The First and The Last E-Book

Adolf Galland

• Herausgeber: Reading Essentials
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 572

Beschreibung

A fearless leader with 104 victories to his name, Galland was a legendary hero in Germany's Luftwaffe. Now he offers an insider's look at the division's triumphs in Poland and France and the last desperate battle to save the Reich. "The clearest picture yet of how the Germans lost their war in the air."--Time.

Leseprobe

The First

and

The Last

Adolf Galland

© 2018 Reading Essentials.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

NOTE

Adolf Galland was a German Luftwaffe General and flying ace who served throughout World War II in Europe. He flew 705 combat missions, and fought on the Western and the Defense of the Reich fronts. On four occasions he survived being shot down, and he was credited with 104 aerial victories, all of them against the Western Allies.

The First and the Last, Galland’s autobiography, was first published in 1954. This is the original edition. It was a best-seller in 14 languages and sold three million copies. It was very well received by the British and American airforces as a frank and honest statement of how the war was won and lost in the air.

CONTENTS

Publisher's Note

1 The First

2 The Battle of Britain Starts

3 A Battle for Life and Death

4 "Bombs on England"

5 Between "Sea Lion" and "Barbarossa"

6 New Strategic Ground

7 A Nightmare Becomes a Reality

8 The Eastern Front

9 "War Is No Game of Cricket"

10 A Somber Chapter

11 Forward or Backward?

12 Operation Thunderbolt Begins

13 The Channel Dash

14 Between Norway and Africa

15 A Glance at the Other Side

16 The Hour Has Struck

17 Following the Latest Bomb Crater

18 The House Without a Roof

19 The Fateful Hour for the Luftwaffe

20 From One Crisis to Another

21 The Struggle with the Enemy—and Our Leaders

22 In Between Lay Germany

23 Chastisement

24 The Beginning of the End

25 "Where Is the Luftwaffe?"

26 The "Great Blow"

27 What Possibilities Did We Have?

28 The Jet-fighter Tragedy

29 The Last

Publisher's Note

Adolf Galland was born in Westerholt, Westphalia. His father was bailiff to the Graf von Westerholt, a post that successive heads of his family had held since 1742 when the first Galland, a Huguenot, had emigrated to Westphalia from France. Galland began his aeronautical career at 17, flying gliders on the Borkenberge, a heath near Westerholt. In 1932, after a successful tour of gliding, Galland was admitted to an airline pilot training school in Brunswick. Joining the then-unofficial Luftwaffe, he was secretly trained in Italy in 1933. Although a crash during a training flight in Germany severely injured one eye, Galland managed to memorize an eye chart, pass a physical examination, and continue flying.

In 1937 Galland volunteered for service in the Condor Legion, the name for the German Volunteer Corps serving with Francisco Franco's forces in the Spanish civil war. He sailed from Hamburg with 370 other German soldiers, garbed in civilian clothes, masquerading as a Strength-Through-Joy tourist group. In Spain he was assigned to a fighter squadron near Vittoria, on the Northern Front. Galland wore the uniform of a Spanish Captain, customary with pilots of the Condor Legion. His baptism of fire came in June, 1937, when he engaged the Loyalist fighters in a Heinkel He-51 fighter. Although Messerschmitt Me-109 fighters had been introduced in Spain, a few flights still used the slower He-51s. These planes were no match for the Curtiss and Rata fighters of the Loyalists, and it was Galland's policy to avoid dogfights with the enemy; his activities were restricted to the strafing of ground targets. In Spain the Germans learned a good deal about ground-support operations. Galland firmly believes that the Russians, who used close support most effectively in World War II, copied the techniques first used by the Condor Legion.

Galland was recalled to Germany in the summer of 1938. He had flown over 300 sorties. The command of his flight was taken over by Werner Mölders, who was destined to become one of Germany's leading aces in World War II. Shortly before the end of the Spanish civil war Mölders became the youngest Wing commander in the Luftwaffe.

In Germany Galland was assigned to a desk job in the Air Ministry. His work consisted of working out directives for the organization and training of fighter pilots for ground-support operations. He detested the work and longed to return to flying. His first task was to organize and equip two new fighter groups. This was accomplished at record speed, but not without certain sacrifices in the quality of training and equipment. Many of the pilots were insufficiently instructed in the operation of their new aircraft and the planes themselves, old He-51s, Me-123s, and Me-45s, were hardly the last word in performance.

