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Home , Dive bomber, Ernst Udet, Junkers Ju 87, Luftwaffe, Messerschmitt Me 210

An aerobatics demonstration during the 1931 Air Show The convinced German flyer of the military worth of a new type of maneuver and led him to support the development of the aircraft that would become synonymous with Nazi aggression during Story World War II. BY THOMAS HAJEWSKI

I N , during the state . Only later was it specifical- Udet was at the Curtiss-Wright fac- funeral for Ernst Udet, World ly applied to the Ju-87. In tory in Buffalo, N. Y., supervising War I fighter ace and Generalluft- the military jargon of the day, the the disassembly and crating of two zeugmeister (Director of longer Sturzkampfflugzeug was brand-new Curtiss BFC-1 Hawk air- the ) Hermann G6ring shortened to Stuka, the aircraft that craft for shipment to . spoke eloquently about the fallen has become synonymous with Ger- Udet had actually seen the spunky hero's deeds. He praised his accom- man aggression in World War II. double-winger for the first time two plishments in the Great War, his six- Both the Junkers Ju-87 Stuka as years before, at the Cleveland Air ty-two air victories—second only to well as the technique of dropping Show, and was greatly impressed by Baron von Richthofen—and his to- bombs while plunging earthward at the trim craft's maneuverability and tal dedication in helping to build speeds often in excess of 350 mph steep diving ability. Hitler's . Yet GOring's high- had an unusual, highly controver- During the show, the Hawk est praise was bestowed on his for- sial developmental history. More (called the Falken by the Germans) mer comrade's support for and de- than once the entire project was plunged nearly vertically like a velopment of a specific type of air- nearly scrapped. German prewar stone, pulled out of its dive only a craft, the offensive without and secrecy have few hundred feet above the ground, which the tactics used in clouded so much of this interesting only to begin its upward climb anew , France, and later Russia phase of history that even and repeat the same series of ma- during the first years of the war now, nearly fifty years after the be- neuvers to the cheering of the crowd would have been impossible. ginning of World War II, new facts below. This new plane was dubbed a regarding the Stuka and its develop- Udet appreciated what such a Sturzkampfflugzeug, literally a ment are coming to light. plane would mean to his own pro- "diving fighting plane," a designa- gram of aerobatics (he was an ac- tion originally used by the Germans Prowess of the Hawk complished stunt flyer, one recog- for any aircraft used as a dive- On September 27, 1933, Ernst nized worldwide for his heart-stop-

204 AIR FORCE Magazine / May 1987 Political changes within Germany Undaunted, Udet took posses- and the rise to power of the National sion of the two Hawks and con- Socialists provided an answer. Her- tinued to fly them while perfecting mann Goring, himself a decorated his diving technique to the point pilot in , became Hit- where he was ready to incorporate The German Ju-87B, shown here in prewar markings, ler's Reichskommissar far Luftfahrt the maneuver into his aerobatics played an integral part in (Chief of Aviation) and secretly be- show the following summer. How- German Blitzkrieg tactics. gan to build a new Luftwaffe. Hear- ever, during one of his last practice (Photo courtesy of United ing of Udet's interest in the new runs over 's Tempelhof Air- States Air Force Museum) American craft and himself cog- port, the Hawk failed to respond to nizant of its possible military appli- the controls at the end of a steep cations, Goring told Udet to pur- dive. chase the Hawks. The Just before the plane tore into the would pay the bill, he said. ground, Udet bailed out, his para- When the two planes were crated chute opening scant yards from cer- and ready for shipment, Udet hesi- tain death. As on a dozen previous tatingly assured the Curtiss-Wright occasions in his life, the veteran sales director that payment would flyer was again able to walk away be forthcoming as soon as he had from a crash. This time, however, contacted the proper German au- several days of recuperation in a thorities. hospital seemed to indicate that his "But, Mr. Udet," the American own personal luck might be taking replied, "the money has already the same course as his dream of sus- been deposited in our bank!" The tained vertical diving with an air- next day both planes were in the craft. hold of a freighter and on