Hitler's Interference over the Me 262 Jet fighter

[hammy]

Dear old Uncle Adi wasnt always up to speed on the High tech stuff or theoretical background to policy , look at his crass interference over the Me 262 Jet fighter , which he insisted be deployed as a tactical bomber until it was too late,

This has been pretty well debunked in a number of threads I've read on it. Try searching the axis history forum for details although other sources are probably as good.

Mr Adolf Galland , General of the luftwaffe fighter arm at the time , says that if you are going to call him a liar , you'd better take your jacket off and come outside .

[boredatwork]

I would agree with lwd - as far as I know "to fit or not to fit bomb racks" to the Me262 had almost no impact on the program compared to the vast delays of developing *reliable* jet engines with the materials and labour available in the last years of the war...

I believe I read somewhere that the Jumo 004 had an average lifespan of 12 hours and took ~9 hours to replace. Indeed American postwar trials were abandoned after the 4th engine change in less than 5 hours of flight time.

[hammy]

I would agree with lwd - as far as I know "to fit or not to fit bomb racks" to the Me262 had almost no impact on the program compared to the vast delays of developing *reliable* jet engines with the materials and labour available in the last years of the war...

I believe I read somewhere that the Jumo 004 had an average lifespan of 12 hours and took ~9 hours to replace. Indeed American postwar trials were abandoned after the 4th engine change in less than 5 hours of flight time.

Adolf Galland , former General of the Luftwaffe Fighter Arm states ( in his memoir " The First and the Last " ) chapter 27

In January 1945 " ( ) A delegation headed by (Oberst) Lutzow was received by Goering . After..( ) [Goering] called all comodores of fighter wings that could be contacted for a meeting . The meeting was held in Berlin in the Haus der Flieger ( ). Lutzow had drawn up ( ) a memorandum [of the fighter arms complaints] . This referred essentially to the following points ; - ( ) , Equipment of bomber instead of fighter squadrons with the Me 262 , ( ) .

Galland goes on to say how Goering then threw a major hissy fit and accused them all of mutiny ,and banished the "ringleaders" abroad , but after Hitler had intervened , Goering later told Galland to go and form a new unit and fly the Me 262 [ more or less " how the hell you like and with all the rest of the mutinous rabble for pilots ! " ]

Galland then digresses into a synopsis of the technology and development of the various developments and advanced design both in Germany and abroad , before describing his own involvement , which commenced , in conferences , at the start of 1942 . He flew the early prototype ( with tail-wheel ! ) Me 262 for the first time on 22nd May 1943 , and encountered the engine fire problem , fuel build up in the nacelle skins due to leakages being a problem that plagued the early jets of the type fitted , but he was very impressed with the second one that was there on the day , which behaved itself .

In Chapter 28 "The jet fighter tragedy " , Galland describes how everyone , including Goering , wanted to push fast ahead with the project , but that Hitler , skeptical after the problems the Heinkel 177 development programme had encountered , refused to "fast track" the project , allowing only technical testing of small numbers of prototypes , and no preparation for mass production .

" Thereby the production of the Me 262 received a further delay of 6 months after it had already suffered a delay of about 2 years , due to the previous order given in autumn 1940 , to postpone all research developments .
I believe that in this way about 18 months were lost in the development of the Me 262 . "

In December 1943 Galland writes that he was present at Insterburg Aviation Centre where the Me 262 was demonstrated in front of Hitler , who asked Goering whether the aircraft could carry bombs . Goering told him that the plane could carry 500 kilos , and possibly , in the future , 1000 kilos . Hitler said that the aircraft that had been presented to him as a fighter plane should be developed instead as a "Blitz bomber" . Both the Luftwaffe and Manufacturers personnel present ignored this as a piece of whimsy , and continued to develop the plane as a fighter , up until late Spring 1944 , when at a conference on various emergency programmes the subject of the Me 262 came up again , and Hitler asked how many of the 60 or so aircraft so far produced could carry bombs . " None " said General Milch . " The Me 262 is being developed exclusively as a fighter aircraft "
Cue MAJOR Hissy fit by H .

"We felt the effect of the Fuhrers outburst a few hours later , when Milch , Bodenschatz , Messersschmitt , the C.O. of the Test Station , and I were called in by [Goering] He communicated to us the Fuhrers orders regarding the readjustment and rearming of the whole series of Me 262s as bombers . ( ) no-one in the future was to refer to the plane as a fighter or even as a fighter-bomber , but only as the Blitz-Bomber . Messerschmitt and I tried desperately to storm against this faulty decision .( ) [Goering said] that a debate or a discussion of the fundamental question cannot be thought of anymore . "

Galland goes on to describe how some four KampGruppe bomber units would finally get into action in August and September of 1944 , well after any anti-invasion role was gone , how in late 1944 and early 1945 these jet pilots were told that they were expected now to act as home defense fighters too , despite no training for the role , the predictable result , and the final desperate actions up to May 1945 , when with his handful of remaining fighterpilots and jet fighters the Me 262 got into action as it was intended for .

