to command the newly created Luftflotte Reich tasked with the defence of the Reich.
There was also the creation of I. Jagdkorps (Fighter Corps) under the command of Joseph Schmid to control the fighter units based in Germany for the defence of the Reich, with three air divisions allocated to the defence of German airspace. The first line of defence was 3. Jagddivision with the task of providing defence from the French border to Luxembourg and into western Belgium. The Netherlands and northwest Germany was to be protected by 1. Jagddivision and responsibility for the defence of Denmark and north–central Germany fell to 2. Jagddivision. The defence of the area surrounding Berlin was given to 4. Jagddivision, and 5. Jagddivision was tasked with the protection of central and southern Germany.
At the tactical level, the Bf 109 Gruppen were tasked with engaging the American fighter escorts, with two Gruppen specifically taking off ahead of the others to intercept and disperse the escorting fighters, while the more heavily armed FW 190 Gruppen were to attack the heavy bombers once they had been stripped of their fighter escort. Other units, such as those equipped with Bf 110s and Ju 88s, were only to attack the American formations if the bombers had been deprived of their escort or if the bombers had penetrated beyond the range of their escorting fighters.
A new aircraft to enter service as a bomber destroyer was the twin-engine Messerschmitt Me 410 ‘Hornisse’ (Hornet), a straightforward modification of the earlier Me 210 that had never gone into full production. With a crew of two (pilot and gunner) and the size of a Bf 110, the Me 410 was capable of a top speed approaching 400 mph and had a good rate of climb up to its operating height of around 32,000 feet. It was well armed with two MG 151 20 mm cannon and two MG 17 7.9 mm machine guns, with a further two MG 131 13 mm machine guns, these each firing rearward from a remotely-operated barbette on either side of the fuselage. Deliveries of the Me 410A commenced during 1943 with its main task being to break up the large formations of heavy American bombers. Sub-variants were modified with a 50 mm BK 5 Bordkanone instead of the two MG 151s in the under-nose weapons bay or four under-wing tubes with 21 cm mortar rockets. In this role the Me 410 proved moderately successful, particularly if the bombers were unescorted.
One unit to enjoy success with the 410 was II./ZG 26 based at Hildesheim under the command of the former Zerstörer pilot, Eduard Tratt. Tratt was given command in October 1943 and personally claimed a number of victories while flying the 410. His thirty-eighth and final victory, a B-17, came on 20 February 1944. Two days later Tratt was shot down and killed while single-handedly attacking a formation of B-17s near Nordhausen; he was later posthumously awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross.
Although the Me 410 enjoyed some success against the American bombers, it was no match for the Allied fighters and losses increased, resulting in it later being withdrawn from defence of the Reich duties and assigned to reconnaissance duties instead.
The end of 1943 saw the entry into the air-combat arena of the most significant American fighter to be introduced into the European theatre. Capable of speeds well in excess of 400 mph, the North American P-51B Mustang was the fastest fighter at the time and also benefitted from lower fuel consumption than other American fighters. When fitted with under-wing drop tanks, the additional fuel gave the Mustang a range of around 2,000 miles, far enough to accompany the long-range bombers to any target deep into Germany. The Mustang would go on to become America’s best fighter of the Second World War and its introduction would soon tip the balance of air power in favour of the Allies.
The Mustang’s arrival coincided with the Luftwaffe’s introduction of the FW 190A-6 variant with a redesigned wing and four MG 151 cannon, although the aircraft retained the two MG 17 machine guns mounted above the engine. It would not be long before the final variant of the FW 190 to enter large scale production, the A-8 with an additional internal fuel tank, would appear and by the end of the war more than 20,000 FW 190s had been built; 13,000 were built as fighters and nearly 7,000 as fighter-bombers. The latest variants of 190 out-performed the Bf 109Gs and Ks, although the Bf 109s were employed in large numbers and it was still an extremely potent fighter in the hands of a capable pilot. However, the FW 190 was nearly 50 mph slower than the Mustang, although there was little to choose between the two in combat when the Mustang pilot would always have to keep his speed up, and maintain a height advantage when possible, because not even the later variants of the Mustang could match the roll rate of a FW 190.
