The War File : Messerschmitt Bf-109

so so at the end of 1934 before the existence of the luftwaffe had been officially declared germany had less than 600 frontline combat aircraft but by the outbreak of the second world war the number had risen to more than three and a half thousand thirty percent of these were single engine fighters and for the next six years one small but rugged aeroplane would form the very backbone of the german fighter force the messerschmitt bf-109 this legendary machine remained in continuous action from 1939-1945 and in doing so it shot down twice as many aircraft as any other fighter in history it served in every theatre of war and during the first two years of conflict it eliminated the majority of european air forces almost single-handed more than 33 000 were built making the 109 the most numerous fighter of the second world war and the second most numerous aircraft in the history of military aviation over a 10-year period a total of nine main variants and nearly 80 sub-variants were produced continual improvements enabled the machine to retain its formidable fighting qualities to the very end of hostilities and despite the appearance of the superb focal wolf 190 it was the bf-109 that was destined to become the most famous german aircraft ever built the 109 story began in 1933 when the german air ministry announced a competition to find a new frontline aircraft to replace its existing biplane fighter the heinkel he-51 the tactical requirements of the rlm specified a single-engined single-seat pursuit fighter to be developed and made ready for evaluation by the end of 1935. the new machine was to carry two fixed machine guns and be capable of speeds up to 400 kilometers per hour development contracts were placed with four of germany's leading manufacturers errado heinkel focker wolf and bearish flukes each produced its own design and after a series of evaluation trials willie mescher smith's bf-109 was chosen to become germany's standard frontline fighter meanwhile two new british aircraft had made their maiden flights in england the supermarine spitfire and the hawker hurricane since both fighters were armed with eight browning machine guns the rln decided to increase the armament of the 109 a third weapon firing through the propeller hub supplemented the existing pair of nose mounted machine guns in december 1936 the first batch of 109s were sent to spain where they were tested in combat by the luftwaffe's hondor legion they were an instant success and during the first two months of fighting they proved far superior to any other aircraft in the spanish civil war made up of volunteer pilots the condor legion fought on the side of franco's nationalist forces adolph galland who would later become an outstanding fighter ace with 104 victories and germany's youngest general saw his first combat in spain i flew the ankle 51 but this was at the time already an obsolete fighter and therefore we used it only for direct support slaving and bombing the spanish civil war marked the end of the biplane era and the dawn of monoplane fighter cantilever aircraft with enclosed cockpits were something entirely new and experienced pilots treated the new measuresmit with some degree of skepticism fighter pilot in a closed cockpit is an impossible thing because you should smell the enemy you could smell them because of the oil they were burning back in germany the first available 109s were delivered to the first and second groups of the richtofen fighter wing as the 109 pilots gained the experience they began to develop a new and more effective fighter tactic known as the schwann four aircraft flying together in loose formation were far less vulnerable to attack than the more traditional methods of grouping using a pattern resembling the fingers of an outstretched hand each fighter in the schwann was protected by the one behind and all four machines had maximum visibility but in spite of its obvious merits the 109 had one potentially lethal floor in my opinion one shortfall was that the undercarriage was by the dome and sometimes for example during takeoff the aircraft would pull to the left if you were an inexperienced pilot we had many accidents because of this and comparing the 109 to the fw 190 its undercarriage was on the wings there was a wider span coping with the messerschmitt on uneven surfaces could be extremely dangerous and trainee pilots were often killed while attempting to make their very first flight that's why that's problem one problem was especially for inexperienced pilots during takeoff if you didn't pay enough attention to the acceleration when the tail went up once the propeller had started to turn there was a good chance that the aircraft would pull had been on long missions and were tired from a day's fighting but had to go out on another mission during takeoff the aircraft would break to the side crashing straight into our barracks this happened many times by 1938 a european war was inevitable and german re-armament continued a pace 109 production expanded dramatically and by the end of july six more fighter groups had re-equipped in october the first really prolific variant made its appearance the daimler-benz powered bf-109e known as the emio it had a maximum speed of 570 kilometers per hour it was armed with either two machine guns and two cannons or four machine guns and one cannon on september the 1st 1939 germany invaded poland and 200 109 spearheaded the attack the polish air force was hopelessly outclassed and within a month of the invasion it