Allied Jet Killers of World War 2 Read online

  The pilot of Me 262A-1a Wk-Nr 170069 was none other than Oberfeldwebel Hieronymous Lauer, who had been lucky to survive his shoot-down by Lt Col Myers and 2Lt Croy on 28 August. Lauer spotted the three P-47s (one had become separated in the clouds) and accelerated out of range, before turning to engage the fighters head on. The American pilots also turned to fire at the Me 262, at which point Lauer zoomed to altitude to gain separation, before turning to re-engage. Once again the P-47s broke into the attack and the jet overshot. The fight turned into a classic scissors engagement that ended up on the deck with Lauer out of altitude and airspeed. Beaudrault then noticed white puffs coming from the Me 262’s engines, and he surmised that the jet had either flamed out or run out of fuel. As Beaudrault closed in on the hapless Me 262, Lauer took evasive action by kicking the rudder, but in doing so his wingtip struck the ground and the aeroplane cartwheeled into a fireball. Incredibly, Lauer survived the crash, albeit with serious injuries that left his hospitalised for four months.

  Although Beaudrault never ‘made ace’, his victory on 2 October was significant because it was the first jet to fall to the guns of a Ninth Air Force fighter, and he was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross following his success.

  Capt Valmore J Beaudrault stands with his crew in front of his P-47D-28 44-19713 Miss Pussy “IV” at A68 Juvincourt, in France, in the autumn of 1944. These men are, from left to right, Assistant Crew Chief Sgt ‘Cactus’ Garner, Capt Beaudrault, Crew Chief SSgt Bruno Kupis and Armourer Cpl Mort Sherrod. Ninth Air Force P-47s were primarily tasked with supporting ground troops, but they still scored their share of aerial victories. On 2 October 1944, Beaudrault engaged and shot down a Me 262 near Münster – this was the first jet shot down by a Ninth Air Force fighter, and the first of four Me 262s claimed by the 365th FG. After surviving 73 combat missions and a near fatal crash-landing Capt Beaudrault was assigned to the 87th Infantry Division as an air liaison officer and subsequently fought in the Battle of the Bulge (Priscilla Beaudrault)

  Five days later, the first Me 262s being flown exclusively as fighters would fall in combat with the USAAF. Although the Messerschmitt’s first flight with all-turbojet power had taken place as long ago as 26 June 1943, the Me 262 had not been tested as a fighter under operational conditions until EKdo 262 was formed in August 1944 under the command of Hauptmann Horst Geyer. This unit consisted of three Einsatzkommandos that were located at Lechfeld, Rechlin-Larz, and Erfurt-Bindersleben. In September 1944, General Adolf Galland took the staff section of EKdo 262 and used it as the core of the new III. Gruppe Erganzungsjagdgeschwader 2 at Lechfeld. This unit was to oversee all training for the Luftwaffe’s jet fighter pilots. The remainder of the unit was transferred to airfields at Hesepe and Achmer, where they would begin intensive operations against Allied heavy bombers.

  At that time Galland requested that one of the Luftwaffe’s highest-scoring aces of the Eastern Front, Major Walter Nowotny (with 255 victories to his name), command the new unit. Dubbed Kommando ‘Nowotny’, the unit had 30 Me 262A-1s when it formed, but only 15 pilots qualified to fly the jet.

  On 7 October 1944, the Eighth Air Force launched more than 1400 heavy bombers, escorted by 900 fighters, against oil industry targets in Politz, Ruhland, Merseburg and Lützkendorf. The day started off well for Kommando ‘Nowotny’ when high-scoring ace Leutnant Franz Schall and future ace Feldwebel Heinz Lennartz scored the unit’s first victories with a B-24 apiece. However, the escorts would soon exact a high price for these successes, with three Me 262s falling to American fighters in little more than an hour.

  On this mission Maj Richard E Conner was leading ‘Black’ Section, which consisted of two flights of four P-47Ds from the 82nd FS/78th FG. At 1220 hrs the eight fighters had just rendezvoused with their bombers when Conner led them to an area southwest of Hanover to investigate a report of bandits. Whilst flying at 24,000 ft Conner noticed two unidentified aircraft some 10,000 ft below him, and when he bounced the bandits they both outran his Thunderbolt. It was only then that Conner realised he was chasing a pair of Me 262s. According to his Claim Report, he seemed to think that the jets would accelerate out of range and then turn to re-engage him in an attempt to get a head-on shot, which could be dangerous due to the Me 262’s armament of four 30 mm cannon. When the jets did indeed turn back in Conner’s direction, he banked tightly inside one of them and opened fire;

