09.09.2007, 10:01
IN EARLY MARCH 1944 THE U.S. 8TH AIR FORCE DECIDED FOR THE FIRST TIME TO PENETRATE DEEP INTO THE HEART OF THE GERMAN REICH, FOCUSING ITS WRATH ON ITS CAPITAL. COMMITTING MORE THAN 1.500 AIRCRAFT, THE OVERCONFIDENT AMERICANS BLATANTLY CHALLENGED THE LUFTWAFFE KNOWING
THAT THE GERMANS WOULD DEFEND BERLIN AT ANY COST. DURING THE MORNING OF THAT FATEFUL MONDAY THE FLYING FORTS WOULD CLAIM THE MOST VALUABLE PRIZE OF THE WAR: THE SIXTH LARGEST CITY IN THE WORLD. BUT ... GERMAN FIGHTERS HAD DECIDED OTHERWISE
At least 17 pairs of experienced eyes were continuously scanning the quarters of the crystal clear blue sky: behind, ahead, left, right, above, below -the same old pattern, developed after weeks, months or even years of practice. It had been nearly half an hour since the FW-190A-8's had taken off to meet the oncoming raiding armada of more than 800 fighters escorting 730 bombers, their bellies pregnant with death, each one loaded with five tons of incendiaries and high-explosives, ready to be delivered on some German city. Only this time, things looked as if it was not just going to be any city.
The German squadron had briefed by its commander for the standard nerve-racking frontal attack: the opponent formations would be approaching each other at a combined closing speed of at least 175 mph and German pilots would have just about two or three seconds in which to aim, fire and break away before they collided with their target. Quite a tricky job for an average fighter pilot and a nearly suicidal one for a green young one. But right now, at 21,000 ft, leading the 17 fighters of Stab and I/JG11 was Hauptmann Rolf Hermichen, a Luftwaffe Expert; a veteran "Giant Killer"; a man who knew even the deepest secrets of his enemy: his fields of fire, how fast a dorsal turret could rotate, or how the guns of the dorsal and belly turrets automatically stopped firing at a frontal target a few degrees to port or starboard of the bomber's nose, in order not to hit the propeller blades. And Hermichen had placed his Gruppe just as expertly for a text-book "Twelve o'clock high" head-on attack. The enemy formation appeared just where the ground controllers had said it should be. Tiny specks on the horizon that gradually grew into dots, then grew into tightly packed box-formations of up to twenty bombers each, bearing a total of 240 heavy machine guns. Hermichen and his pilots would have to pass through this nightmarish holocaust of crisscrossing fire once again.
"Wolves, twelve o'clock high! Closing fast!", the voice that crackled through the intercom announced the most feared words in the USAAF.
The gunners, huddled in their turrets amidst the ammunition belts, turned to face the threat. Feet stepped on hydraulic pedals and the turrets brought to bear their machine guns against the formation in front. "God! This is my last flight...": that was the first thought that crossed the nose gunner's mind in Captain David Miner's B-17, at the extreme right of the lead squadron of the Low Box, and adrenaline surged into his blood. It was the same thought and the same fear in every single mission. In the eyes and mind of someone who was on the receiving end of a head-on attack the whole thing looked much more than what it really was: a personal attack aimed right at you. You felt exposed, helpless and weak -almost unarmed. The two 12,7mm guns were like paintball guns compared to the Luftwaffe's 30mm cannons, and even the smallest fragment could go clean through that paper-thin glass around you. Given the fact that collision was something that depended entirely on the German fighters, there was nothing you could do but fire ahead and keep flying straight and level.. Well, you could pray of course but it rarely worked out. God was not the safest bet these days...
Hermichen didn't think so, at least today. He strained his neck for one last look around the sky...No fighter cover! Probably looking for trouble elsewhere. God still performed miracles these days! He turned his reflector sight on, set his guns to "fire", squinted his eyes through the blur of the rotating propeller, picked a target at the middle of the bomber formation and concentrated on it, watching the distance closing rapidly with every second passing. At about 1,000 yards he brought the target inside his reticule and just then the air around him filled with red and yellow tracers flashing past his canopy. Sweat run down his spine as every muscle in his body tensed to breaking point; but that didn't matter. All that mattered right now was just his target. Eyes and senses literally dead-locked on it, counting the distance; counting seconds...