had lost more than 200 frontline aircraft you can't really say that there were significant differences between the messerschmitt and other aircrafts they were very much the same the difference more or less was due to the pilot's competence the me109 was not a very large fighter plane in fact it was one of the smallest planes it was a single-seater flexible fast aircraft designed to hunt down enemy aircraft that was the main role of the me109 the luftwaffe's casualties in poland included 67 me109s but most of these were lost to ground fire the first clash between the new german fighter and the royal air force came on september the 3rd at broome's boot room two wellingtons from number three group were shot down whilst making an attack on the german battle cruisers scharnhorst and neisnar on september the 13th 109s destroyed five more wellingtons during a raid against the cruiser's leipzig and nurenberg five days later another group of 24 wellingtons from 9 37 and 149 squadrons took off on a reconnaissance mission of wilhelmshaven and the shillig roads intercepted by me109s and 110 destroyers 10 of the british machines were shot down and another three were badly damaged it was much the same story when hitler invaded france and the low countries in may 1940 holland belgium and luxembourg were all defeated in quick succession and the french lam me dale was no match for the luftwaffe in either organization or equipment sixteen fighter groups with more than a thousand bf-109s were deployed in support of the german advance in less than a week france had lost more than three-quarters of its total fighter strength and although britain sent a handful of hurricane squadrons to help they were far too few in number to have any chance of stemming the tide on may the 23rd 109s clashed with raf spitfires and for the first time the german pilots came up against some real opposition now i would like to say and many pilots who went on missions will agree that at the end of the day it was very much to do with who was sitting at the stick of the man and there we experienced that during the battle of britain british pilots shot down german pilots and vice versa it all depends on the pilot what sort of training he had received how good he was was he faster than his counterpart but the spitfire would remain a deadly enemy plaguing the 109 throughout the whole of its career while the germans overran france raf spitfire and hurricane squadrons covered the british expeditionary force as it retreated to dunkirk when commander douglas barda who had lost both legs in an air crash in 1931 had returned to the raf when world war ii began he encountered 109s over the channel during the evacuation from dunkirk i shot one fella down at dunkirk he was must have been a beginner like myself because he stayed flying absolutely straight until i shot him down you know without moving we didn't have air superiority that's uh so but we had enough the germans left dunkirk and went on to to paris and so on which is a great mistake of theirs really we lost quite a lot of airplanes at dunkirk and some jolly good pilots but uh they managed to get back required three hundred thousand men i think from the beaches there's a lot of people yep she did calm see even so in spite of the successful evacuation by the end of june the raf had lost over 500 fighters france had surrendered and germany was in complete control of the skies over western europe while the luftwaffe regrouped for the invasion of britain a number of improvements were made to the me109e wing mounted machine guns were abandoned in favor of the mgf cannon and power output was increased by using the new daimler-benz 601 n engine armor plating was added to both the pilot seat and to the canopy area immediately behind his head in an effort to increase the operational range provision was made for 300 liter drop tanks to be carried externally using a fuselage mounted rack fighter bomber versions were adapted to take either 450 kilogram bombs or a single 250 kilogram bomb the 109e compared well with the contemporary spitfire but nevertheless it had its shortcomings robert stanford tuck an raf ace who got his first kill at dunkirk had experience of the emile i threw the first one we captured in 1940 at farnborough which is a test establishment as you know and we did a comparison trial between this first mission schmidt and uh an ee measurement and a spitfire mark ii they were very comparable in their performance but i thought the 109 going downhill fast was very stiff on control there was too much metal strutting and reinforcing around which restricts your vision very very much by the summer of 1940 more than two and a half thousand german aircraft were ready to attack great britain based in france and the low countries they began the main assault on august the 13th in the hope of gaining air superiority the luftwaffe's bombers struck at airfields and radar stations throughout the whole of southeast england they caused extensive damage and on the first day alone the raf lost nearly 60 aircraft on the ground during the opening phase of the battle the german bombers were escorted by twin-engined bf-110s they were hopelessly inadequate and before long 109 fighter units were being assigned to protect both the bombers and their escorts measure smith's bf-110 proved to be a mistake as both douglas barda and adolf galland would later testify the germans thought he was very good actually it was an absolute gift for a single engine fighter absolutely absolutely and i think the lightning was an