  On 7 October 1944, Maj Richard E Conner from the 82nd FS/78th FG bounced a pair of Me 262s that quickly out-accelerated him. However, one of the German pilots inexplicably turned back into Conner, which allowed him to cut inside the jet’s turn and score hits from 90 degrees deflection. When the fighter attempted to land Conner hammered the jet again, sending it down in flames on the edge of an airfield. The pilot is believed to have been 42-victory ace Hauptmann Heinz Arnold, who had claimed seven kills in the Me 262 with 11./JG 7. Conner finished the war with 4.5 aerial victories to his name (© IWM FRE 3019)

  ‘I got several strikes with a 90-degree deflection shot. The enemy aircraft headed for the airdrome and I headed for him at full power. Suddenly he slowed and put down his wheels. I got a dead astern shot, getting strikes, and then overran him. I had to take evasive action from intense, accurate light flak on the drome.’

  After Conner overshot the jet, 1Lts Allen A Rosenblum and Robert H Anderson confirmed their section leader’s victory when they saw the Me 262 crash and explode on the airfield. Rosenblum and Anderson would later claim their own Me 262 victories in March 1945. This success brought Conner’s score to 1.5, and he would survive the war just a half-victory short of being an ace (he was also credited with 3.5 strafing kills). Although it is not definitive, Conner’s victim may have been Hauptmann Heinz Arnold, who already had 42 victories to his name when he joined Kommando ‘Nowotny’ from 10./JG 5 on the Eastern Front. Arnold would later become a jet ace, claiming seven victories in the Me 262 with 11./JG 7 in March 1945. He was killed in combat on 17 April.

  1Lt Urban ‘Ben’ Drew of the 375th FS/361st FG had had his first encounter with an Me 262 near Hamm, Germany, in September. Although his Mustang had hit 500 mph when pursuing the jet (almost certainly a bomber from KG 51) in a dive from 20,000 ft, he could not get sufficiently close enough to the aeroplane to open fire. It was a frustrating and sobering experience. On 7 October, Drew was at the controls of P-51D 44-14164 DETROIT Miss leading ‘Decoy Squadron’ on a mission escorting 3rd Air Division B-17s attacking oil industry targets in the Böhlen/Lützkendorf area. He had taken his flight beneath the bombers to engage enemy fighters that had been intercepted by other escorts, but by the time they arrived on the scene all the aircraft had disappeared. Unable to locate his original B-17s, Drew joined a box of homebound red-tailed Flying Fortresses that were short on escorts. However, he was still on the hunt for that all-important fifth victory – his tally then stood at four aerial kills (and one strafing victory). Drew knew that this mission would take him to the same area where he had encountered the Me 262s a few weeks prior. His eagerness paid off.

  As of October 1944, USAAF fighters had shot down three Me 163s and three Me 262s, but conspicuously absent from the victor list was the mighty Mustang. This all changed on 7 October when 1Lt Urban ‘Ben’ Drew of the 375th FS/361st FG shot down two Me 262s that were taking off from Achmer. The gun camera in P-51D-10 44-14164 DETROIT Miss failed and his wingman had been shot down and taken prisoner, so confirmation was impossible. However, due to his access to top-secret intelligence reports, Lt Gen ‘Jimmy’ Doolittle, commander of the Eighth Air Force, personally confirmed Drew’s victories (Boom Powell)

  Approximately 75 minutes after Conner’s victory near Hanover, Drew neared Achmer airfield just as ace Oberleutnant Paul Bley took off in Me 262A-1a Wk-Nr 110405, with fellow ace Leutnant Gerhard Kobert on his wing in Me 262A-1a Wk-Nr 170307 and future ace Oberfähnrich Heinz Russel about to commence his takeoff run. Drew had been watching Bley and Kobert from 15,000 ft, and when they took off he rolled in on them, with 2Lts Bob McCandli
ss and Bill McCoppin on his wing. When Drew levelled off at tree-top height, his closure speed was so great that he was suddenly concerned about overshooting. Flak from the airfield was also heavy and accurate. Drew later noted in his Encounter Report;

  ‘I caught up with the second ME-262 when he was about 1000 ft off the ground. I was indicating 450 mph and the jet aircraft could not have been going over 200 mph. I started firing from about 400 yards, with 30 degrees of deflection, and as I closed on him I observed hits all over the fuselage and wings.’