These new fighter groups were created to support the imminent occupation of the Czechoslovakian Sudetenland. On September 29, 1938, however, the Munich Pact eliminated the need for their immediate use.

On August 23, 1939, the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact was signed. The invasion of Poland became only a matter of time. On September 1, 1939, Galland, who had joined a ground-support unit, was at an airfield at Reichenau in Silesia. In the darkness preceding dawn he took off with his squadron. World War II had begun.

The collapse of the Polish armies is now history. The Polish Air Force was destroyed on the ground. Communications were bombed out of existence. Transport was halted by strafing operations and the Polish troops were demoralized by the Ju-87 Stukas. In 27 days the war was over: the Polish Army capitulated. Warsaw was in flames. The Red Army had rumbled to the Bug River.

Galland, who had flown over two sorties a day during the campaign, was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class. On October 1, 1939, he was promoted to Captain. Shortly afterward he was reassigned to a fighter unit—the 27th Fighter Wing at Krefeld. The stage was set for battle in the West.

l

The First

After the Blitzkrieg in the east followed the sit-down war in the west. It was a terrific nervous strain for all concerned. I commanded all three squadrons of our wing in turn for a fortnight while the respective commanders were on leave. There were continuous take-off alarms—false ones, of course, because the ominous siren wail or control tower orders that sent us zooming into the air, consuming considerable amounts of material and fuel, were usually based on errors or illusions. One radar report of a mass approach of enemy aircraft, for example, turned out to be a flight of birds. One day, however, in the lower Rhine area somebody was really shot down during one of these alarms. It was one of our planes, an FW-58 Weihe. She was piloted by the squadron leader. Nothing else happened.

We were delighted when at last the war of nerves changed into a shooting war. Behind the scenes at German army H.Q. there had so far been a confusing indecision. Originally Hitler wanted to turn westward soon after the conclusion of the Polish campaign, in order to have his rear free against the archenemy, which in spite of the temporary pact was after all the Soviet Union. The elder generals, however, led by Haider, Chief of the General Staff, and von Brauchitsch, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, were violently opposed to such a step. Facing the 85 French, 23 Belgian, and 8 English divisions were 62 German divisions ready for action, but these had also to guard the eastern frontier of the Reich. Haider and von Brauchitsch not only threatened to resign but were already seriously considering the idea of a coup d'état.

The postponement some dozen times of the German offensive on the Western front, between November, 1939, and May, 1940, was due not only to weather considerations, politics, personnel, armaments, etc., but also to chance. This could be qualified as lucky or unlucky according to the time and the point of view under consideration. On January 10, a Luftwaffe major flew from Munster to Bonn, carrying with him the entire plan of operations for the offensive in the west. In bad weather he was blown off his course and made a forced landing on Belgian soil. He did not manage to destroy the documents in time and they fell into the hands of the Allies. A new plan had to be worked out which after a further delay caused by bad weather was finally put into execution on May 10, 1940.

On the morning of May 12 when I flew in company with another plane over the front, our troops had already penetrated deep into Holland and Belgium. During those first days of the campaign in the west, together with the 8th Flying Corps we gave fighter cover to the German advance at Maastricht. As a Number 1 of our wing I was so overburdened with staff work, intelligence orders, changes of base, and conferences that I had literally to steal away on any sortie I wanted to make. What the others regarded merely as a daily duty was for me something I had to get to by tricks and ruses. On the third day of the campaign, May 12, 1940, I managed to score my first kill.

It is true to say that the first kill can influence the whole future career of a fighter pilot. Many to whom the first victory over the opponent has been long denied either by unfortunate circumstances or by bad luck can suffer from frustration or develop complexes they may never rid themselves of again. I was lucky. My first kill was child's play.

We did not see much of the English in those days. Occasionally we met a few Blenheims. The Belgians for the most flew antiquated Hurricanes, in which even more experienced pilots could have done little against our new ME-109E. We outstripped them in speed, in rate of climb, in armament, and above all in flying experience and training.