By the beginning of 1944 the air war over Germany had taken a dramatic turn in favour of the Allies as the number of American aircraft taking part in each raid regularly exceeded a thousand. The number of Jagdgruppen defending the Reich had now increased to more than twenty, which meant the air fighting was always intense. While the Jagdgruppen continued to inflict losses on the American formations, as far as the fighter versus fighter air war was concerned, the best the Jagdwaffe could usually achieve was parity and its losses were now equivalent to a Jagdgruppe for every heavy raid. While poor weather often offered some respite, and losses could be rectified with new fighters delivered off the production lines, pilot numbers and experience levels had rapidly been diluted.
The last week of February, known to the Americans as ‘Big Week’, saw the heaviest daylight raids so far. The combined effort of the US Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces, flying from bases in England and Italy respectively, escorted by a thousand fighters, saw the deepest-penetrating raids to date.
One of the main objectives of Big Week was to disrupt Germany’s aircraft manufacturing industry but this failed. In fact, German aircraft production would continue to rise and would not peak for another six months. As for other objectives, the Americans achieved some success with a number of Luftwaffe airfields being put out of action and many aircraft being destroyed or damaged on the ground.
Days later, the Americans turned on Berlin to continue the strategic bombing campaign by day that Bomber Command had started by night. On 4 March, bombs dropped by American bombers fell on the capital of the Reich for the first time and the raid was followed up two days later by an even greater effort when a force of more than 700 bombers attacked the city. The Luftwaffe responded with twenty-five Jagdgruppen entering the cauldron. As the bomber formations were tracked approaching Germany, large numbers of fighters were scrambled from various bases in the northern part of the country. Typically, more than a hundred fighters – a mix of FW 190As and Bf 109Gs – were assembled at holding points to wait for the bombers before the Jagdgruppen then struck, shooting down nearly seventy bombers and severely damaging 350 more. It was the Americans’ heaviest losses in a single day.
One to enjoy success on 6 March was Hermann Graf, now promoted to the rank of Oberstleutnant and Kommodore of JG 11. His victory that day, a B-24, took his total to 209 victories but it would be one of his last: just three weeks later he was severely injured after colliding with a Mustang having just claimed his 212th victory. Graf managed to bail out of his aircraft but he would take no further part in the air war over the Reich. Although the Jagdwaffe had inflicted heavy losses on the Americans during the day, more than sixty of its pilots had been killed or wounded; 6 March 1944 would be remembered amongst many Experten as their hardest day of fighting of the war.
The American heavy bombers were now being escorted by large numbers of Mustangs seeking to engage the Luftwaffe at every opportunity. The Mustangs also introduced area patrols along the planned route of the bombers, with each fighter unit given the responsibility of protecting the American bombers as they passed through its area. While this tactic enabled the Jagdflieger to determine where the main bomber force was routed, there was still the problem of dealing with the patrolling fighters, either before the bomber force had reached each area or by having to tackle the fighters at the same time as trying to shoot down the bombers.
While Göring chose to take another holiday, his Jagdflieger were directed to focus on shooting down the American bombers and to ignore the fighter escort. This was easier said than done and proved all but impossible, particularly as the new P-51D was now appearing and proved a most formidable fighter. Not only was it capable of providing long-range escort for the American heavy bombers but the Mustang’s performance had improved so much that in the hands of a capable pilot it could out-perform both the Bf 109 and FW 190.
With the introduction of the Mustang in large numbers, the Jagdwaffe was forced to engage the large bomber formations even earlier if there was to be time to counter the fighter escort while trying to shoot down the enemy bombers, and this brought its fighters into contact with Allied short-range fighters such as RAF Spitfires and the American Lightnings and Thunderbolts.
The aerial fighting was relentless and at times resulted in carnage. During the first four months of 1944 the Luftwaffe lost more than a thousand pilots,35 including some of its most experienced combat leaders and commanders. Losses in March alone included Wolf-Dietrich Wilcke (162 victories), Emil Bitsch (108), Egon Mayer (102), Gerhard Loos (92) and Hugo Frey (32, of which all but six had been four-engine heavy bombers). Losses were particularly high amongst the Bf 109G Gruppen and were in fact unsustainable, but the Jagdgruppen continued to inflict whatever damage they could.