equal mistake i mean the case that the p-38 pilots are angry with me about this skating but the bf-110 was not the only problem for the luftwaffe the 109e variant had a limited range of only 400 miles and its operational endurance in the skies over england was little more than 15 minutes no longer able to function independently its effectiveness against the british fighters was greatly reduced during the first week of september guri changed his tactics and instead of continuing to attack britain's airfields began to concentrate on the city of london the raf was given a breathing space and on september the 15th fighter command was able to muster 300 fighters to intercept the largest bombing raid of the battle in the ensuing malay spitfires and hurricanes outnumbered the 109s by a ratio of two to one and as a result 60 german aircraft were destroyed after two and a half months of continuous fighting it was a demoralizing blow in spite of all their efforts the luftwaffe had failed to knock out the radar system or to suppress the raf within 48 hours of september the 15th hitler had postponed the invasion of britain indefinitely when the battle finally petered out in late october germany had lost more than 1 700 airplanes including 610 bf-109s in april 1941 hitler attacked yugoslavia and greece as the war spread to africa and the middle east the 109 was specially adapted in order to cope with the predominantly dusty conditions to minimize engine damage a sand filter was fitted over the supercharger air intake and the resulting tropicalized version was designated as the bf-109 drop in june 1941 germany launched operation barbarossa the invasion of russia the opening attack was supported by 450 bf-109s while a third of these aircraft were e-variants the rest of the force was made up of the latest 109 model the friedrich the f incorporated a number of improvements many of which resulted from the experiences gained in the battle of britain an enlarged propeller spinner and redesigned engine cowling reduced air drag and gave the machine a much more streamlined look rounded wing tips and the removal of the tail plane support struts gave it better performance and a higher service ceiling than the emu during the first two days of operation barbarossa the luftwaffe's 109 e's and f's shot down more than 300 russian aircraft hundreds more were destroyed on the ground in a series of well-timed attacks on soviet airfields by the end of the month german pilots had claimed more than 4 000 russian aircraft for the loss of only 150 of their own machines confirmed hits i can remember various situations one was on september the 15th in riga i shot down four aircraft in one day one plane you had to have good reflexes and a good overall view of what was going on meanwhile on the western front the supermarine spitfire was keeping pace with development of the 109 although it was much less maneuverable the 109f could outperform both the spitfire mark 1 and 2. but in the spring of 1941 the spitfire mark 5 made its first appearance equipped with a new and more powerful rolls-royce engine it was an immediate success and as soon as it arrived in squadron strength the balance between spitfire and bf-109 was quickly restored it was a question of who had the most powerful engine for the raf the spitfire mark 5 provided an equality that was very short-lived later in the same year the luftwaffe took the lead once more with the introduction of the radial engine fogger wolf 190 known as the butcher bird it could out climb and out dive any opposing fighter and in a dogfight with the spitfire mark v it could engage and disengage almost at will the focker wolf had a very powerful engine and in itself was a very robust well-built machine it could cope very well when being shot at probably more so than the me109 the wolf had an air-cooled engine and the me109 a liquid-cooled engine which meant that should any shrapnel cause damage to the cooling system of the liquid cooled engine then the battle would be over whereas the focker wolf with its air-cooled engine could continue the fokker wolf was also much faster close to the ground that is to say below 6 000 meters but above 6 000 meters the me109 was considerably superior and as most air battles took place at low levels the focker wolf usually had the overall advantage the aircraft was also much sturdier than the me-109 but had some peculiar characteristics for example during certain flights because the cooling system worked better at high speeds some engine overheating occurred this could sometimes lead to the stability of the aircraft being affected also the aircraft had a nasty habit of pulling to one side or the other sometimes this was almost impossible to control the british response to the butcher bird was extremely rapid by the end of the year rolls royce had produced a new two-stage supercharged and intercooled engine the merlin 61. when it was fitted to the longest spitfire mark 9 it transformed the situation completely although similar in appearance to its mark 5 predecessor the mark 9 became the definitive spitfire it was a vast improvement over the previous versions and with its dramatic increase in performance it was more than a match for either the 109f or the fokkerwolf 190. douglas barda and the spitfire 9 reigns supreme for the rest of the war it was better than the one night without climbing did everything the spitfire was superior but it all depended on what sort of technical tricks the enemy came up with and to get one better there was no doubt that we were superior