As I said , boredatwork , you are either have to call a primary witness of this level a liar , or accept his version , as an eye witness , at the centre of these events , ( also attested to by many other witnesses ) .

With regard to the Jumo 004 , I know this had early problems , but there was also an engine by BMW , and both these were used after the war in Soviet design and development work which used German personnel alongside their own people .
One of the first to fly was basically a Yak 9 with the turbine hung in a fairing under the nose , which cant have been a total "dog" because some got into service with the new communist Polish airforce too .
According to Galland , the powerplants were at least reliable enough by early 1945 to be able to operate at squadron strengths successfully in daytime operations against Allied bombers over Germany .

[Karl Heidenreich]

This issue of the Me 262 being a bomber or a fighter is very old. I remember having read of it in 1974 in an "Air Aces" magazine my dad bought me. But after reading in the website of the Me 262 recreations that took place this decade, (http://www.stormbirds.com/project/index.html) that issue was discussed and, basically, there was not such an impact. Basically those planes were too few and introduced too late to made any difference.

I have the greatest respect for Adolf Galland and the other overall top 100 + air aces of WWII which were all german pilots, much of them Me 262 heroes.

[José M. Rico]

From Albert Speer's memoirs:

... the Me-262, our most modern fighter plane, with two jet engines, a speed over 500 miles per hour, and a fighting capability far superior to any plane the enemy had.

As early as 1941, while I was still an architect, I had paid a visit to the Heinkel aircraft plant in Rostock and heard the deafening noise of one of the first jet engines on a testing stand. The designer, Professor Ernst Heinkel, was urging that this revolutionary advance be applied to aircraft construction.1) During the armaments congress at the air force test site in Rechling (September 1943) Milch silently handed me a telegram which had just been brought to him. It contained and order from Hitler to halt preparations for large-scale production of the Me-262. We decided to circumvent the order. But still the work could not be continued on the priority level it should have had.

Some three months later, on January 7, 1944, Milch and I were urgently summoned to headquarters. Hitler had changed his mind, and this on the basis of an excerpt from the British press on the success of British experiments with jet planes. He was now impatient to have as many aircraft of this type as we could make in the shortest possible time. Since in the meantime Hitler had let everything lapse, we could promise to deliver no more than sixty planes a month from July 1944 on. From January 1945 on, however we would be able to produce two hundred and ten aircraft a month.2)

In the course of this conference Hitler indicated that he planned to use the plane , which was built to be a fighter, as a fast bomber. The air force specialists were dismayed, but imagined that their sensible arguments would prevail. What happened was just the opposite. Hitler obstinately ordered all weapons on board removed so that the aircraft could carry a greater weight of bombs. Jet planes did not have to defend themselves, he maintained, since with their superior speed they could not be attacked by enemy fighters. Deeply mistrustful of this new invention, he wanted it employed primarily for straight flight at great heights, to spare its wings and engines, and wanted the engineers to gear it to a somewhat reduced speed to lessen the strain on the still untried system.3)

The effect of this tiny bombers which could carry a load of little more than a thousand pounds of bombs and had only a primitive bombsight, was ridiculously insignificant. As fighter planes, on the other hand, each one of the jet aircraft would have been able, because of its superior performance, to shoot down several of the four-motored American bombers which in raid after raid were dropping thousands of tons of explosives on German cities.

At the end of June 1944, Göring and I once more tried to make Hitler see these points, but again in vain. Meanwhile air force pilots had tried out the new planes and were spoiling to use them against the American fleets of bombers. But there was one of those moments when Hitler’s prejudices were insuperable. Planes of this sort, he said, seizing on any sophism, because of their speedy turns and rapid shifts of altitude, would expose the pilots to far greater physical strains than in the past; and, because of their higher speed the planes would be at a disadvantage against slower and therefore more agile enemy fighters.4) The fact that this planes could fly higher than the American escort fighters and could attack the relatively clumsy American bomber squadrons at will because of their immensely superior speed made no impression at all on Hitler. The more we tried to dissuade him from this notion, the more stubbornly he held to it. To mollify us somewhat he spoke of someday, far in the future, when he would let the aircraft be used, at least partially, as fighters.