"After them!", he shouted, giving the signal for the attack, his mind still fixed on his target. Counting distance...counting seconds...
Two seconds later...600 yards...The growing bomber was now filling the electric light bars on each side of his gun sight at astonishing speed. He eased the stick back to compensate for the curving trajectory of the shells...
Half a second later...500 yards...Fire!
The thumb and forefinger of his right hand squeezed hard on the twin firing buttons of his four 20mm cannons and two 13mm machine guns for a brief half-second burst. His body shuddered at the recoil, the acrid smell of cordite fumes filled the cockpit and slipped under his oxygen mask, penetrating his nostrils. Bull's eye!
Half second later...400 yards...He draw his fingers off the firing buttons while shoving the controls on one side breaking left to avoid collision. The FW-190 flashed past the bomber while curving arcs of tracers were still chasing his fighter making him crouch instinctively behind the steel armor plate at his back.
A half-second burst. Just that. Not much time to do everything right; still enough to guarantee a kill if the burst was well-aimed at. At least ten shells hit Miner's bomber head-on at a speed of 2,600 feet per second, delivering a sudden, savage blow in sequence of threes: one high explosive containing 20 grams of Hexogen, one armour-piercing and one incendiary with high phosphorus filling that burned at 2,500 degrees centigrade for one second.
The first shell shattered the Perspex nose missing the nose gunner by inches and exploded on contact under the pilot's seat after shattering both Miner's feet amongst the oxygen tanks. Not that it mattered anyway for one twenty sixth of a second later the second shell came through the gaping nose blowing off Miner's skull, spraying brain fragments back to the bomb compartment. The co-pilot beside him never had the time to scream either; his bowels had stopped cold two 13mm
rounds that spread them all over his seat. The next series of shells -HE, AP, incendiary- penetrated the fuselage horizontally, exploding successively to the rear of the top turret gunner, setting the bomber ablaze from waist to tail. Large pieces of metal skin flew off, opening a second gaping hole twice the size of a football, large enough to suck through the radio operator, unharmed without his parachute. He reached the ground 90 seconds later hitting the face of north-western Germany at 120 mph indenting it fourteen inches deep. Fortunately, he was feeling nothing by then. A physical self-defensive reaction to the shock had left him unconscious long before the impact. For Captain Miner and his crew it was indeed their last flight. The rest of I/JG11 followed suit behind his leader, each fighter charging headlong on the forts Focke Wulfs were closely followed by two other waves of 109's from III/JG54. Three more B-17s went down in rapid succession. One exploded in mid-air. A glorious sight of enormous splendour one moment, gone the next. Inside B-17 "Terry and the Pirates" bullets flew like hail, spattering across the fuselage, shattering the control cables...
Zwing!...Thung!... Thung!...
The starboard waist gunner heard them clearly snapping above his head, not because he had a sharp hearing, but because he was the only one alive around there at the moment. Then a loud CRAAACKKK that covered the deep drone of the four Wright Cyclone engines and the bomber broke in half, abandoning his tail section behind with the tail gunner still trapped inside by the centrifugal forces. Both mutilated sections came tumbling down out of the sky like pieces of a ripped kite. The nose caved in under the pressure of the air stream, letting the bomb-aimer fall free. The waist gunner outlived any of the crew while trying desperately to free his feet entangled in the loose control cables that were strangling him from the knees down, like steel pythons. He lived for what it seemed like four agonizing eons, though in fact it was only four minutes before the bomber crashed. Twenty two and a half meters of its majestic airframe shrunk into eight, with the remains of the dead crew hideously compressed somewhere between the bomb compartment and the ground.
Last in the wave of German fighters came a lone FW-190 which enemy bullets streaming around it seemed somehow to ignore, heading straight for a bomber, dead level at 12 o'clock. The fighter never fired its guns but kept on going headlong onto its target.
"My God! He's going to ram!"...
Lieutenant Jack Swartout was right. The German pilot was either dead alright or couldn't break off the attack. Or both. No one ever knew. The little fighter skimmed right over the top turret and its starboard wing razed the entire fin and rudder of the bomber like the blade of a brand new steel scalpel going through a cardboard box.