with our 109. we were faster and also we were able to fly very low so that the spitfire couldn't catch us but then new models of the spitfire were brought out with newer and better engines for instance the rolls-royce merlin and therefore they took the lead again as they were faster and could fly higher injection system to cool down the engine and that was an improvement of sixty seventy eighty percent and once more we were faster than the spitfire englander once more the english had caught up with our design they had unlimited amounts of high quality materials especially their steel to build better engines than we could because we didn't have any steel that's why we occupied norway to get high quality steel so that was not enough to many of the luftwaffe's experienced pilots the f4 model was the ultimate 109 variant escapia we have had various types there was the messerschmitt e which was the one involved in the battle of britain and then there was the f which was used in africa it was supposed to be the most attractive of the 109s after that the messerschmitt's nickname became the boil because of the large indentations in it to accommodate the machine guns the message there was one version of the messerschmitt which even had to carry a bomb on the dome of the aircraft but i always thought that the 109 was really a fighter plane and should not be used as a bomber machine i enjoyed flying it greatly and had no problems with the aircraft at all the f variant served with almost every unit in the yacht flight and produced some of the highest scoring aces on both the eastern and western fronts on september the 1st 1942 while on an escort mission in africa hans jokin marseille set a record in a 109 f when he destroyed 18 british fighters in a single day during the whole of the month he shot down a total of 62 machines and by the time of his death on september the 30th his personal score stood at 158 british aircraft but even this number seemed relatively small when compared with the tallies of gerhart barkhorn and eric hartman serving with jg 52 on the eastern front both men amassed more than 300 combat victories they were the most successful aces of the war and the only two pilots ever to shoot down more than 300 enemy aircraft hartmann was a strong advocate of tactics and became the highest scoring fighter pilot in the history of aviation he followed the well-tried methods of many first world war aces and preferred to attack an enemy only when the odds were heavily in his favor he summed up the advantages of having superiority in numbers by coining the phrase too many hounds are the death of the hair that means that one duck never catch a rabbit but if lots of bags are behind one rabbit then they got him hartmann's experience as a fighter pilot spanned three whole decades in world war ii he flew over 1 400 missions and had combat in more than half of them he shot down 352 enemy aircraft all on the eastern front and all while flying the me109 the secret of his success lay in always maneuvering to gain the advantage have no clouds have to no clouds prior to to get in the sun and start from the sun you attack do you have clouds then i tried to go downstairs that i have enemies here in the sky under the clouds and try to get exactly under the airplane and then come up with full power and he cannot see you because he has wings he protected you you get them down the next step is go away after you get in skill and watch against the whole area what's going on and decide for another one i'll go home and make a copper break i told to my pilots always only if the windshield is filled up with the enemy and pulls the trigger they save you a lot of ammunition in february 1942 the battle cruisers scharnhorst and neisnav broke out from brest and dashed through the channel towards wilhelm's haven nearly 200 109 f's took part in a major operation to provide the ships with continuous air cover channel coast units from jg1 jg2 and jg26 fought off repeated attacks by the raf and claimed 50 enemy aircraft for the loss of only four for low level hidden run rates on the south coast of england jg2 and jg26 were both equipped with specialized fighter bomber units using the 109 f4 they made numerous surprise attacks against shipping railway yards factories and gas installations but in spite of its high speed and good performance at altitude the 109f was never built in really large numbers in may 1942 it began to be replaced by the next 109 variant the gustav powered by the daimler-benz db-605 engine the new machine had a better performance than the friedrich and better armament but it was far heavier and much less maneuverable nevertheless it was built in enormous quantities and for the next three years it would form the backbone of the luftwaffe's fighter force by the end of the war 10 main subtypes had appeared including rocket firing fighter bombers two-seat training versions photographic reconnaissance models and a whole series of fighters equipped with both pressurized and non-pressurized cockpits fastest of all these versions was the 109 g10 with a top speed of 690 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 7500 meters the gustaf was eventually followed by both h and k variants but neither of them supplanted it it was destined to serve with every luftwaffe fighter unit in every theater of war as demand increased the yearly production rate for 109s rose sharply in 1942 approximately two and a half thousand machines had been built during the following year the number was increased to 6250 but the