The direction for the Bf 109s to leave the engagement of the American bombers to the more heavily armed FW 190s, and only to counter the escorting fighters, may have seemed reasonable guidance at the time but the reality was the Bf 109G also proved very capable against the heavy bombers. Nonetheless, the Jagdwaffe faced an unenviable task. The Bf 109 that had once ruled the skies over Europe had now met its match and the performance of the FW 190 deteriorated at altitude.
Furthermore, its tactics had essentially remained unchanged from those used earlier in the war and continued to be based on the four-aircraft Schwarm. While these tactics had previously served the Jagdflieger well, he now faced an enemy that was increasing in numbers, had better-performing fighters and was adopting similar fluid tactics to his own. Not only did he have to cope with the evolving tactics of the American fighters, the defensive armament of the American bombers, combined with the mutual defensive fire provided by a number of bombers flying in a tight box formation, led to the Jagdwaffe having to change its own tactics.
The American box formation was typically based on three sections, with six aircraft in each section. The lead section was given protection from its flanks and rear by two more sections on either side, with one section being higher than the lead section and the other lower. This gave an overall large box formation that was staggered in height. The Jagdflieger had learned they could gain success against the American box formations by making a frontal attack in pairs or in formations of three aircraft, and to be effective the attack had to be made as near head-on as possible where the heavy bombers lacked defensive armament and could provide little or no mutual defence.
To determine the exact height and heading of the bomber formation, the Jagdflieger would position himself abeam the bombers and outside the range of the gunners. This usually meant he could remain outside the visual range of the bomber’s crew as it was far easier for him to see a large formation of heavy bombers than it was for the bomber’s gunners to pick out a small fighter against the blue sky. Once he had established as accurately as possible the heading and height of the formation, he accelerated ahead of the bombers and then turned back to take up his position for the frontal attack, selecting his own target within the bomber formation.
The frontal attack also increased the chance of killing the bomber pilots, bringing it down that way, and so the attack was modified to be carried out from slightly above the bomber as it was more difficult for the bomber pilots to spot the attacker. So successful were the frontal attacks that they were soon widely adopted when attacking formations of large heavy bombers but they did require nerve and accuracy. When the pilot selected his target, the bomber at first appeared small in his gunsight but with a closing speed of the order of 600 mph it did not take long for the bomber to grow in apparent size.36 It then took great nerve and flying skill to close at such a speed and there was always the fear of collision. There was little time for the attacker to position himself, assess the firing solution and to carry out his attack, with there being only a very brief window of opportunity – less than a second – when the attacker was within his optimum range to open fire.
The temptation to open fire early is obvious but this would usually result in wasted ammunition and the vibration caused by having already opened fire would not help; smoothness on the controls was required to give the best chance of success. It took a cool head and a nerve of steel to hit the target. Rarely would a heavy bomber be brought down in one head-on pass, although an accurate attack often succeeded in damaging the bomber enough to force it from its defensive formation, after which stragglers could then be picked off more easily.
While the FW 190 was a robust aircraft and capable of withstanding damage, its performance at high altitudes, particularly up around 30,000 feet, where much of the aerial combat was taking place, was lacking. If he ever found himself in high-altitude combat with a fighter such as the Mustang then a 190 pilot’s best defensive manoeuvre was to roll over and pull towards the ground or escape as fast as he could towards any cloud cover in the area. To mitigate the FW 190’s high-altitude failings the Jagdwaffe used dedicated high-altitude Bf 109G units such as II./JG 11, under the command of Major Günther Rall, with engines fitted with special superchargers, to counter the high altitude American escort fighters while the FW 190s engaged the heavy bombers.
While still very effective as a fighter, the Bf 109G lacked speed when trying to escape the fighter escort. It was also a great source of frustration to have climbed to altitude and to have achieved a position of advantage against the large bomber formations only then to get bounced from above by the escorting fighters. A technique used by many 109 pilots was to trim the aircraft so that it flew slightly tail heavy, requiring constant forward pressure on the control column to keep the aircraft level, so that when he needed to inject a sharp upwards movement to evade attack, the aircraft pitched far more quickly without the momentary hesitation that would otherwise have occurred and could well have proved fatal.
