Osprey DUE 100 Me 262 vs P 51 Mustang Europe 1944 1945 By Robert Forsyth True Pdf.pdf

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Me 262
P-51 MUSTANG
Europe 1944–45
ROBERT FORSYTH
Me 262
P‑51 Mustang
Europe 1944–45
ROBERT FORSYTH
CONTENTS
Introduction
Chronology
Design and Development
Technical Specifications
The Strategic Situation
The Combatants
Combat
Statistics and Analysis
Aftermath
Further Reading
Index
4
8
10
25
35
42
55
74
76
79
80
INTRODUCTION
In the unseasonably stormy summer skies of July 28, 1943, the USAAF’s Eighth Air
Force despatched 302 B‑17 Flying Fortresses to bomb the Fieseler aircraft works at
Kassel‑Batteshausen and the AGO aircraft plant at Oschersleben, both in Germany.
This was the “Mighty Eighth’s” 78th such mission to Europe since the start of its
strategic bombing operations from bases in England in August of the previous year.
On this occasion, for the first time, and at least for a part of their journey into the
airspace of the Reich, the bombers would enjoy the security and protection of P‑47
Thunderbolt escort fighters. The latter had been fitted with bulky and unpressurized
auxiliary fuel tanks that were normally used for ferry flights, but which greatly
extended their usual range. Yet even with this extra fuel, the P‑47s could only stay with
the bombers for
part
of their journey.
Herein lay a dichotomy. Despite warnings to the contrary from their Royal Air
Force (RAF) counterparts, senior staff officers in the USAAF believed in the viability
of undertaking future
unescorted
daylight missions to key targets within Germany. In
January 1943 Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt
met in Casablanca to determine a plan for Allied victory. It was here that the
philosophy of daylight precision bombing of German targets was given the seal of
approval by Allied leaders, who were anxious to hone an air strategy that would swiftly
and effectively destroy the Third Reich’s industry and its “will to resist.” Thus, although
Allied strategic aspiration was to penetrate ever deeper into enemy territory so as to
reach and destroy more of Germany’s manufacturing and industrial plants, as well as
its transport infrastructure, such operations became increasingly riskier the further east
the bombers flew.
On July 28, the Luftwaffe, aided by an increasingly sophisticated defense and
communications network, and ever alert to the Americans’ tactics, waited until the
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P‑47s had to turn back before launching a concentrated attack in bad weather on the
then vulnerable bombers. Ten
Jagdgruppen
were assembled in defense, together with a
specialist anti‑bomber weapons development unit and a handful of factory
defense flights.
The Fw 190s and Bf 109Gs charged their way into the American formations in
head‑on attacks. In one of their first major deployments, new types of weapons
intended specifically for use against the
Viermots
(“four‑motors” – Allied four‑engined
bombers) were used in the form of underwing 21cm mortar tubes. Fired from beyond
the defensive range of the bombers, the mortar shells were intended to detonate within,
or even near to a formation, causing sufficient blast effect to break it up and leaving
bombers isolated and straggling. One Flying Fortress from the 385th Bombardment
Group (BG) received a direct hit, broke up and crashed into two other B‑17s, causing
all three aircraft to go down. In another example of “innovation,” one Fw 190 pilot
claimed three bombers destroyed after he dropped a bomb into the American formation.
The USAAF lost 22 bombers in total, with three more written off after crash‑landing
upon their return to England.
For the Luftwaffe, these encouraging results were tempered by the unexpected clash
between P‑47s of the 4th Fighter Group (FG) sent to cover the B‑17s’ withdrawal and
a mixed formation of Fw 190s and Bf 109s that was in the process of launching an
attack against the bombers near Emmerich. In a running engagement between Utrecht
and Rotterdam, the Americans claimed nine German fighters shot down.
Nevertheless, the losses suffered by the B‑17s that day served as another stark
reminder to the Eighth Air Force of the heavy bombers’ vulnerability when unescorted.
Clearly the bomb groups were unable to defend themselves, and the grim prospect of
further losses in aircraft and hundreds of crewmen hung heavily over USAAF senior
commanders – particularly Lt Gen Henry “Hap” Arnold, the Commanding General
of the Army Air Forces. The solution as Arnold saw it – indeed the
need,
and it was
needed urgently – was for a fighter that had sufficient range to fly with the bombers
all the way to Germany, to any target, even to Berlin and back. Was that indeed
possible, and even if it was, how long would such an aircraft take to arrive with the
squadrons in England?
In fact, the solution was on its way in the form of the P‑51 Mustang – an aircraft
that had been built by North American Aviation in the US but used operationally by
the RAF, who christened it after the feral horses that roamed the Great Plains. Its use
by the USAAF, however, had been the subject of procrastination and delay – a delay
that had proved costly in terms of the numbers of bomber crews that had already been
shot down over Germany by the time of the re‑engined B‑model’s eventual deployment
as an escort.
On November 11, 1943 – 15 weeks after the Kassel and Oschersleben mission, by
which time the Eighth Air Force had flown another 49 bombing raids and, in the
process, suffered many more losses in aircraft and crews – the first of the new P‑51B
Mustang fighters arrived in England. However, with the agreement of the Eighth Air
Force’s commanding general, Lt Gen Ira Eaker, these aircraft were assigned to the
Ninth Air Force’s 354th FG, which would use them to fly tactical army support missions.
This was not an ideal situation for the bomb groups of the “escort‑starved” Eighth
Air Force, which were losing aircraft to Luftwaffe fighters in record numbers. In a
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