  Suddenly, Leutnant Kobert’s jet exploded, forcing Drew to fly right through the fireball and debris. Once clear of the conflagration, he briefly glanced back over his shoulder to watch his first victim go in, before focusing his attention on Oberleutnant Bley. The latter had already made a fatal mistake, as Drew related to ‘Boom’ Powell, author of his biography, Ben Drew – The Katzenjammer Ace, in 1986;

  ‘He turned. To this day I don’t know why. The best I can figure is he reverted to old habits and turned into his attacker – me. When an enemy’s nose was pointed at you, you turned. If he had kept accelerating he would have outrun me.’

  The jet was already 60 degrees angle off and Drew was still doing more than 400 mph when he rolled into a 90-degree left bank and put 6Gs on DETROIT Miss. Drew grunted as sweat poured into his eyes, his mask began to droop around his chin and his vision went grey. The Gs were painful, but he kept pulling as the pipper of his K-14 gunsight began gaining on the German fighter. Drew’s vision was now beginning to narrow, and he knew that if he kept the Gs on he would black out in just a few seconds. At that moment he managed to place the pipper over the tail of the jet. He immediately opened fire, ‘walking’ the tracer rounds up the fuselage and into the cockpit, shattering the canopy. The jet went into an inverted spin and struck the ground at a 60-degree angle. Amazingly, Oberleutnant Bley, a Bf 110 ace with eight victories to his name, successfully bailed out of the stricken jet, only to die a few weeks later in a takeoff accident.

  In this publicity shot of 1Lt Drew and his Crew Chief, SSgt Vernon Davis, the canopy rail on DETROIT Miss displays ‘Ben’s’ final tally of seven victories – six aerial and one strafing. Drew was the first of only two USAAF pilots to shoot down a pair of jets in a single engagement (Boom Powell)

  In less than 60 seconds ‘Ben’ Drew had shot down two of Hitler’s elite jet fighters. However, his euphoria was short-lived, for the P-51 of his wingman, Bob McCandliss, had been struck by flak, forcing him to bail out of his burning Mustang just seconds before it hit the ground. There was handshaking and backslapping all around when Drew landed back at the 361st FG’s Bottisham, Cambridgeshire, home, but before he could celebrate he needed confirmation of his kills. This initially proved difficult to achieve for the new colour gun camera film loaded in DETROIT Miss had failed, McCandliss was a PoW and McCoppin had been too busy strafing flak batteries to notice either jet go in. However, confirmation eventually came from Lt Gen ‘Jimmy’ Doolittle, commander of the Eighth Air Force, who had access to top-secret intelligence reports noting the demise of two Me 262s on this date.

  On 2 November 1944 Capt Freddie Glover was leading the 4th FG’s 336th FS on an escort mission when the bombers were attacked by Me 163s. One of the rocket fighters literally flew right in front of Glover, who, after a quick turn, fired a burst that set the Komet on fire. The pilot, Leutnant Günter Andreas of 2./JG 400, duly bailed out. Glover was at the controls of this P-51D-5 (44-13317) when he downed the Komet, the fighter being assigned to Capt Donald Emerson when photographed here at Debden in August 1944 (Courtesy of Donald Pierini, Sr)

  Exactly a week after Maj Conner scored the 78th FG’s second Me 262 victory, 2Lt Huie H Lamb was flying as wingman for Capt John I Brown when he downed the I./KG 51 Me 262A-1a flown by Fahnenjunker-Feldwebel Edgar Junghans near Bohmte. This victory marked the last jet kill scored by the 78th FG whilst flying the P-47. Although Lamb fell 2.5 victories short of ‘making ace’, he claimed a share in the destruction of an Ar 234 with 1Lt Allen A Rosenblum on 19 March 1945, which placed him in the fairly exclusive club of 13 USAAF pilots that scored multiple jet victories. Rosenblum joined the same club three days later when he shared an Me 262 with Capt Winfield Brown. Lamb and Rosenblum both finished the war with 2.5 aerial victories, with the former also destroying three aircraft on the ground and the latter, one.

  On 1 November two flights of P-51s from the 335th FS/4th FG, led by Capt Louis ‘Red Dog’ Norley, were escorting two B-24 combat wings to Gelsenkirchen when they had a brief encounter with a trio of Me 262s as the Liberators dropped their bombs at 1420 hrs. The group’s Intelligence Report stated, ‘A little later some encounter was experienced with a jet Me-262. As this first jet made its attack, two more 262s appeared on the scene but they turned away and ran as our fighters turned into them. The jets could not be overtaken’.