Therefore it was not particularly heroic when some five miles west of Liege my flight companion and I dove from an altitude of about 12,000 feet on a flight of eight Hurricanes flying 3000 feet below us. The route had been practiced innumerable times. The Hurricanes had not yet spotted us. I was neither excited nor did I feel any hunting fever. "Come on, defend yourself!" I thought as soon as I had one of the eight in my gun sight. I closed in more and more without being noticed. "Someone ought to warn him!" But that would have been even more stupid than the strange thoughts which ran through my head at that moment. I gave him my first burst from a distance which, considering the situation, was still too great. I was dead on the target. The poor devil at last noticed what it was all about. He took rather clumsy avoiding action which brought him into the fire of my companion. The other seven Hurricanes made no effort to come to the aid of their comrade in distress, but made off in all directions. After a second attack my opponent spun down in spirals minus his rudder. Parts of the wings came off. Another burst would have been waste of ammunition. I immediately went after another of the scattered Hurricanes. This one tried to escape by diving, but I was soon on her tail at a distance of 100 yards. The Belgian did a half-roll and disappeared through a hole in the clouds. I did not lose track of him and attacked again from very close quarters. The plane zoomed for a second, stalled, and dove vertically to the ground from a height of only 1500 feet. During a patrol flight that afternoon I shot down my third opponent out of a formation of five Hurricanes near Tirlemont.

I took this all quite naturally, as a matter of course. There was nothing special about it. I had not felt any excitement and I was not even particularly elated by my success. That only came much later, when we had to deal with much tougher adversaries, when each relentless aerial combat was a question of "you or me." On that particular day I had something approaching a twinge of conscience. The congratulations of my superiors and my comrades left an odd taste in my mouth. An excellent weapon and luck had been on my side. To be successful the best fighter pilot needs both.

Two days later on May 14, the Dutch army capitulated. The Belgian army held out 14 days longer. The Belgian fortifications, which were known from World War I to be particularly hard nuts to crack, were taken in a few days, thanks to the extensive support given by the Luftwaffe, using Stukas and landing paratroops under fighter cover.

The taking of Fort Eben Emael gave the young German paratroopers the opportunity of causing a sensation by staging a classical example of a paratroop operation. This action, to which our wing gave cover, may give some indication of the very original tactics these troops employed. The sector where they were to be dropped lay deep inside Belgium, and the action could not be reconciled with the general plan of German operations, as far as this was known to us. What dropped from the transport planes and sailed down to earth were—dummies. On landing these invasion dummies set off a complicated mechanism which produced a good imitation of battle noises. The Belgians were deceived and flung considerable forces into the supposed danger area. Their absence from important defense positions was of great advantage to the attacking Germans.

The German army performed astonishing feats of war during their rapid advance. Again, as in Poland, the secret of these unbelievable successes was the cooperation between the fast-moving army and the Luftwaffe, where every move was carefully planned in advance and executed with precision.

Soon we pressed on to Charleville. Our aerodrome nestled among the foothills of the Ardennes. This was a very advantageous terrain for camouflage and defense, and this hidden position in the valley was once nearly fatal to my fellow pilot and myself. On May 19 as it was growing dark I shot down a Potez near the ground. This was during the so-called Operation Abendsegen. The French fighters used the twilight hour to strafe our advance routes.

The key to the success of the French campaign lay at Sedan. The breakthrough in the Ardennes by strong mechanized armored columns was one of the most daring and revolutionary and therefore successful ideas of the German war leaders during World War II. It emanated from Manstein, was rejected by von Brauchitsch and Haider, recognized by Hitler as excellent, and adopted against all opposition. Gud-erian put it into execution. Haider's original plan of operations was based on the Schlieffen plan of World War I and again entailed the risk that the offensive might come to a standstill on the Somme, while the strong right wing of the German army advancing through Belgium would meet the main force of the Allied army head on. The Allied General Staff believed as little as did Haider and von Brauchitsch in the possibility of a major breakthrough in the Ardennes. The unexpected success enabled the Germans to annihilate the superior forces of the enemy in rapid operations in which the army and the Luftwaffe combined.

The speed with which these operations were executed was a determining factor. The army therefore demanded energetic countermeasures against the French low-level attacks.

Following a suggestion of mine, the entire wing on a broad front combed the spearhead area at nightfall. Unfortunately without results. At last I spotted one of the French hedgehoppers. A wild chase began at the height of only a few feet. We raised the dust on the fields. The Frenchman flew with great skill, using all the cover the countryside offered. I had already hit him several times and shot away part of his tail. Nevertheless he still did his best to shake me off. I had to keep my eyes skinned because visibility was getting worse at each moment. The time was 21:45. Suddenly we were on top of a village. I still can see the church with its high steeple looming up in front of me. The Frenchman zoomed over the church. At that moment I got him, and he crashed on the far side of the village.