peak came in 1944 when the messerschmitt factories combined with numerous subcontractors produced the staggering total of more than 13 000 aircraft first deliveries of the 109g went to jg2 in the channel coast area and were used in the high altitude and deception world particularly against allied bombers by 1943 the american daylight bombing campaign was increasing in intensity and many 109 units were withdrawn from other theatres to cope with the threat to germany the types of missions depended on the situation if only a few fighter planes were approaching we would fly with four aircraft but if there were more than that or whole groups we would fly with eight to 12 planes per mission the autumn of 1943 produced some of the luftwaffe's most notable victories over the u.s bomber force on august the first 55 heavy bombers were shot down during a raid on oil installations at cluetze two weeks later the americans attacked the industrial centers at regensburg and schweinfurt both targets were well beyond the range of allied fighters and the unescorted bombers had to face the full fury of the luftwaffe for two hours each way sixty b-17s were lost on the first raid on august the 17th and almost a month later another 60 bombers failed to return from a second crippling raid 109 pilots used a variety of weapons and tactics against the unending streams of american and british bombers some fighters were equipped to fire 21 centimeter rockets from beneath each wing while others flew above the bombers and dropped 250 kilogram bombs into the large formations it was the same with the enemy for instance with the boeing flying fortress we had to find new weapons to combat it that's why we even tried to fight the enemy with rockets which were hung underneath the wings the messerschmitt 109 was at the time the standard plane of the german luftwaffe and the only fighter plane which we could use and which we were very successful with because there was no other plane which could compare with it to counter the raf's nighttime bombing campaign 3109 specialized in a new tactic known as the valtsar this involved fighter pilots and searchlight crews cooperating together to illuminate and destroy individual bombers in spite of the darkness any aircraft silhouetted by a searchlight beam presented an easy target viatsau units began operating in the summer of 1943 and with the aid of the naxxos homing radar they became highly successful after winning control of the night skies they extended their operations by carrying out bad weather daylight interception missions and was with the jg 304th group i was a so-called high flyer we were moved around quite a lot in the west when the arnhem and nijmegen affair happened i took it very personally then i was shot down near recklinghausen i have to say that these missions were the most depressing experiences i have had in my entire life as a pilot when you were flying a very heavily armored aircraft and you had to attack transport planes i.e gliders etc you knew there were human beings in there it was really meanwhile on the eastern front hitler had launched operation citadel aimed at destroying the russian forces deployed in the vital kursk salient this large-scale offensive became the single most decisive battle on the entire eastern front 2500 panzers were supported by eight german fighter groups equipped with both the 109g and the fw190 between them these units managed to destroy nearly 450 soviet aircraft during seven days of almost continuous fighting but in spite of the success the german advance was halted kursk had become the turning point and for the rest of the war on the eastern front hitler's panzer armies would be permanently on the defensive by 1944 russia had re-equipped with much improved aircraft the new yak-3 had a maximum speed of 720 kilometers per hour while the stormovic 1l2 was given a rear gunner and two 37 millimeter cannons both aircraft were capable of taking on either a fokkerwolf or a messerschmitt on roughly equal terms with the arrival of the g series the me109 had reached the limit of its development potential operated weaponry had led to an inevitable increase in weight and although they were fast the later models were becoming less maneuverable and much harder to handle so yes first they had the two centimeter cannons and then the three centimeter cannons which fired through the propeller many pilots found that the only disadvantage was that the three centimeter cannon couldn't shoot in fast succession and thought it would have been better maybe to have only one cannon which could shoot faster for example during missions i hit targets on the ground using the three centimeters and i must say the impact was enormous the 109 had two heavy machine guns which shot through the propellers and that is what we had at the flying school uh also we had aircrafts which could carry extra cannons underneath the wings the british and american begins wetting the vapor and increased pressure from 1943 onwards 109 pilots had to contend with one of the most powerful fighters of the second world war the republic thunderbolt with eight 50 caliber machine guns the p-47 had unrivaled firepower its r2800 double wasp radial gave it a high top speed and if it was fitted with drop tanks it had enough range to reach far into germany francis gabreski flew p-47s with the 56th fighter group and became the highest scoring american ace in europe his 28 confirmed kills included 10 focker wolf 190s and 10 me109s it was a sturdy airplane built like a tank and i could drive it through