their way It remains a matter of speculation to . exactly to what extent Udet was Goring had placed only one stip- aware at this time of the Luftwaffe's ulation on the sale: Both craft were already decisive commitment to the to be given a thorough testing and concept of the dive-bomber and of structural analysis by Luftwaffe en- parallel developments regarding it gineers before being handed over to in other parts of the world. There is Udet for his stunt-flying program, a little doubt that certain circles with- condition to which Udet quickly in the new German Air Force were agreed. keenly aware of the military effec- tiveness of the Stuka and were se- The Tests Begin cretly pushing for the development Testing of the Hawks began in De- of suitable aircraft that could be ping performances) and was afraid cember 1933 at the Luftwaffe base adapted for dive-bombing. In fact, that some last-minute problem or at Rechlin, north of Berlin, with the Navy had been difficulty with the American au- Udet, at this point still a civilian, at conducting similar tests with near- thorities might prevent him from ac- the controls during the initial vertical bombing during the early quiring the Hawks. flights. The tremendous stresses on , and it is a matter of record The military significance of the both machine and pilot became evi- that the Japanese Navy was doing plane must also have seemed matter dent from the outset. Udet had to be the same. of fact to the veteran airman. The physically lifted from the cockpit The German firms Junkers and Hawk could dive at a target on the after the first dives, so completely , specifically interested in ground or at a warship at sea and, had the spine-wrenching plunges foreign export contracts, had begun aiming with the aircraft itself strike and pullouts exhausted him. Fur- development in their Swedish and its objective with a single, well- ther test dives by other pilots pro- Russian branch factories of aircraft placed bomb. It would continue to duced similar results. The maneu- types that would be capable of drop- remain a mystery to Udet why the vers approached the maximum lim- ping bombs while diving. Junkers American military had not yet ex- its endurable by both man and had fitted its K-47 two-seater with ploited the dive-bomber to any ap- machine. dive brakes, and Heinkel produced preciable extent up to this point. The Technisches Amt (Technical its He-50 double-winger for possi- Wanting the planes for his own Branch) of the Luftwaffe was quick ble Japanese export. Both had been show and actually purchasing them, with its decision—the plane and the thoroughly tested at Lipetsk in the however, were two different mat- concept of near-vertical dive-bomb- and had proven so ters. Together, the pair of Hawks ing were rejected outright as being successful in support of ground cost more than $30,000, an amount impractical, dangerous, and com- troops that improved models of both decidedly beyond the reach of the pletely unsuitable for military appli- planes were requested. Further test- flamboyant, fast-spending Udet. cation, a verdict that for the mo- ing of vertical was given How could he possibly raise such a ment seemed overwhelmingly de- top priority. sum? cisive and irreversible. Considering the fact that Ger- AIR FORCE Magazine May 1987 205 many was in violation of the Ver- lion Stuka design was taking was vantage. Two years earlier, the com- sailles Treaty by pursuing military the head of the developmental sec- pany's chief engineer had designed aircraft development and testing tion within the Luftwaffe's Tech- an aircraft, the Ju-87, which fit since as early as 1926, the secrecy nical Branch, Maj. Wolfram Frei- Luftwaffe specifications. Construc- surrounding its dive-bomber pro- herr von Richthofen, a cousin of the tion of the prototype could begin at gram is understandable. Could famous World War I ace. It was his once, and many of the new plane's Udet have been uninformed of what contention that existing aircraft features could be directly imple- was going on in more official circles types being considered for use as mented from those of the company's of the new Luftwaffe? Had Goring dive-bombers, such as the He-50, earlier K-47 and K-48 models, engineered a public rejection of Hs-123, and the Fi-98, as well as planes that had already proven suc- Udet's demonstration dives in the planes still on the drawing boards, cessful in vertical dive tests. Hawk as an additional cover-up, fur- were or would all be vastly under- As a result, only a few months ther shielding from foreign powers