A few days later Milch came to visit us at Charleville, and decorated me with the Iron Cross 1st class in recognition of seven victories. I had only shot down French and Belgian planes. In addition to obsolete Hurricanes the pilots flew French types: Moräne, Bloch, and Potez. Our ME-109E was technically superior to them all.

My first serious encounters with the R.A.F. took place during the battle of Dunkirk. Lord Gort with commendable skill rescued his defeated expeditionary force: with great loss of arms and equipment but nevertheless almost intact, together with 120,000 Frenchmen, making a total of 338,000 men, while the R.A.F. made a great and successful effort to provide air cover for the remarkable evacuation operation.

Although Dunkirk was a heavy blow for England and had a political rather than a military effect on her French ally, for Germany it was nothing like a total victory. Goring decided upon the destruction of the encircled British expeditionary force. After the victories over the Polish and French air forces he was more than ever a partisan of Douhet's Stuka idea. The army was amazed and alarmed by the irrevocable order given to the Panzer columns to halt their advance on Dunkirk. Some even thought that Hilter intended to spare the English foe in order to arrive at an honorable peace with Great Britain after the fall of France.

In addition to political grounds there were those of a military nature. In spite of the initial German successes Hitler still retained from World War I a great respect for his French antagonist. Therefore it was conceivable that he did not trust his own success. In any case he feared a threat to his armored divisions as they wheeled to the west and to the northwest from French forces, should they suddenly attack from the southeast—an intention Gamelin actually nursed although he was never able to carry it out. Hitler's knowledge of the battlefields of Flanders also originated from World War I. He regarded them as unsuitable for large-scale tank operations and saw in these fens a possible grave for his armored divisions. Ultimately it may have been Goring who was responsible for the fatal order to stop the advance. General Warlimont, Chief of Operations at German G.H.Q., in a conversation with Captain Liddell Hart on this subject, informed him that he had heard Göring's reply to Hitler: "My Luftwaffe will complete the encirclement and will close the pocket at the coast from the air." Guderian remarked, "I believe it was Göring's vanity which caused Hitler to make this momentous decision."

In any case after this any sparing of the British enemy was out of the question. On the contrary, Goring made the greatest effort to solve this problem with his Luftwaffe. It merely proved that the strength of the German Luftwaffe was inadequate, especially in the difficult conditions for reinforcement created by the unexpectedly quick advance and against a determined and well-led enemy who was fighting with tenacity and skill. Dunkirk should have been an emphatic warning for the leaders of the German Luftwaffe.

On May 29 I flew a sortie with the staff flight in this sector. We spotted a formation of British Blenheim bombers below us. Two of them were shot down and crashed into the sea. The second one escaped me for some time by skillful evasive action, until low over the water my bullets ripped open her oil tank. She hit the water at a shallow angle and sank immediately. When I landed at Saint-Pol-sur-Mer, I found that my ME-109 was covered with oil. It was over Dunkirk too that I shot down my first British Spitfire.

During the embarkation of the British troops thick clouds of smoke lay over the battlefield. The huge stores of fuel and war material had been set on fire. As number 1A of our wing it was my duty to fly the aircraft on our commander's flank. Lieutenant Colonel Ibel had been a pilot in World War I. This gruff Bavarian was very popular with us. He was no longer a youngster, and the energy with which he tried to keep up to date with modern fighter aircraft and flying called for the greatest respect. I flew with him that day through the thick gray-black clouds of smoke, which rose to a great height, when suddenly a wing of Spitfires dove on us. We both saw them at the same time. Almost simultaneously we warned each other over the intercom. However we reacted differently, which normally should not have happened, since I was supposed to accompany the other aircraft. I saw my commander vanish in the smoke, and prayed that he might escape unscathed. I singled out the British pilot, blazing away with all I had, not seriously expecting much more than a strengthening of my slightly battered self-confidence. The Spits roared past me, tailing my commander, sure of their target. I could not find him again. He did not return with the others to Saint-Pol, our base. We were already really worried when late at night he arrived on foot. The Spitfires caught him, but he had managed to get away with a lucky crash landing.