The whole action of that first wave of attack lasted barely longer than a minute but it would live much longer in the minds of those present. Within those sixty seconds a whole combat box of 20 bombers had been annihilated. Then 14 Thunderbolts came up out of the blue to spoil the party. 15 Me-109G of II/JG11, providing top cover for the attacking Focke Wulfs from high above the bomber formation, jettisoned their drop tanks and came swooping down to block the way of the American fighters. Soon the dogfight became a confusing m
THAT THE GERMANS WOULD DEFEND BERLIN AT ANY COST. DURING THE MORNING OF THAT FATEFUL MONDAY THE FLYING FORTS WOULD CLAIM THE MOST VALUABLE PRIZE OF THE WAR: THE SIXTH LARGEST CITY IN THE WORLD. BUT ... GERMAN FIGHTERS HAD DECIDED OTHERWISE
At least 17 pairs of experienced eyes were continuously scanning the quarters of the crystal clear blue sky: behind, ahead, left, right, above, below -the same old pattern, developed after weeks, months or even years of practice. It had been nearly half an hour since the FW-190A-8's had taken off to meet the oncoming raiding armada of more than 800 fighters escorting 730 bombers, their bellies pregnant with death, each one loaded with five tons of incendiaries and high-explosives, ready to be delivered on some German city. Only this time, things looked as if it was not just going to be any city.
The German squadron had briefed by its commander for the standard nerve-racking frontal attack: the opponent formations would be approaching each other at a combined closing speed of at least 175 mph and German pilots would have just about two or three seconds in which to aim, fire and break away before they collided with their target. Quite a tricky job for an average fighter pilot and a nearly suicidal one for a green young one. But right now, at 21,000 ft, leading the 17 fighters of Stab and I/JG11 was Hauptmann Rolf Hermichen, a Luftwaffe Expert; a veteran "Giant Killer"; a man who knew even the deepest secrets of his enemy: his fields of fire, how fast a dorsal turret could rotate, or how the guns of the dorsal and belly turrets automatically stopped firing at a frontal target a few degrees to port or starboard of the bomber's nose, in order not to hit the propeller blades. And Hermichen had placed his Gruppe just as expertly for a text-book "Twelve o'clock high" head-on attack. The enemy formation appeared just where the ground controllers had said it should be. Tiny specks on the horizon that gradually grew into dots, then grew into tightly packed box-formations of up to twenty bombers each, bearing a total of 240 heavy machine guns. Hermichen and his pilots would have to pass through this nightmarish holocaust of crisscrossing fire once again.
"Wolves, twelve o'clock high! Closing fast!", the voice that crackled through the intercom announced the most feared words in the USAAF.
The gunners, huddled in their turrets amidst the ammunition belts, turned to face the threat. Feet stepped on hydraulic pedals and the turrets brought to bear their machine guns against the formation in front. "God! This is my last flight...": that was the first thought that crossed the nose gunner's mind in Captain David Miner's B-17, at the extreme right of the lead squadron of the Low Box, and adrenaline surged into his blood. It was the same thought and the same fear in every single mission. In the eyes and mind of someone who was on the receiving end of a head-on attack the whole thing looked much more than what it really was: a personal attack aimed right at you. You felt exposed, helpless and weak -almost unarmed. The two 12,7mm guns were like paintball guns compared to the Luftwaffe's 30mm cannons, and even the smallest fragment could go clean through that paper-thin glass around you. Given the fact that collision was something that depended entirely on the German fighters, there was nothing you could do but fire ahead and keep flying straight and level.. Well, you could pray of course but it rarely worked out. God was not the safest bet these days...
Hermichen didn't think so, at least today. He strained his neck for one last look around the sky...No fighter cover! Probably looking for trouble elsewhere. God still performed miracles these days! He turned his reflector sight on, set his guns to "fire", squinted his eyes through the blur of the rotating propeller, picked a target at the middle of the bomber formation and concentrated on it, watching the distance closing rapidly with every second passing. At about 1,000 yards he brought the target inside his reticule and just then the air around him filled with red and yellow tracers flashing past his canopy. Sweat run down his spine as every muscle in his body tensed to breaking point; but that didn't matter. All that mattered right now was just his target. Eyes and senses literally dead-locked on it, counting the distance; counting seconds...
"After them!", he shouted, giving the signal for the attack, his mind still fixed on his target. Counting distance...counting seconds...
Two seconds later...600 yards...The growing bomber was now filling the electric light bars on each side of his gun sight at astonishing speed. He eased the stick back to compensate for the curving trajectory of the shells...
