The story of the Me-262 began in April, 1939 when Dr. Wilhelm Messerschmitt presented designs that addressed stipulations issued by the German Air Ministry for a jet aircraft. It was a truly promising design well ahead of its time featuring twin engines and a highly adaptable airframe. The airframe was designed around the new BMW turbojet engine. Messerschmitt’s brain child featured a Pflilflugel (arrow wing) which was a milestone in aircraft design. The swept back wing of the 262 yielded better control at the high speeds attainable by jet aircraft. In time, the design still had to be refined to address the constant stream of problems that popped up during testing and combat service.
By March of 1940, Messerschmitt was awarded a probationary contract to produce the first prototype airframes. One underwent wind tunnel testing on the aerodynamic integrity of the airframe. The others were built as full test flight prototypes. Wind tunnel tests revealed the BMW 003 engines were far too heavy for the wing to adequately support. As a result, the lighter Jumo 004, was chosen but certainly wasn’t without its own laundry list of problems. The hollow turbine blades cracked under intense heat and the turbine wheel was faulty. On 18 April, 1941, test pilot Fritz Wendel flew the very first Me-262 prototype coded V1 PC+UA without jet power. By the first week of November, the twin BMW jet engines were ready and attached to the prototype. It is important to note that the airframe was always ahead of the engines in terms of engineering. Therefore, it wasn’t until the following year that the first Me-262 prototype flew with jet power.
On 25 March, 1942, Wendel attempted to takeoff with the BMW jet engines. It was definitely a clumsy looking contraption featuring a tail-dragger landing gear configuration causing the shark like nose to point skyward like a massive harpoon. Its two jet engines hung from each wing inside huge nacelles. The back-up Jumo 210 piston engine was housed inside the nose which spun a large wooden propeller that couldn’t possibly have looked more out of place. The back-up Jumo 210 engine was kept because many of the teething problems of the BMW engines still weren’t resolved even at this stage. In the event the jet engines failed, Wendel had the option of using the back-up engine to land the jet and prevent the loss of the prototype. In fact, both jet engines did quit when Wendel was barely of the ground. He was forced to use the back-up piston engine and barely saved the aircraft. Compared to his near-death experience with the BMW engines, the Jumo 004 powered Me-262 V2 PC+UB was a clear improvement. Wendel later praised the hybrid jet but he discovered that the Me-262 was a double-edged sword when it came to performance. He reported that takeoff was extremely difficult. The throttle had to be advanced slowly not to mention the high speed that had to be reached before the jet could lift of. It took a lot of runway to accomplish this, but once in the air, it was a pleasure to fly. That day Wendel reached a top speed of 541mph at 30,000ft however, his flight was cut short by engine failure forcing him to use his auxiliary piston engine yet again to land safely. The short-comings of that first prototype ultimately led to the improvements shown in the subsequent prototypes.
On 18 July, 1942, the piston engine was removed and the third prototype Me 262 V3 PC+UC finally had both feet in the jet age. It was the first prototype to fly on jet power alone. However, it still had that dreaded tail-dragger landing gear configuration. The landing gear made it difficult to lift the tail from the ground as the jet reached flight speed. The excessive turbulence from the engines rendered the controls nearly useless during take-off and landing. Wendel skillfully found ways to overcome some of these problems. On takeoff, Wendel discovered that as he accelerated down the runway and gently tapping the breaks, the tail rose up and the jet took off. It became clear that the Me-262 was not for the faint hearted and should not be flown by inexperienced pilots.
If we fast forward to 6 June, 1943, one year from the Allied invasion of Normandy, the Me-262 prototype evolved significantly and equipped with some new touches. The tail-dragger landing gear configuration which was common for piston engine fighters was altered. Instead, it featured a tricycle landing gear configuration and lighter but not so reliable Jumo 004A-0 engines. The new landing gear solved the previous problems but also created new ones. The nose wheel was flimsy and could not rotate which made it difficult to taxi the aircraft. To address the long takeoff distance, the new prototype was fitted with RATO (Rocket Assisted Takeoff). The results were promising and took 300yds off the jets’ takeoff run. Unfortunately, when Professor Messerschmitt appealed to the German Air Ministry to use RATO for all production Me-262s, they refused. Had they gone along with Messerschmitt’s request, one of the many weak points of the 262 might have been addressed. The lengthy takeoff run ultimately became one of the many unresolved problems that bled into the 262s combat career.