Dunkirk fell on July 4. The Dutch, Belgian, and British armies no longer existed. France stood alone, her Ninth Army beaten at Sedan. The First Army had capitulated at Lille. The German war machine rolled irresistibly through France. Gam-elin was replaced by Weygand as commander-in-chief. Not the Oise, the Marne, nor the Seine proved to be a barrier capable of halting the German advance or of slowing it down in the least. The enemy air force was heavily damaged and greatly disorganized by the blows of the German Luftwaffe and the quick German advance. The extensive losses it had sustained began to make themselves felt. Resistance visibly decreased. We saw little of the R.A.F.

The death blow to the Armée de l'Air was supposed to be Operation Paula, large-scale attacks on the airfields and French aircraft factories in the sector of Paris, for which 300 bombers and Stukas were employed. We provided the air cover. The success of this undertaking is debatable. German and French reports agreed on the one point that 25 to 30 German planes were lost. Anyhow Operation Paula was the single attempt at strategic air warfare during the French campaign.

On June 3 I had just shot down an unidentified aircraft similar to a Curtiss, when we—I was flying with Captain Ankum-Frank—encountered two flights of Moranes. There was an incredible dogfight. The only thing to do was to attack first and then try to escape as best we could: I closed in on the tail-end plane and banked still steeper! The fellow flew well, but his aircraft was inferior to mine. At last, from a short distance, I managed to get in a broadside on a climbing turn. He burst into flame. I avoided him only by inches. I bent a blade on my propeller and the right astern against his wing. My aerial was shaved off: it had been about three feet long. The Moräne spun down in flames and crashed into a forest not far from Meaux, north of Paris. No time to lose! I closed in on the next one! Well riddled, she went vertically down with a black smoke trail. I could not observe the crash because the rest of the Moranes were harassing me, so I could not register this kill. It would have been my thirteenth.

We entered Paris on June 14 without a shot being fired. German jack boots stamped down the Champs-Elysées. A guard of honor of the German Wehrmacht drew up at the grave of the unknown soldier. In the boites of Montmartre appeared signs Man Spricht Deutsch. The government had fled to Bordeaux. Marshal Pétain become president and proposed armistice on June 16.

Quite unexpectedly, as so often happens in the service, I was transferred to the 26th Fighter Group, Schlageter, before the French campaign was finished. I was to take over the command of the 3rd Squadron, stationed on a rather God forsaken and primitive airfield. It was a hot summer day when I arrived. I walked across the runway in my flying kit. No flags had been put out to welcome me. A few of the ground crew were standing by an old-fashioned well. I had a murderous thirst and a great need for a wash. I asked very politely if it were possible to get a pail of water. "Certainly," was the reply, "the whole well's full, only you'll have to wind it up yourself." The men could never have guessed that I was their new commander! I spared them the shock and wound up my pail of water as I had been told. This, by the way, was a better introduction to my new squadron than the fact that I went up the same afternoon and returned with a bag of two.

On June 22, 43 days after the start of the armed conflict, Marshal Pétain signed the truce in the Forest of Compiègne.

Our last action station was Villacoublay, which because of its closeness to Paris became quite a favorite.

After the signing of the truce our orders were, "Home to the Reich," and we were transferred to Munchen-Gladbach to be refitted. Our losses in men and material had been small. Naturally I took every opportunity to go and see my parents, for my home was only a few flying minutes' time away. Then came a surprise transfer order to Döberitz. Was another Or-log about to start? No, we were to screen a state function at which Hitler in his well-known speech made the peace offer to England. One bomb on the Kroll Opera House would actually have eliminated the entire German High Command at one fell swoop, so the precaution seemed well justified. At that time we were still prepared to support Göring's claim: "My name is not Goring if an enemy aircraft is ever seen over Germany!" Later these words were to be quoted with steadily increasing bitterness.

After an investiture of army commanders at the Kroll Opera House, a wave of promotion ran through the entire force, It reached me on July 18, 1940, when I was made a major. At first my position and duties were unchanged. From Döberitz we returned to Munchen-Gladbach.

On August 1, when Marshal Kesselring pinned the Knight's Cross on my tunic after my seventeenth kill and many completed low-level attacks, we were already stationed on the military airfields in the Pas de Calais area. Opposite lay the English coast, upon which a few days later the German Blitz was going to be unleashed.

Kesselring had his advanced base at Cap Gris Nez. During the investiture two fighter planes flew over at great height. "What are those?" he asked me. "Spitfires, Herr General-feldmarshal," I replied. He laughed. "The first to congratulate you . . ."