It is true, of course, that the planes in question existed so far only in a few prototypes. Nevertheless, Hitler’s order necessarily influenced long-range military planning., for the General Staff had been counting on this new type of fighter to bring about a decisive turning point in the air war. Desperate as we were over this aspect of the war, everyone who could claim any knowledge of the subject at all put in a word and tried to change Hitler’s mind. Jodl, Guderian, Model, Sepp Dietrich, and of course the leading generals of the air force, persistently took issue with Hitler’s layman’s opinion. But they only brought his anger down on their heads, since he took all this as an attack on his military expertise and technical intelligence. In the autumn of 1944 he finally and characteristically brushed aside the whole controversy by flatly forbidding any further discussion of this subject.

When I telephoned General Kreipe, the new chief of staff of the air force, to inform him of what I wanted to write to Hitler in my mid-September report on the question of jet planes, he strongly advised me not even to allude to the matter. At the very mention of the Me-262, Hitler was likely to fly off the handle, he said. And I would only be making trouble for him, since Hitler would assume that the air force chief of staff had put me up to it.

In spite of this warning I still felt I had to tell Hitler once more that trying to make fighter planes serve as bombers would be pointless and, given our present military situation, a grave error. I emphasized that this opinion was shared by the pilots and by all the army officers.5) But Hitler did not even discuss my recommendations, and after so many vain efforts I simply withdrew from the fray and confined myself to worrying over my own work. Actually, questions of how aircraft were to be used were no more my business than the choice of what type of plane to produce.

__________________________________
1) At the end of the war, I learned from Galland that insufficient interest on the part of the top leadership had caused a delay of about a year and a half.

2) The figures are taken from Program 225, which was in effect from March 1, 1944 on but which could only be implemented in part. According to this program, Me-262s were to be produced at the following rate: 40 in April 1944, increasing to 60 in July, remaining at 50 from July through October, rising to 210 in January 1045, to 440 in April 1945, to 670 in July 1945, and to 800 in October 1945.

3) See Führerprotokoll, June 7, 1944, Point 6. Despite my doubts, Hitler stood by his order “that the Me-262s in production must be used exclusively as bombers.”

4) See Führerprotokoll, June 10-22, 1944, Point 35.

5) See travel report, September 10-14, 1944.

[Karl Heidenreich]

José:

Is that quote from Speer´s book: "Inside the Third Reich"?

[José M. Rico]

Is that quote from Speer´s book: "Inside the Third Reich"?

Yes. Chapter 25 Blunders, Secret Weapons, and the SS. Pages 464-466 on my edition.

[lwd]

The problem is the engines weren't really ready for service during the war. Whether or not it was a bomber or a fighter it still had the problem of very low reliability engines. This would have been compounded by the spares problem if the Germans had produced them earlier because they weren't producing enough engines and parts to support more than 100 or so opearation Me-262s. I can't see how HItler's bomber vs fighter decision would have effected this at all.

[Karl Heidenreich]

However some short commings, discrepancies between Hitler and his Luftwaffe officials, engine problems and so forth the Me 262 had quite a good combat record despite the odds and the small number of operational units. According to this link (which in this case is pretty much sources supported) there were some quite exceptional guys the flew them and gave a bad time to the allied fighters and bombers:

http://www.luftwaffe.cz/dusen.html

For example, the "top" five, any of them have more kills in the Me 262 than the average allied pilot according to their overall ratings:

List ; Rank; Name; Victories on Me262; Total; Unit
1 Oblt. Kurt Welter 29? (25?) 63 Kdo Stamp, Kdo Welter, 10./NJG 11
2 Hptm. Franz Schall 17 133 Kdo Nowotny, JG 7
3 Lt. Rudolf Rademacher 16+ 97 JG 7
4 Obstlt. Heinz Bär 16 221 EJG 2, JV 44
5 Maj. Georg-Peter Eder 14 (24) 78 EKdo 262, Kdo Nowotny, JG 7

[RF]

What comes out of all these accounts is the blinkered stupidity of the political leadership of Nazi Germany, and neatly ubderlines why Germany lost the war.

You are presented with a jet fighter, at a time your enemies have overwhelming superiority over your home country? Wow, I would want as many of these wonder planes as fast as possible. Cue an order for top priority in production and training of piots etc.
Can it be used as a bomber? No say the air staff. OK, then could a jet fighter bomber be developed? Yes, but not immediately - so the order should have been to get the fighter into operations ASAP, with a remit to develop a jet bomber as a separate variation to the fighter. In other words go for both options, ensuring one does not impede the other.

[Karl Heidenreich]

From Greg Goebel´s article on the Me 262:

ME-262 IN COMBAT

* With Allied aircraft operating in ever-increasing numbers over the Reich, operational evaluation of the Me-262 had been difficult, to say the least. Trying to work the bugs out of an aircraft while dodging enemy fighters was far from an ideal situation for flight test.