Half a second later...500 yards...Fire!
The thumb and forefinger of his right hand squeezed hard on the twin firing buttons of his four 20mm cannons and two 13mm machine guns for a brief half-second burst. His body shuddered at the recoil, the acrid smell of cordite fumes filled the cockpit and slipped under his oxygen mask, penetrating his nostrils. Bull's eye!
Half second later...400 yards...He draw his fingers off the firing buttons while shoving the controls on one side breaking left to avoid collision. The FW-190 flashed past the bomber while curving arcs of tracers were still chasing his fighter making him crouch instinctively behind the steel armor plate at his back.
A half-second burst. Just that. Not much time to do everything right; still enough to guarantee a kill if the burst was well-aimed at. At least ten shells hit Miner's bomber head-on at a speed of 2,600 feet per second, delivering a sudden, savage blow in sequence of threes: one high explosive containing 20 grams of Hexogen, one armour-piercing and one incendiary with high phosphorus filling that burned at 2,500 degrees centigrade for one second.
The first shell shattered the Perspex nose missing the nose gunner by inches and exploded on contact under the pilot's seat after shattering both Miner's feet amongst the oxygen tanks. Not that it mattered anyway for one twenty sixth of a second later the second shell came through the gaping nose blowing off Miner's skull, spraying brain fragments back to the bomb compartment. The co-pilot beside him never had the time to scream either; his bowels had stopped cold two 13mm
rounds that spread them all over his seat. The next series of shells -HE, AP, incendiary- penetrated the fuselage horizontally, exploding successively to the rear of the top turret gunner, setting the bomber ablaze from waist to tail. Large pieces of metal skin flew off, opening a second gaping hole twice the size of a football, large enough to suck through the radio operator, unharmed without his parachute. He reached the ground 90 seconds later hitting the face of north-western Germany at 120 mph indenting it fourteen inches deep. Fortunately, he was feeling nothing by then. A physical self-defensive reaction to the shock had left him unconscious long before the impact. For Captain Miner and his crew it was indeed their last flight. The rest of I/JG11 followed suit behind his leader, each fighter charging headlong on the forts Focke Wulfs were closely followed by two other waves of 109's from III/JG54. Three more B-17s went down in rapid succession. One exploded in mid-air. A glorious sight of enormous splendour one moment, gone the next. Inside B-17 "Terry and the Pirates" bullets flew like hail, spattering across the fuselage, shattering the control cables...
Zwing!...Thung!... Thung!...
The starboard waist gunner heard them clearly snapping above his head, not because he had a sharp hearing, but because he was the only one alive around there at the moment. Then a loud CRAAACKKK that covered the deep drone of the four Wright Cyclone engines and the bomber broke in half, abandoning his tail section behind with the tail gunner still trapped inside by the centrifugal forces. Both mutilated sections came tumbling down out of the sky like pieces of a ripped kite. The nose caved in under the pressure of the air stream, letting the bomb-aimer fall free. The waist gunner outlived any of the crew while trying desperately to free his feet entangled in the loose control cables that were strangling him from the knees down, like steel pythons. He lived for what it seemed like four agonizing eons, though in fact it was only four minutes before the bomber crashed. Twenty two and a half meters of its majestic airframe shrunk into eight, with the remains of the dead crew hideously compressed somewhere between the bomb compartment and the ground.
Last in the wave of German fighters came a lone FW-190 which enemy bullets streaming around it seemed somehow to ignore, heading straight for a bomber, dead level at 12 o'clock. The fighter never fired its guns but kept on going headlong onto its target.
"My God! He's going to ram!"...
Lieutenant Jack Swartout was right. The German pilot was either dead alright or couldn't break off the attack. Or both. No one ever knew. The little fighter skimmed right over the top turret and its starboard wing razed the entire fin and rudder of the bomber like the blade of a brand new steel scalpel going through a cardboard box.
The whole action of that first wave of attack lasted barely longer than a minute but it would live much longer in the minds of those present. Within those sixty seconds a whole combat box of 20 bombers had been annihilated. Then 14 Thunderbolts came up out of the blue to spoil the party. 15 Me-109G of II/JG11, providing top cover for the attacking Focke Wulfs from high above the bomber formation, jettisoned their drop tanks and came swooping down to block the way of the American fighters. Soon the dogfight became a confusing m