2

The Battle of Britain Starts

The strategic necessity for those operations which increased dramatically until the autumn and petered out in the winter of 1940-41, known in the history of the war as the "Battle of Britain," resulted from the political situation, in other words from the impossibility of reaching an agreement with England to put a stop to the war. The aims of these operations were:

1. The blockade of the British Isles in cooperation with the navy. Attacks on ports and shipping; mining of sea lanes and harbor entrances.

2. The achievement of air supremacy as a preliminary to the invasion (Operation Sea Lion).

3. Annihilation of England by total air warfare.

In retrospect one can state that the German Luftwaffe, despite its numerical strength and its technical equipment at the time, was not in the position to fulfill even one of the above-mentioned tasks.

Against the 2500 available German air force planes, according to German calculations, Britain disposed of about 3600 war planes, only 600 of which were fighter aircraft. Our numerical inferiority was roughly balanced by our technical superiority. This—at least with regard to the fighter force— was not necessarily the result of farsighted planning. The ME-109 was at the time the best fighter plane in the world. It was not only superior to all enemy types between 1935 and 1940 but was also a pioneer and prototype for international fighter construction. The ME-109 did not result from demands made by aerial warfare. On the contrary, it was a gift from the ingenious designer Messerschmitt, which was at first looked upon with great distrust and was nearly turned down altogether. It was put into mass production far too late. Had this stage been reached during the first two years of the war, it would have given the Germans absolute supremacy in the air.

The old fighter pilots from World War I, who were now sitting "at the joy stick" of the supreme command of the Luftwaffe, with Goring at their head, had a compulsory pause of 15 years behind them, during which they had probably lost contact with the rapid development of aviation. They were stuck on the idea that maneuverability in banking was primarily the determining factor in air combat. The ME-109 had, of course, much too high a stress per wing area and too great a speed to have such abilities. They could not or simply would not see that for modern fighter aircraft the tight turn as a form of aerial combat represented the exception, and further, that it was quite possible to see, shoot, and fight from an enclosed cockpit. In addition to other erroneous concepts it was feared that the higher take-off and landing speed of the ME-109 would set insoluble aviation problems. Of course all this was proved to be false in practice. Today this sounds almost like a legend from the stone age of aviation. However all these shortcomings were most painful realities at the time. They added decisively to the fact that the German fighter production started very sluggishly and only reached its peak when the war was practically lost. In the beginning of 1940 the monthly production figure for ME-109 fighters was approximately 125. While Udet was Chief of Aircraft Production this figure exceeded 375 and sank again to 250 at the beginning of 1942. Milch increased it to 1000 in 1943, and under Speer the peak was reached with a monthly production of 2500 fighters. That was in autumn, 1944!

At the end of 1944, therefore, we had a fighter production about 20 times higher that it had been at the time when the Luftwaffe entered the Battle of Britain. Had the fighter production of the year 1944 been reached in 1940, or even in 1941, the Luftwaffe would have never lost air supremacy and the tide of the war would have taken an entirely different course. And this production figure could have been reached! Neither technical reasons nor shortage of raw materials prevented it. Nor was it a question of the men who were entrusted at different times with the arming of the German air force. It was the fundamental ideology of the German leadership with regard to aerial warfare, about which some further explanation is needed.

Hitler's strategical thoughts were exclusively directed toward the offensive. His initial successes confirmed that he had been right, and undoubtedly strengthened his opinion still further. With regard to aerial warfare, therefore, the Stuka idea must have had a fascination for him. The idea of annihilating the enemy from the air, of stifling any resistance by terrific bombing, approached his concept of the Blitzkrieg. The enemy had to be beaten, and all his means for a possible counteroffensive must be destroyed, before one was compelled one day to go over to the defensive. The same ideas were held by the first Luftwaffe Chief of Staff, General Wever, who up to then had been an army officer. He was killed in a crash during the summer of 1936. He was considered to be the German Douhet or Rougeron. In agreement with Hitler's and Goring's ideas he definitely stressed the bomber. The fighters played a subordinate role from the start. They were, so to speak, only tolerated as a necessary evil, a concession to the unpopular act of defense. The strategic concept current in Germany was to regard the Luftwaffe as an instrument of attack. Therefore bombers were needed first of all. If, contrary to all expectations, these bombers could not achieve air supremacy—according to Douhet this was to be done by annihilating the enemy air force on the ground by surprise attacks—then from sheer necessity the bomber attacks had to be flown with fighter cover. Yet allowance for this was made unwillingly, and in the case of eventuality, because the operational radius of the bomber—already not very convincing—would have been still further restricted and would have taken away the character of the bomber arm, which after all was to be a strategic and, for the war, decisive means of attack.