powered and thus unable to avoid were needed to build the first Ju-87 what direction German aircraft re- pursuit by enemy fighters. Since V-1 (Versuchsmodell Nr. /—Pro- search and development was, in ac- dive-bombing accuracy could only totype Number One), and by the fall tuality, taking? be assured from heights of less than of 1935, the plane was already being There seems little doubt that 3,000 feet, this would also make the put through a grueling series of Udet's vision of a Stuka too easy a target for enemy dives, each one a degree steeper suitable for dive-bombing had al- ground flak. Also, he believed, pilot than the previous. Despite the crash ready been preordained by certain stress would be far too great. of the plane several months later factions within the new Luftwaffe. Richthofen proposed a larger, after its and stabilizer shred- multiengine, much faster aircraft, ded during a dive of more than New Designs one able to speed away from attack- eighty degrees, Junkers engineers By 1933, German Heinkel He-50 ing fighters and much less vulner- were quick to follow with further aircraft were being organized into able to antiaircraft fire from the improved models, the V-2 and V-3. dive-bomber groups, and in the ground. Planes like the Junkers same year, the firms of and Ju-88 or the Me-210 Still the Stuka Advocate Henschel were ordered to begin de- were the types he envisioned, but In January 1936, Udet entered the signing an aircraft specifically as a these would only make their appear- Luftwaffe as a . Officially his dive-bomber. The engineers were ances years in the future. Germany title was Inspekteur der Jagdflieger clear from the first as to exactly would need a production-line dive- (Inspector of ), yet what the new plane's capabilities bomber much sooner. unofficially, still a major Stuka ad- had to be in order to play a role in Proponents of the present Stuka vocate, he would now be in a posi- future combat situations. program, its design engineers and tion to supervise personally his real The aircraft would have to be especially Walther area of interest—dive-bomber de- sturdy enough to withstand dives of Weyer, Generalstabchef der Luft- velopment. up to 350 mph. It would have to be waffe (Chief of ), shared few of In March, comparative testing equipped with dive brakes to pre- Richthofen's apprehensions. They began at Rechlin. Arado's design, vent exceeding this speed, consid- saw in the new plane a great oppor- the Ar-81 double-winger, had no ered at the time to be a maximum at tunity to improve the accuracy of chance against the Junkers Ju-87 or which plane and pilot could safely bombs dropped. A few Stukas could the Heinkel He-118, both mono- function. achieve much better results than an planes. The Heinkel was a sleek de- Finding a suitable engine would entire squadron of horizontal bomb- sign, featuring retractable landing present further problems, for no ers, a proposal that appealed to tra- gear. Capable of carrying a 500-kg powerplant greater than 600 hp ditional German efficiency and bomb in a bay, it was thirty could be made available in the near thrift and one that would be crucial mph faster than the Junkers, which future. This meant that the aircraft in light of Germany's limited natural had nonretractable gear and carried would be especially vulnerable to resources. its bomb load externally. But the attacking enemy fighters because of Because Germany lacked over- Junkers was a sturdier aircraft and, its relatively slow speed in level seas sources of raw materials, self- unlike the Heinkel, could dive at an and especially while pulling sufficiency would again, as in World angle of eighty degrees, a prerequi- out of a dive. War I, become the watchword. A site for accurate bomb-aiming. To counter this, it was decided to few well-placed bombs would be Richthofen, still head of the Tech- provide space for a second crew much more effective and far less nical Branch, preferred the He-118, member, a machine gunner, whose wasteful than many haphazardly Udet the Ju-87. The problem was job it would be to provide covering dropped. neatly resolved, however, on June fire against enemy aircraft attacking Despite dissenting voices, the 10, 1936, when Richthofen was pro- from the rear. Step by step, with Technical Branch decided to pro- moted to chief of staff of the newly traditional German thoroughness, ceed with the dive-bomber's design, formed and trans- each technical problem was worked and in April 1935, the firms of Ara- ferred to Spain. Udet took over his out until, by early 1935, Luftwaffe