Luftwaffe Bomber Aces; Men, Machines, Methods
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LUFTWAFFE BOMBER ACES LUFTWAFFE BOMBER ACES Men, Machines, Methods MIKE SPICK GREENHILL BOOKS, LONDON STACKPOLE BOOKS, PENNSYLVANIA Luftwaffe Bomber Aces First published 2001 by Greenhill Books Lionel Leventhal Limited, Park House, 1 Russell Gardens, London NW119NN and Stackpole Books, 5067 Ritter Road, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055, USA © Mike Spick, 2001 The author's rights have been asserted At! rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without the written permission of the Publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Spick, Mike Luftwaffe bomber aces : men, machines, methods 1. Germany. Luftwaffe 2. Bomber pilots - Germany 3. World War, 1939-1945 - Aerial operations, German I. Title 940.5'44943 ISBN 1-85367-444-3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available Edited, designed and typeset by Roger Chesneau Printed and bound in Great Britain by Creative Print and Design (Wales), Ebbw Vale CONTENTS List of illustrations and tables 7 Prologue 11 1 The Storm Clouds Gather 15 The Planes in Spain . .—Equipment and Organisation—Crises— Level Bombers—Level Bombers/Dive Bombers—Dive Bombers— Organisation—Nomenklatur 2 Blitzkrieg 32 Low-Level Attacks—Assault on Poland 3 Anti-Shipping Operations, 1939-40 42 German Carrier Aviation—Küstenflieger—Trial and Error—Operation 'Weserübung' 4 Victory in the West 55 The Burning of Rotterdam—France—Breakthrough at Sedan—The Race for the Sea—Assault on the Ports—Two Miracles—The Capitulation of France 5 Assault on England, July 1940-May 1941 70 The Channel Battles—Adlerangriff—Bombs on London—The Night Blitz—German Blind Bombing Systems—The Firelighters—Tactics Against the Night Fighters 6 Campaigns in the South 118 Assault in the Balkans—Crete—Malta—North Africa 7 War in the East 132 Leningrad, 1941—The March to the East—The Road to Stalingrad— The Tide Turns—The Long Road Back LUFTWAFFE BOMBER ACES 8 The Strategic War at Sea 149 The Battle of the Atlantic—Over the Atlantic—Desert Diversion— Fliegerführer Atlantik—Arctic Operations—Guided Missiles 9 Western Front, July 1941-May 1944 173 Stratospheric Strikers—The Baedeker Raids—Angriffsführer England —Operation 'Steinbock' 10 Last Stand in the West 186 Mistel—Doodlebugs—Fighter-Bombers—The German Jets 11 The Bomber Aces 199 12 Stuka and Schlacht Aces 212 Appendix: Main Luftwaffe Bomber and Attack Aircraft 227 Bibliography 235 Index 237 ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES Plates (pages 97-112) 1 Ugly and angular—the Ju 87 dive bomber 2 The He 111, the backbone of the Kampfflieger in the early years 3 A shot-down He 111H-5 of Stab III/KG 26 4 The Henschel Hs 123B, which gave sterling service over Poland 5 The Heinkel He 115, mainly used for minelaying early in the war 6 A German SC 500 bomb which landed at Mosta, Malta 7 The Dornier Do 217E, which entered service in 1941 with II/KG 40 8 A Do 217M damaged by a 'Z' rocket battery over Ealing 9 The Focke-Wulf FW 200C, which caused damage to Allied shipping 10 The Junkers Ju 188A—a very much improved Ju 88 11 The Heinkel He 177A, which was endlessly delayed by engine fires 12 The Henschel Hs 129B—first of the 'big gun' anti-tank aircraft 13 The Junkers Ju 87G tank-buster, lethal in the hands of an expert 14 The Focke-Wulf FW 190, which started to replace the Ju 87 in 1943 15 The 1,800kg Satan—one of the largest bombs used by the Luftwaffe 16 The Messerschmitt Me 410, a replacement for the elderly Bf 110 17 The He 111H as a carrier for the Fi 103 'Doodlebug' 18 The Arado Ar 234—the world's first operational jet bomber 19 The final variant of the Ar 234, with a conventional undercarriage 20 The Messerschmitt Me 262A, which was adapted as a fighter-bomber 21 Hans-Georg Batcher celebrates his 500th sortie 22 Werner Baumbach, who had a full and varied career 23 Walter Bradel, who was killed when his Do 217 crashed at Amsterdam 24 Hans-Joachim Herrmann with Reichsmarschall Herman Goering 25 Full military honours for Walter Bradel and his crew 7 LUFTWAFFE BOMBER ACES 26 Martin Harlinghausen after his grand tour of the Suez Canal 27 Karl-Heinrich Hofer as Kommandeur II/KG 55 28 Bernhard Jope, one of the most distinguished Condor pilots with KG 40 29 Ritterkreuz holder Robert Kowaleski 30 Ritterkreuz holder Viktor von Lossberg 31 Dieter Lukesch, awarded the Eichenlaub to the Ritterkreuz 32 Helmut Mahlke, awarded the Ritterkreuz after 145 sorties 33 Volprecht Riedesel Freiherr zu Eisenbach 