Thus it is no wonder that of the 1491 war planes produced in 1939, according to the official figures of the German quartermaster, there were only 449 fighter planes, i.e., only about a third. This ratio became even more unfavorable to the fighters in the following year, 1940. Out of 6618 aircraft, only a quarter were fighters, i.e., 1693. Aggravating, too, was the fact that not only the production side of the fighter air arm was pushed into the background but also questions of personnel. The nucleus of men Goring had available for the reconstruction of the Luftwaffe in 1933 consisted of about 300 fighter and a few dozen reconnaissance pilots. These were in part remnants from World War I, incorporated into the Secret Reichswehr, and in part newly trained men. At the outset bomber pilots had to be furnished from this number. When the Stuka units were formed, the strength of fighter pilots was again drained. From 1938 onward Goring started to create "destroyer" units, equipped with the twin-engined ME-110, which, having a wider range, could penetrate much deeper into enemy territory. These units were supposed to become "the operational fighter elite of the Luftwaffe." Once more the best pilots of the fighter arm were lost to them.

The JU-87 Stuka did not prove itself in the Battle of Britain, although no one can dispute its value especially for army support to land operation as given on the Eastern front in World War II.

The probability of hitting the target and the effect of the bombs themselves were highly overrated. Although the Stuka was most suitable for attacking vulnerable pinpointed targets such as ships, railway junctions, bridges, or power stations, it was soon proved that in order to achieve a lasting effect, saturation "carpet bombing" with bombs released from close formations in horizontal high-altitude attacks was much preferable. From the point of view of the defense it possessed this considerable shortcoming: the attacking Stukas had to leave their formation and descend low into the range of ground defenses, thus making a most vulnerable target for AA guns and enemy fighters. Their losses during the course of the Battle of Britain became catastrophic both on account of this and because of their incredibly low speed. They had to be taken out of the battle. I shall discuss this later in detail.

A decisive factor for the current prejudice against the fighter arm inside the German Luftwaffe lay in the development of German aircraft construction. During the years of 1935-36 the designers produced two technically first-class twin-engined bomber aircraft, the DO-17 and the HE-111. They were even faster than the AR-65, AR-68, and HE-51 fighters. When it was already believed that the fighter should play a secondary role according to the ideas of air strategy prevailing among the German High Command, this idea was only reinforced by the state of the technical development in Germany. What good could fighter protection be to the bombers if the accompanying fighters could not even keep up with them? Fighter aircraft simply did not fit into the picture of the strategical air arm, but were looked upon as tactical weapons. It was believed that their place was local air defense, the winning of air superiority over the front, or if necessary to assist the army in land operations in conjunction with ground support planes. When the German fighter pilots were given strategical tasks during the course of the Battle of Britain, there was surprise that they were not equal to the task, and people spoke of a "letdown."

The soldier of today is impelled more and more to become a mechanic, an engineer, subordinated to the technics and mechanization of modern warfare. One day the fighter pilot guided from the ground will chase, at supersonic speed, the atom-bomb carrier for scores of miles high up in the stratosphere. But science must not become an aim in itself. Only the spirit of attack borne in a brave heart will bring a success to any fighter aircraft, no matter how highly developed it may be.

The first year of the war confirmed to a certain degree the strategical concept of the German Luftwaffe, in which the fighter arm represented a quantité négligeable. In Poland as well as in France a greater part of the enemy air force had been destroyed on the ground, a minor part only in the air. Meanwhile it had become obvious that the Luftwaffe would not have a walk-over against the R.A.F. At the opening of the battle it showed, as it had done previously during the air battles of the French campaign, that the English had a fighter arm which was numerically stronger and better controlled because of their lead in the field of radar. With regard to crews and fighting spirit it was absolutely first class.

Already in the second phase of the Battle of Britain, therefore, a task was allotted to the German fighters that exceeded the operational limits fixed for it inside the German Luftwaffe. They were to defeat the British fighters in large-scale battles in order to win the total air supremacy necessary for the bombers which were to follow up the attack.

I should not care to say which one of the three following strategic aims was responsible for the order to gain air supremacy: the total blockade of the island, the invasion, or the defeat of England according to Douhet concepts. I rather doubt if the General Staff knew themselves, because during the course of the Battle of Britain the stress was put on all of them in turn.