most anything it was more than a match for the rock roof uh 190 it was a morning match for a 109. we had water injection that would with sustained power keep us there for about three minutes up to five minutes depends uh depending upon how you use it but it gave us that tremendous edge that we needed against the german loof to offer while the thunderbolt made a major contribution to the daylight bombing campaign its effectiveness as an escort on long-range missions was limited by the need to carry drop tanks allied losses fell dramatically with the introduction of the first truly long-range fighter the p-51 mustang powered by the rolls-royce merlin 61 it was superior in speed to the 109g at any height above 28 000 feet it could outpace an fw 190 by nearly 70 miles per hour it could out dive the wolf and the messerschmitt out turn both of them and outrun the 109 with ease but most important of all it could do all of this over the german capital itself the mustang could fly all the way to berlin and back the new machine joined the thunderbolt groups in ever increasing numbers and before long germany was losing fighter pilots far quicker than it could replace them when the americans came up with their mustangs and thunderbolts especially which had fantastic climbing and flying abilities we could not compete fantastic those pilots that were available were being sent into action with the barest minimum of training by the middle of 1944 the luftwaffe's dwindling supplies of aviation fuel had reached crisis point in the weeks that followed d-day more and more airfields in northwest europe became readily available to the allies in august the americans broke out of normandy and began the long advance eastwards to shorten the flying distance to their target areas the allied tactical air forces constructed new airfields with incredible speed pierced steel mating was used on fresh sights so that entire runway systems could be fully operational within six hours as hitler's ground forces were pushed further and further back the luftwaffe's bases were rapidly overrun those airfields that remained under its control came under continuous attack from wave after wave of allied aircraft the german fighters were hopelessly outnumbered and those that survived the initial attacks were hammered relentlessly both in the air and on the ground as it began to disintegrate the luftwaffe mounted one last major operation codenamed odenplat on january the 1st 1945 800 fighters took off for a surprise attack on allied airfields in holland belgium and luxembourg by the end of the day they had destroyed nearly 200 allied aircraft at the cost of 100 fox wolves and meshes nets it was a tactical disaster since while the allied aircraft were quickly replaced the loss of a hundred pilots only served to weaken the luftwaffe still further on april the 7th 1945 120 109 g's supplied by a special unit known as the sonder commando elba took part in a suicide mission against a large u.s bombing raid escorted by me 262 jets and piloted mainly by volunteer novices the sole purpose of the 109s was to ram the american bombers eight b-17 flying fortresses were hit before the american fighter escort could intervene but out of the original force of 120 meshes myths only 15 returned to base the bf-109 had taken part in its last large-scale mission of the war with the luftwaffe effectively defeated the allied athletes had total control of the skies over germany british and american fighters and bombers ranged freely and were able to hit any remaining targets at will one by one the german generals surrendered their armies the final capitulation took place on may the seventh and with goring himself a prisoner of the allies the resistance of the luftwaffe finally came to an end fifty years later there is only one genuine airworthy survivor of the g series black six built to g2 standard at erler's leipzig factory the machine was delivered to three jg 77 on october the 21st 1942 during its short operational career it served in the western desert with rommel's africa corps and was flown by a veteran of the eastern front leighton heinz ludman on november the 4th ludman was making an attack on a british bomber force when he was intercepted by two curtis p-40 kitty hawks in the ensuing dogfight black six was hit in the tail plane propeller and canopy and its pilot was injured in the head ludemann managed to fly the aircraft home but it was so badly damaged that it had to be taken to a repair depot to the southeast of tobruk nine days later it was captured by an australian unit and within a few weeks it had been transported to england by ship during the next two years the design was analyzed and the machine flown in simulated dogfights against a number of allied fighters including the spitfire mustang and mosquito after the war it was put into storage and moved from one raf base to another until it finally deteriorated into a wreck in 1972 a small team of volunteers began the enormous task of restoring it to full flying condition and after two decades of painstaking work black six flew again for the first time in over 45 years painted in its original desert colors and bearing the wolf's head crest of jg77 it is the only genuine german world war ii combat aircraft flying anywhere in the world today so you

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Keywords: Messerschmitt, Bf-109, WW2, WWII, world war 2

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Length: 57min 24sec (3444 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 20 2012