Although the number of Bf 109s allocated for defence of the Reich duties increased significantly in the previous year, by May 1944 Luftflotte Reich was down to fewer than 350 serviceable 109s across its sixteen Gruppen: four Gruppen of JG 27 under the command of Gustav Rödel; three of JG 3 under the command of Friedrich-Karl Müller; two of JG 5 led by Horst Carganico and Theodor Weissenberger; one of JG 11 led by Günther Specht; one Gruppe from each of JG 1 and JG 53 led by Hartmann Grasser and Julius Meimberg respectively; two from JG 300 (Gerhard Stamp and Iro Ilk) and a Gruppe from each of JG 301 (Richard Kamp) and JG 302 (Richard Lewens).
These were all very capable units but the demise of the Luftwaffe’s fighter capability was unavoidable. While the Jagdflieger fought with great courage, the Allies now outnumbered the Jagdwaffe by as much as 10 : 1. Furthermore, the air war was being fought at high altitude and often against better opposition, which was a completely new experience for a pilot recently recalled to Germany from other theatres where much of the aerial combat had taken place at lower levels.
As the Jagdwaffe prepared for the Allies to invade north-west Europe, its losses continued to mount and included the influential and legendary Walter Oesau. A veteran of the Legion Condor, the Battles of France and Britain, and the Eastern Front, and one of a small elite group to have been awarded the Spanish Cross in Gold with Swords and Diamonds and the Swords to the Knight’s Cross, Oesau was killed on 11 May defending his homeland when he was shot down by a group of P-38s after a dogfight lasting more than twenty minutes. Like many of the Experten now to have fallen, Oesau had been heavily outnumbered and completely out of luck.
It was not only in the west that the Luftwaffe encountered American fighters. Erich Hartmann, for example, engaged American fighters for the first time in the east at the end of May 1944 when III./JG 52 was briefly sent to protect the strategically important Romanian oilfields and installations against attacks by the American Fifteenth Air Force. During one extensive engagement over the Ploesti oilfields in June, Hartmann claimed a P-51 Mustang before he suddenly found himself on the receiving end from several more Mustangs. Eventually finding himself out of fuel and ammunition, Hartmann had to abandon his aircraft and was relieved when the Mustangs made a couple of close passes to him in his parachute before breaking away and heading for home.
Hartmann’s Gruppenkommandeur, Willi Batz, also achieved success over the oilfields of Romania. Batz had been in the Luftwaffe since 1935 but his experience as an instructor had kept him away from operational flying until early 1943 when he was finally granted his request to transfer to a front-line unit. He initially joined II./JG 52 on the Eastern Front and was soon appointed Kapitän of the 5. Staffel. While his first six months of operational flying resulted in modest success, the following six months saw Batz take his personal score to seventy-five, for which he was awarded the Knight’s Cross. He recorded his hundredth victory in March 1944 before he was appointed Kommandeur of III./JG 52 and by the end of May he had taken his score past 150 victories, including a staggering fifteen victories in one day on 31 May, to which he added two Mustangs and a B-24 over the oilfields in June.
Batz was fortunate to have other high scorers in his Gruppe. In addition to Hartmann he had Oberleutnant Friedrich Obleser of 8./JG 52, who had been awarded the Knight’s Cross in March 1944 and would eventually be credited with 120 victories, and Leutnant Walter Wolfrum of the 5. Staffel, who would soon receive the Knight’s Cross and would go on to achieve 137 victories before the end of the war.
Despite such individual achievements, the Luftwaffe was struggling. As the war approached the end of its fifth year, the Jagdwaffe was going around an ever-decreasing circle. The increasing losses at the front meant that more pilots were required, which meant that training time had to be cut and so led to a lower quality pilot, which in turn reduced his chances of survival in combat and so led to more losses at the front, which further increased the requirement for more pilots. And so it went on. The Luftwaffe could no longer sustain a lengthy defence of the Reich and was finally destined for defeat.