The closing of 1943 proved to be a pivotal point for the Me-262. On top of the technical problems that slipped through the engineering cracks, the role of the jet was also in question. In December, Adolf Hitler attended a demonstration of the Me-262 at Insterburg. This is where many Luftwaffe historians like to point the finger at Hitler for single handedly murdering the Me-262. According to General Adolf Galland, who attended the demonstration, Hitler declared “For years I have demanded from the Luftwaffe a ‘speed bomber,’ which can reach its target in spite of enemy fighter defense. In the aircraft you present to me as a fighter plane I see the ‘Blitz bomber,’ with which I will repel the invasion in its first and weakest phase”. He believed that by implementing the 262 as a shnellbomber (fast bomber), its speed could allow it to penetrate Allied air-cover and repel the imminent invasion of occupied Europe. However, Hitler was a layperson who had no business with military strategy and even worse, his tactical decisions clearly stemmed from his obsession with offensive, revenge attacks against England. Galland, on the other hand, had more tactical sense in his finger than in Hitlers entire body and was fully aware that the priority of the Luftwaffe was reclaiming air superiority. In fact, General Eisenhower remarked that the Normandy invasion would not have been possible without the success of the pattern bombing campaign. Albert Speer, who was also present, recorded in his memoirs that every effort was made to convince Hitler about the Jet’s tactical importance as a fighter to help thwart the relentless Allied bombing crusade. Speer recalled the more he and Galland tried to convince Hitler of that, the more he resisted. Was this the moment that murdered the 262? No, Hitler’s unilateral decision to use the jet as a bomber by itself did not delay its production. Rather, it was a variety of factors including that fateful decision. Operation Big Week resulted in the destruction of key 262 factories at Augsburg and Regensburg. On top of that, engine development was always behind the progress of the airframe and production had to wait for the engineers to catch-up. So, production of the Me-262 Sturmvogel (Stormbird) began with only a limited number of fighter variants sneaking off the assembly lines. Its future as the fighter Germany desperately needed looked bleak. So far…
KG-51 was the first bomber unit to transition from conventional aircraft like the Ju-88 to the Me-262 jets. Since the 262 was best suited as a fighter, the decision to use it as a bomber resulted in catastrophic losses. Galland recorded in his memoirs “Actually the ME-262 possessed no fixtures for releasing bombs or bombsights. According to its flying properties and its safety conditions it was highly unsuited for an aimed bomb release, diving or gliding were out of the question because of the unavoidable excess of the permissible top speed”. The pilots of KG-51 had no serious experience with aggressive tactics. Speed, their only saving grace, was stripped away by the ordinance they carried as the additional weight and drag reduced their top speed by 75mph. By now, production Me-262’s received by KG-51 were powered by the first mass produced jet engine in history, the Jumo 004B. Even though the new engine was a clear improvement over previous ones, reliability remained an issue. Engines only lasted about 10 hours before they required replacement and on top of that, fuel consumption was off the charts. The Me-262 was a flying, gas guzzler and its fuel consumption was so inefficient, it could only stay aloft for about an hour. The only good news was that jet engines burned a different type of low-octane fuel that was cheaper and far more abundant called kerosene. The 262’s of KG-51 were not deployed until shortly after the Allied invasion of Normandy. By then the Allies sank their teeth too deep into France to make a difference. It was too late for Hitler’s vision for the 262 to come to fruition. All they could do was carry out nuisance raids against Allied bases throughout France.
“Bert” Wall and navigator Albert Sinclair “Jock” Lobban. Schrieber pursued, opened fire and scored several hits forcing the “mozzie” to disengage and retreat to Fermo, Italy. Mosquito fighters were a major thorn in the side of the Luftwaffe primarily because its wooden construction and twin Rolls Royce Merlin engines gave it fantastic speed. It was fast, nimble and an ideal pathfinder during night bombing raids. But, Schrieber reported the encounter as a victory, when, in fact, the RAF fighter did manage to escape by out-turning him. The false news eventually reached Hitler causing him to believe the Me-262 was the answer to the “mozzie” scourge. The harsh truth is that it wasn’t, at all. The Me-262 had the speed advantage, but it didn’t have a prayer in a turning fight with any Allied fighter.