do, Bleihm und Voss, Heinkel, and position as head of the Technical designers had a definite idea of the Junkers were requested to begin Branch. Later that same month, new bomber's specifications. work on dive-bomber prototypes. Udet himself took the controls of One of the opponents to the direc- Junkers already had a clear ad- the He-118 and proceeded to put it 206 AIR FORCE Magazine / May 1987 through yet another dive test. The the older A models. This newer orders to his pilots. The objective propeller sheared off, and again plane had a 1,150-hp engine, which was concealed under a cloud bank Udet had to bail out before the plane resulted in a maximum bomb-carry- approximately 3,000 feet thick, be- crashed. Udet, therefore, had made ing capacity of 1,000 kg. Despite a neath which the planes would have the final decision himself: His pref- relatively short action radius of 125 another 3,000 feet in which to iden- erence, the Ju-87, would become miles at 180 mph, the planes were tify their targets, aim and release the Luftwaffe's new operational more than adequate for the ground- their bombs, and pull up—a maneu- dive-bomber. support missions they were re- ver they had all practiced many Orders for 262 Ju-87A- 1 s were quired to perform. times before. When the routine placed immediately, and by 1937, By the time hostilities broke out briefing was concluded, the air- three Stukas had been sent to Spain with Poland on , 1939, crews saluted smartly and ran to and were actively engaging in com- the Luftwaffe had more than 300 their aircraft. Within minutes, the bat missions against Republican Ju-87B and thirty Hs-123 aircraft of Ju-87B Stukas was air- units. More Stukas were to follow. ready for deployment as operational borne, in formation, and racing to- The precision with which the planes dive-bombers. ward the target area. were able to strike ground targets Flying in at 12,000 feet, the impressed even the still-less-than- The Neuhammer Catastrophe Stukas approached their objective. optimistic Richthofen, and he or- On , 1939, just two At a few minutes past 6:00 a.m., dered the crews of the three Ju-87s weeks before the planned invasion Hauptmann Sigel gave the order to to be changed often in order for as of Poland, an event took place that assume attack formation. He him- many flyers as possible to gain ex- was again to cast serious doubt on self led the first group of three perience in the aircraft. the feasibility of using Stukas in a bombers. On the left was his adju- Further Stuka successes in Spain major combat role. At Cottbus air- tant Oberleutnant Eppen, and on continued to stimulate dive-bomber drome in Silesia, Stuka squadron the right his technical officer research and development. The 76, under the command of Haupt- Oberleutnant Muller. After them

Here, Germans service a Ju-87 during the early days of the war. Despite its short- comings, the Stuka was able to plunge toward its earthbound targets at speeds often in excess of 350 mph. (Photo courtesy of the United States Air Force Museum)

Sudetenland crisis of 1938 caused mann Walter Sigel, was preparing followed the other planes, arranged the Luftwaffe to form additional for a practice dive-bombing run in three groups. dive-bomber groups, using older over the military training area at Sigel dived, allowing his plane's aircraft until more Ju-87s became Neuhammer, only a few minutes' nose simply to drop toward the tar- available. These included the flying time away. Cement practice get beneath the thick cloudbank. He He-45, He-50, He-51, and especial- bombs fitted with smoke charges immediately went from bright ly the Hs-123, a plane that closely would be dropped on clearly out- morning sunlight into a milky- resembled the Curtiss Hawk and lined ground targets, a demonstra- white, frothy haze. Plunging earth- one that was used extensively by the tion that was to be observed by a ward, both pilot and gunner strained Germans in the initial stages of the team of high-ranking Luftwaffe offi- their eyes to make out the outlines war. cers. of the targets on the ground directly Junkers factories increased their The latest early-morning weather beneath the clouds. Forehead production, and soon, faster, more bulletin from the target area was re- bathed in sweat, Sigel silently updated Ju-87Bs began to replace ceived, and Sigel issued final attack counted off the seconds. The next AIR FORCE Magazine / May 1987 207 instant would surely bring them layer, numbed by what had just voiced any opinions about what had through the haze. taken place, ominous pillars of dark