The evaluation did show that the Me-262 was not only fast but was responsive and docile. However, it did tend to "snake" at high speeds, reducing its accuracy as a gun platform, and it was underpowered, with a long take-off run. Losing an engine was very dangerous, since the Me-262 could barely stay in the air on one engine. If an engine was lost below 290 KPH (180 MPH), the aircraft would usually be lost as well. The engines were also not very reliable, being prone to flameouts and burnouts.

The first documented air combat involving an Me-262 took place on 25 July 1944, when a Schwalbe pounced on an RAF Mosquito that escaped only by the hardest. One Me-262 was shot down near Brussels on 28 August by a pair of USAAF P-47 Thunderbolts, the first Me-262 to be lost to direct enemy action. An operational fighter squadron, the "Kommando Nowotny", was established out of Erprobungskommando 262 in September 1944, under experienced ace Major Walter Nowotny. Kommando Nowotny became operational on 3 October.

The Me-262 was highly vulnerable on takeoff and landing since the Jumo engines took a long time to throttle up; since the engines tended to set asphault runways on fire, the Me-262 was restricted to operations at airfields with concrete runways, which were more easily targeted by the Allies than dispersed dirt airfields. On 7 October two were shot down on takeoff by Lieutenant Urban L. Drew of the USAAF, flying a P-51 Mustang. The Luftwaffe eventually assigned FW-190s, when they were available and had fuel, to fly air patrols around the air bases to protect the Me-262s, and the airfields were ringed by heavy flak defenses. The flak installations were a mixed blessing, however, since they were often staffed by poorly-trained and nervous troops who were just as likely to fire on friends as foes.

Many of the Me-262 pilots were also inexperienced, and flying an aircraft with performance greater than any operated before would have been a challenge to more professional aviators. Hitting Allied bombers while streaking through a formation at high speed was difficult, and if an Me-262 pilot slowed down to take more careful aim, he became a good target for the bombers' defensive fire and escorting Allied fighters.

Attrition was high. Nowotny himself was killed in action on 8 November 1944 when his and two other Me-262s were shot down. The few survivors were incorporated into a full Me-262 group, "III/JG7", which achieved a number of kills in the months remaining of the war. Two other groups, "I/JG7" and "II/JG7" were never fully brought up to strength. Four more bomber units were formed but saw little action.

Faced with overwhelming Allied strength and extreme logistical problems, particularly fuel shortages, Me-262 operations during those months were intermittent. An elite unit, "JV-44", was formed up under Adolf Galland, and racked up a number of kills before hostilities ended. Many of these kills were achieved with the new R4M 55 millimeter (2.2 inch) folding fin rockets. An Me-262 could carry a total of 24 such weapons on wooden racks, one under each wing, and if fired into a bomber formation the rockets could have a devastating effect on anything they hit. Schwalbes configured to carry the R4M were given the designation "Me-262A-1b".

A ground-attack version of the R4M rocket was also designed and might have helped turn the Me-262 into an effective "Jabo" aircraft, much like the RAF's rocket-firing Typhoons or "Rockoons", but it does not appear the Luftwaffe ever used the Me-262 in this way.

and:

The Me-262 had no real effect on the course of the war, though it would provide the Allies with plenty of inspiration in the postwar period. It was well in advance of anything the Allies had or had plans to build. Adolf Galland flew British Gloster Meteors in Argentina after the war and felt that if the Meteor's reliable engines had been mated to the Me-262's advanced airframe, the result would have been the most formidable of the first-generation jet fighters.

* After the war, Me-262s that had fallen into Allied hands were evaluated by flight test groups, one of the best-known being a USAAF team named "Watson's Whizzers", led by Colonel Harold E. "Hal" Watson of USAAF Air Technical Intelligence. Watson's pilots and ground crew managed to find intact Me-262s at the Lechfeld airstrip in Bavaria, and were assisted in their test flights by German ground crews familiar with the aircraft and even two English-speaking German test pilots, Ludwig Hofmann and Karl Baur. The Me-262s were then shipped to the US on the Royal Navy "jeep" carrier HMS REAPER for further evaluation at Wright Field in Ohio. The tests there included a competitive fly-off against a Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star jet fighter that concluded the Me-262 was generally superior.

Best regards,

[RF]

The Me262 had no more an effect on the course of WW2 overall than the Electro U-boot, or for that matter the hilfskreuzer. That was because they were not developed in time to be used as potent weapons - in the case of the first two they were developed too late and the war did not last long enough for them to have an effect in the numbers that would have been required. What would have happened if they had been developed and placed into combat one year earlier, and then produced in large numbers?