  On the same mission during which Glover scored his victory, Capt Louis ‘Red Dog’ Norley, Operations Officer for the 335th FS/4th FG, engaged a Komet from a distance of just 50 yards. Scoring many hits before overshooting, Norley repositioned himself for another attacking pass. He achieved more good strikes from 400 yards that caused the Komet to roll over and go straight in from 8000 ft. Unlike Glover’s victim, the pilot of the Me 163, Oberfeldwebel Jakob Bollenrath from 1./JG 400, was killed

  The next day, nearly the entire 4th FG was airborne escorting Eighth Air Force bombers to Merseburg. Again, Capt Norley, flying P-51D 44-15028 was leading 22 P-51s of the 335th FS, while Capt Freddie Glover led a similar number of Mustangs from the 336th. JG 400 attempted to intercept the Merseburg-bound bombers, launching more than 15 Komets in what would be the unit’s largest mission of the war.

  At 1410 hrs Capt Glover was leading the group south of Leipzig just under a ten-tenths overcast at 25,000 ft when he noticed a contrail climbing up from east to west just as the first box of bombers were dropping their ordnance;

  ‘The contrail cut off at bomber level, which was about 25,000 ft. As it cut off I could distinguish an aircraft. The aircraft made a 180-degree starboard turn and headed back east in a slight dive. I dropped my tanks and headed for it on a converging course. The aircraft headed east, and myself north. As the aircraft crossed in front of me I recognised it to be a Me 163 Rocket Ship. I made a quick 90-degree turn to the east and dropped in line astern. I opened fire immediately from a range of about 400 yards. I got immediate strikes on the tail, wings and cockpit. The belly of the Me 163 caught first and exploded.’

  When the Komet exploded, Glover overshot and came back around to observe the rocket fighter wallowing, burning and shedding pieces. He broke left as more Me 163s were coming up, so he did not see Leutnant Günter Andreas of 2./JG 400 bail out of the stricken Komet.

  Just after Glover sent Andreas’ Komet down in flames, Capt Norley latched onto the tail of the Me 163 flown by Oberfeldwebel Jakob Bollenrath of 1./JG 400;

  ‘I was leading “Caboose Squadron” at 25,000 ft under the layer [of cloud] southeast of the target. We were just completing a port orbit, waiting for the jets to come down, when one did pop out at “six o’clock” to me. I immediately dropped my tanks, advancing full boost and revs. I set my gyro sight for 30 ft and closed the graticule [sic] to maximum range. I encountered no difficulty in putting the dot on the jet. However, I was quite a little out of range – about 1000 yards. I got on the jet’s tail and followed him down.

  ‘The jet started pulling away from me, so I fired a few short bursts hoping to make him turn, whereby I could possibly cut him off and get in range. The jet did start to level out and make a port turn – his speed dropped off considerably and his turn increased. I closed on him very rapidly. I was using a K-14 gunsight for the first time and do not remember opening the graticule as I closed in. However, I did get a couple of strikes on his tail, ranging from 280 yards down to 50 yards, ten degrees off. My speed was approximately 450 mph when I got into range. I throttled back but was too fast to stay in the turn with him due to my excessi
ve speed. I overshot him, pulled up and got on his tail again.

  ‘Up to this time the jet had not been using his blower – at least he was not emitting any black smoke. As I closed on him the second time he used his blower for a couple of seconds and then cut it off again. I closed to 400 yards from 20 degrees off, fired again and saw strikes on the tail. The jet rolled over and started straight down from 8000 ft, with fire coming intermittently from his port side and exhaust. He crashed in a small village and exploded.’

  This was the last large-scale mission undertaken by JG 400, which from this point on was not an effective fighting force. Aside from the aeroplanes claimed by the 4th FG, Oberfeldwebel Herbert Straznicky was lost when his Komet crashed during the mission (he too was probably shot down, although there were no claims made by USAAF fighters for a third Me 163 kill) and 36-victory ace Oberfeldwebel Horst Rolly died when his parachute failed after he bailed out of his Komet when it burst into flames shortly after takeoff. Bollenrath’s Me 163, therefore, was the last one to be shot down by the USAAF.

  Some Me 163s had a narrow escape. This photograph was taken with the gun camera fitted to Capt W H Anderson’s P-51D of the 335th FS during the mission led by Capt Norley on 2 November 1944. Although damaged, the Me 163 was not shot down (JG 400 Archive)

  Although the two Komets claimed on 2 November were the first of 11 jet victories that would be scored by the 4th FG, they were the only such kills that either Glover or Norley would make. The Me 163 raised Capt Glover’s score to 6.333, and he would finish the war a double ace with 10.333 aerial and 14.5 strafing victories to his name. The Komet credited to Capt Norley brought his score to 8.333 aerial victories, and he too would end his tour in the ETO with 10.333 aerial (and five strafing) victories.