happened, they remain unrecorded. Suddenly the cloudy whiteness smoke filtered up from below. Stuka squadron 76 was quickly before the Stuka's windscreen brought up to its full complement darkened into the green-brown of Adding Up the Cost with spare aircraft borrowed from the earth. Instead of the 3,000 feet of In one fateful blow, the Luftwaffe other groups and played a major clear sky he was expecting, he had lost twenty-six young flyers in role in the initial attacks on Poland emerged from the clouds only a few thirteen aircraft. Perhaps ironically, beginning on September 1. Its hundred feet from destruction, his Wolfram von planes bombed bunkers, major entire formation just seconds be- Richthofen was one of the eyewit- highways, trains, troop concentra- hind him! nesses to the tragedy. Receiving tions, and bridges. The catastrophe at Neuhammer was quickly forgot- ten in the tumult of war. The Ju-87 Stuka started World War II as an integral part of the new German Blitzkrieg. As armored units rapidly advanced on enemy troops and defensive works, Stukas dropped bombs, often with a high degree of accuracy, on specific tar- gets identified by tank commanders on the ground. These well-coordi- nated attacks had devastating re- sults in Poland and especially in the initial assaults on the Low Coun- tries and France the following spring. Yet the plane's shortcomings, as correctly foreseen by Richthofen, rapidly became evident during the , when Stuka losses to Spitfire and Hurricane fighters This Ju-87 Stuka crew took part in the German retreat from in order to rose to such an extent that G6ring avoid onrushing Russian forces as the war ground toward its end. These men had to restrict their use to night- surrendered to a US tactical reconnaissance group. (USAF photo) bombing missions only. In other theaters of action, the He instinctively wrenched the word of the Neuhammer catastro- plane was used extensively with control stick backward with all his phe, Hitler reportedly stared si- moderate success, despite mount- might and screamed into his micro- lently out of his study window for ing losses to faster Allied fighters. phone: "Pull up, pull up, ground fog, ten minutes. Could the super- Armed with its bomb (which was ground fog!" stitious Fiihrer have been con- released by a swinging mechanism Literally feet above the ground, templating calling off his invasion from beneath the fuselage to avoid Sigel's Stuka sliced through a small plans because of the scale of the shearing off the propeller) and fitted clearing between two stands of tragedy? Would all Stukas be with high-pitched sirens (which the pines. He managed to pullout, look- grounded and their roles in the Germans called "Jericho trum- ing hurriedly behind him. On his forthcoming Blitzkrieg be can- pets"), the Stuka was a target only left, Eppen's Stuka crashed into the celed? the most steel-nerved antiaircraft trees. Milner, on the right, plunged That afternoon, a tribunal as- gunner could continue to hold in his into the earth in a ball of flame and sembled to investigate the disaster. sights. smoke. Its verdict: The ground fog must In the Mediterranean, the plane All nine Stukas of the second have developed between when the was used effectively against British group, led by Oberleutnant Gold- initial weather report was received shipping, and in Russia, fitted with mann, rammed into the ground. and when the dive-bombing attack two 37-mm high-velocity , it Some planes of the third chain man- took place. The mission command- became a formidable antitank weap- aged to hear their commander's er, Hauptmann Sigel, had done ev- on. A total of 4,881 Ju-87 Stukas was warning in time; the others either erything possible to warn his men produced during the six-year period smashed into the ground or over- after recognizing the danger. No of the war. None remains in flyable estimated their pullout loops and charges were pressed. If Hitler condition today. • crashed upside down into the forest. The last group heard the warning Dr. Thomas Hajewski is a faculty member and Professor of German in the and reacted in time. All of them Pennsylvania State University system. He is the author of many articles and book were able to save themselves. reviews dealing with German literature and culture. His interest in Ernst Udet and As the surviving aircraft at- the conception of the dive-bomber is the result of acquiring an old Cleveland Air tempted to regroup above the cloud Show program from the 1930s, which carried a feature on the German aviator.

208 AIR FORCE Magazine / May 1987