The first confirmed victory for the 262 was scored by the newly formed unit designated Kommando Nowotny on August 8th. Coincidentally, the victim of the encounter was also an RAF Mosquito fighter. Kommando Nowotny was the world’s first operational all jet combat unit named for its leader, Walter Nowotny. It evolved from Ekdo (Test Command) 262 led by Captain Werner Thierfelder. Only the very elite Luftwaffe pilots made the cut to serve on its roster for obvious reasons. On July 18th 1944, Nowotny’s predecessor, was killed in action over Bavaria. Since Allied records do not indicate that he was shot down, it is reasonable to speculate that a technical problem with his own aircraft may have caused his death. Thierfelders fate is further proof of the 262’s fatal flaws. Handicaps like the 262’s extremely touchy throttle, unreliable engines, flimsy nose wheel and lack of stability during takeoff caused about 200 pilots to die in training alone. Herman Buchner once recalled the failure of his jets nose wheel: “I slammed my 262 onto the landing strip doing two hundred sixty kilometers per hour and suddenly saw a wheel running in front of me. It had broken off the end of the axle during the hard landing and the wheel had now separated. The aircraft swerved to the left, but, with a great deal of effort and additional help from the left engine, I succeeded in keeping the machine going more or less in the right direction and steered passed a fuel truck. After a few frightening seconds I brought my jet to a standstill. All went well, and the machine only needed a new undercarriage.”
Every pilot that climbed in that cockpit had to nurse the throttle with extreme care. Any sudden movements could cause the engines to burst into flames and carene down the runway in an uncontrolled ball of fire. If a successful takeoff was achieved you had to be careful about tight turns and speed reduction when attacking. George Peter Eder described takeoff and landing with the 262: “The throttle response was slow, and if pushed forward too soon resulted in flameouts, so in combat we just set the throttles at full forward and only reduced power gradually as required, such as landing. To bleed off airspeed, we just raised the nose and left the throttles alone. We operated the throttle gently to prevent any quick changes to the engines. Later the automatic throttle regulator was installed on some aircraft, but it did not always solve the problem. The technology was just so new, and we were the guinea pigs, so that was the problem”. The chain that linked the 30mm rounds sometimes broke under the high stress caused by tight turns. Diving at 30-40,000ft where air is cool and thin was relatively safe, but diving at lower altitudes where air is denser meant almost certain death. Drag from the dense air at the edge of the sound barrier caused critical controls to freeze damming the fate of the aircraft. For the first jet fighter pilots, returning to base was also dangerous since they had to reduce their speed. Allied fighter pilots often stalked 262s from a distance waiting for them to land. As German pilots dropped their throttles and flaps lowered, Allied fighters dove out of the sun and shot them down. Unlike conventional fighters, a landing in a 262 could not be aborted because it would take too long to advance the throttle and pick-up flight speed again.
After the initial shock of the 262s debut in battle, Allied fighter pilots learned that the jet could be beaten. For instance, by diving, they could convert altitude to speed and catch the 262. Slower, piston engine fighters could also turn tighter and their ability to suddenly slowdown could force the jets to overshoot them in a dogfight. The primary causes for the meager success achieved by Kommando Nowotny was the position of their bases near the front lines. Allied fighters often circled above known Me-262 airfields waiting to strafe them during takeoff or landing. On 7 October, 1944, 1st Lt. Urban L. “Ben” Drew and his squadron strafed the Nowotny base at Achmer. Drew recalled: “I watched them for a while and saw one of them start to taxi. The lead ship was in takeoff position for a formation takeoff. I waited until they were both airborne and then I rolled over from 15,000 feet and headed for the attack with my flight behind me”. Since it took several minutes for 262s to reach top speed, Drew was able to bag one only 1,000 feet of the ground. The Germans were supposed to have air cover patrols flown by piston engine Fw-109 D fighters from JG-54 but none were around that day. 262 airbases also attempted to cover landing jets with heavy anti-aircraft batteries. On November 8th, the anti-aircraft batteries couldn’t stop Major Walter Nowotnys luck from running out when his port engine burst into flames during an interception sortie, forcing him to return to Achmer. P-51 pilot Edward R. “Buddy” Haydon sighted the flames and quickly closed the range on Nowotnys crippled jet like a shark that smelled blood. They both descended to just 100 feet from the ground putting Haydon safely under the umbrella of flack that erupted from the airfield. Nowotnys fate was sealed as he made his final approach. Since he was flying on one engine, Nowotny was losing speed fast and before Haydon could pull the trigger, the jet stalled and snaped to the left crashing in the forest below.