34 Horst Rudat, awarded the Ritterkreuz on 24 March 1943 35 Hans-Ulrich Rudel, the most decorated soldier of the Third Reich Diagrams (drawn by John Richards) 1 The Staffelwinkel 22 2 The Staffelkolonne 23 3 The Stqffelkeil 26 4 The Gruppenkolonne aus Staffelwinkeln 28 5 The Gruppenkolonne aus geschlossenen Staffelkeilen 30 6 Typical dive bombing attack by a Junkers Ju 88 46 7 Effectiveness of slatted air brakes as fitted to the Junkers Ju 87 64 8 The Lorenz beam 90 9 The Knickebein bombing system 91 10 The X-Gerät bombing system 93 11 The Y-Gerät bombing system 94 12 Fighter evasion with a Junkers Ju 88 114 13 Hajo Herrmann's flight, 6/7 April 1941 123 14 The Eastern Front: front lines 138 15 The Battle of the Atlantic 151 16 Single-aircraft attacks on shipping 152 17 The 'Swedish Turnip' attack 156 18 Torpedo attack (1) 162 19 Torpedo attack (2) 163 20 The 'Golden Comb' 164 21 The fate of convoy PQ.17 166 8 22 Typical attack using a Fritz X guided bomb 169 23 Typical attack with an Hs 293 glider bomb 171 24 Method of operation of the Egon blind bombing system 182 25 The attack on London, 24 February 1944 184 26 The Mistel attack 190 Tables 1 Luftwaffe Strike Units in the West, 10 May 1940 56 2 German Bomber Order of Battle in the West, 13 August 1940 75 3 Bomber Units, Operation 'Marita', 5 April 1941 122 4 Bomber Units, Operation 'Mercury', 20 May 1941 124 5 Bomber and Stuka Order of Battle, Eastern Front, 24 June 1941 134 6 Kursk: Luftwaffe Bomber and Attack Order of Battle 144 7 Luftwaffe Order of Battle, Operation 'Steinbock', 20 January 1944 180 9 PROLOGUE There were hundreds of guns firing at us, as if they'd been brought here from the entire Empire to guard the artery of world power. Flashes appeared from all over the island. It was a veritable wasp's nest. Through the glass of the cockpit I could see the airfield at Luqa steep below me. We were not going to make it! Then Helbig's aircraft tilted down, and the entire Staff Flight went with him. The light blue underbellies of all the aircraft showed simultaneously. No waverers! A second later I lowered my dive brakes, put the nose down, and throttled right back. Out of the corner of my eye I watched my wing men. I looked ahead. I was right behind Helbig in the vic of the Staff Flight. The Staff Flight aircraft were racing down ahead of me but seemed to be poised, motionless, over the target area, their wings like narrow lines, as if on an aerial photograph. Press on! . .. At last! Ahead and below me there was movement in the formation. Almost as if they were rocket-propelled, the staff aircraft, pulling out of their dive, swept out from the target, so that in a flash I could see the imperial crosses on the upper surfaces of their wings. Our turn now! I held my aim down to the smallest ring of light in my sight. The alarm klaxon blared out: that meant that I was 800 metres above the ground. I could see my target clearly ... I pressed the bomb release. This was the first sortie by Hans-Joachim (Hajo) Herrmann against Malta in February 1941. A Junkers Ju 8 8 pilot, he had flown the He 111 against Poland and Norway with KG 4, then the Ju 88 against France and England. A holder of the Ritterkreuz, he was now Kommandeur III/KG 30, and was destined to go on to still greater things. Malta was at this time defended by anti-aircraft guns and a handful of RAF Hurricanes, and was not yet the hornet's nest it later became. Leading the raid was Joachim Helbig, at this time Kommandeur 1/LG 1 (Ju 88), who already held the Ritterkreuz with Eichenlaub, and who, a little more than one month earlier, had led attacks on the British aircraft car rier HMS Illustrious in the Mediterranean which had all but sunk her, putting her out of the war for eighteen months. Malta was just beginning to win her reputation as 'the unsinkable aircraft carrier'—a reputation which would be justified by future events. The raid 11 LUFTWAFFE BOMBER ACES described was recorded as having destroyed eight Wellington bombers and severely damaged another seven, thus helping to secure the supply lines to North Africa, where the Deutsches Afrika Korps under Erwin Rommel, com bined with the Italian Army, battled with the British Empire for control of Egypt and the Suez Canal. Had Rommel been successful in this undertaking, the Wehrmacht would have been free to advance to the oilfields of the Middle East. The loss of oil—the life blood of war—would have been critical to the Empire. Nor would German difficulties have been extreme: Iraq, in particular, was to a degree anti-British.