The 24 October, 1945 mission flown by the Tuskegee Airmen is yet another shining example of how Allied pilots adapted to the Me-262 threat. Not only was it the longest escort mission (1,600 miles) of the war, but it was also their first clash with the jets. They were tasked with escorting bombers from the 15th AF targeting a Daimler Benz tank factory in Berlin. About thirty Me-262 jets from JG-7 arrived to intercept the bombers. Three jets were shot down during the mission by Charles Brantley, Earl Lane, and Roscoe Brown. Brown recalled shooting down Oberleutnant (Lt. Col.) Franz Kulp. “All of a sudden at nine o’clock I saw these streaks. I ordered, ‘Drop your tanks and follow me.’ I did a split S, went under the bombers, did a hard right, pulled up, shot the jet, blew him up and that was the first jet victory for the 15th Air Force”. Earl R. Lane became tangled in a tight left turn with another 262 flown by ace Alfred Ambs. Lane was able to pull lead and open fire from about 2,000 yards. Lane recalled, “He did not quite fill my gunsight. I fired three short bursts and saw the plane emitting smoke. A piece of the plane, either the canopy or one of the jet orifices, flew off. I then pulled up and circled over the spot where he went down. I saw a crash and a puff of black smoke.” The Me-262 was clearly ill equipped to dogfight with piston fighters, but it was hardwired with the tools to bring down heavy bombers.
The pilots of Kommando Nowotny drastically altered their standard interception tactics around the speed of the Me-262. For the Luftwaffe, bombers were typically attacked head-on from twelve o-clock high but that approach would never work for jet pilots. American B-17s flew at about 280mph and the Me-262 knifed through the air at 540mph. The closing speed of the two aircraft in a head-on pass would be too high for any jet pilot to select a target, aim and score hits without colliding with their intended target. That is why the pilots of Kommando Nowotny transitioned away from frontal interception tactics. Instead, 262 pilots hunted American bomber formations from six o-clock high or streaking in from either side. Interception tactics had to be further refined to accommodate the limited range of the 262s armament of four, three-centimeter cannons. Three-centimeter guns only had an effective range of about 250 meters compared to the 800-meter range of .50 caliber guns on a B-17. The limited range of the jet’s cannons made it vulnerable to American gunners. The Luftwaffe patched up the jet’s Achilles heel by equipping the 262 with twenty-four R4M rockets. Since the rockets had an effective range of 900-1,200 meters, pilots could knock down bombers before flying in range of gunners.
Yes, the 262 put a dent in the number of Allied bombers but the damage was already done. The pattern bombing campaign brought Germany’s war effort to its knees forcing the feared Me-262 into a dark, cryptic underworld. Since factories above ground were being destroyed at such an alarming rate, the Germans resorted to a cheap and haphazard solution by converting mines into underground factories throughout the Reich. The REIMAHG (Flugzeuwerk Reichmarshall Herman Göring) factory was a porcelain mine located in the Walpersberg hill near Kahla. There, gaunt prisoners from concentration and POW camps replaced trained workers Germany was critically short on. They constructed bunkers with steel-reinforced concrete up to 10 meters thick rendering the factory nearly bomb-proof. The components of the 262 were sent from the Messerschmitt Co. for final assembly at the REIMAHG. Assembly of main components (wings, fuselage and tail) took place above ground inside concrete bunkers along the base of the hill. Across the hilltop stretched a 3,300-foot runway for the factory fresh jets to be launched from for delivery to their combat units. Delivering the jets to their combat units was a daunting task. Since the runway was barely long enough for takeoff, RATO was required and there was no turning back. Use of unskilled labor should have caused significantly more accidents during delivery to the front lines as well as during combat. Surprisingly, the only known accident occurred on 23 February, 1945 resulting in the death of Feldwebel Otto Soltav near Calbe. It is reasonable to hypothesize that since the components of the 262 were manufactured at the Messerschmitt Co., the skilled work was already completed. By the time the preassembled components arrived, the prisoners were left with the final assembly of the aircraft. Since the 262 was a significant problem for Allied heavy bombers, 262 bases also became high priority tactical targets. Frequent bombing and strafing of 262 bases forced them to retreat to the shadows of forests and under bridges. The haphazard conditions surrounding the 262s late war production made it even more of a danger to its own pilots.
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