Such an operation is rarely successful and it was quite alien to the usual German methods. The only answer I can find is that taken all in all the High Command at this period had no clear plans for the further pursuit of the war. Hitler's aim as before still lay in the east. The war against England was for him merely a necessary evil, with which he had to cope somehow—just how, he was not quite sure.

In the High Command there were enough voices to reject an attack on England, if for no other reason than because in their opinion even an occupation of England would never persuade the British Empire to terminate the war, and because the defense of the entire Continent, including the British Isles against Anglo-American air and sea power, would have been impossible for any length of time.

Another remarkable point of view was that the impending air offensive against England would reveal to the enemy the limitations and weaknesses of the German Luftwaffe and thus rob Germany of the strongest military-political trump she then held.

Instead of laying the cards on the table, it would perhaps have been better to continue to attack England on the periphery and to cut off one of her most important lifelines by closing the Mediterranean at the Strait of Gibraltar and at the Suez Canal. Such an operation, concentrated swiftly on a weak link of the enemy, should have succeeded, and the actual strength or weakness of the Luftwaffe would not thereby have been revealed. Such an operation would certainly have had a great influence on the further course of the war.

Hitler decided differently. In this he was mainly supported by Goring who, dismissing the qualms of individual commanders of the army and other branches of the forces, confronted Hitler once more with his classic argument: "Then I will do it with my air force."

During the midsummer weeks in 1940 the 2nd and 3rd Air Fleets were concentrated on the Channel coast. My squadron, the 3rd JG 26, was stationed on a well-camouflaged airfield near Guines. The commander of the JG 26 Wing was Major Handrick. This wing was subordinated to Jafu 2 under the command of von Döring, who in turn was under the 2nd Flying Corps (Lörzer), attached to the 2nd Air Fleet (Kesselring.) The units of the 3rd Air Fleet in Cherbourg and Le Havre sectors were commanded by Sperrle. The concentration of these forces incidentally took place contrary to all expectations without interference from enemy aircraft. The British seemed to be concentrating their forces on defense.

Establishing our aircraft in these positions brought to an end the first phase of the Battle of Britain on July 24, 1940. The action of the Luftwaffe was not directed against the Navy and merchant shipping. Soon after the beginning of the war isolated attacks without fighter support were made from northwest Germany, and from Norway after the occupation of that country, on British warships and the northern England ports. For these actions the twin-engined dive bomber JU-88 was particularly suitable but was not available in sufficient numbers. Its successes were limited. The sensational sinking of the aircraft carrier Ark Royal turned out to be an error caused by a misread report, which was unfortunately found out only after the alleged feat had been considerably exploited by propaganda. On Hitler's special orders we were not allowed to attack the battleship Repulse which was lying in a dry dock because at that time he was still anxious to avoid in all circumstances the dropping of bombs on English soil. The Luftwaffe were to concentrate exclusively on military and maritime targets. Simultaneously intensive reconnaissance supplied the information for essential military objectives in the Britsh Isles.

With the opening of the Western Campaign the attack by the Luftwaffe on British merchant shipping was intensified. It acted in cooperation with the German navy, hoping to cut off the supply lines for the British troops, which had now entered into a shooting war with Germany. Neither the bombing attacks, with or without fighter cover against'British supply ships, mainly off the east coast of England, nor the mining of ports brought any telling success. The forces employed were too small, as the bulk of the Luftwaffe was still tied down in the French campaign.

When this was brought to a victorious end, the first tentative plans for an invasion of England, the so-called Operation Sea Lion, were prepared. They received only dilatory attention as long as the English reply to Hitler's last peace offer of July 19, 1940, was still in abeyance.

The army, upon which the task of invasion would fall, had demanded from the navy the provision of the necessary shipping space, as well as the landing and supply craft. The navy on the other hand demanded from the air force the protection of the invasion fleet against air attacks as well as an air umbrella, implying air supremacy for the execution of the landing operations. Thus the army and the navy made their participation in this undertaking—to which for a variety of reasons they adopted a skeptical attitude—dependent on prerequisites which only the air force could fulfill. Added to the many doubts and objections of the generals and admirals there arose fundamental strategical considerations with the framework of the war leadership, which prompted Jodl to warn Hitler of the great risk of an invasion. General Warli-mont said to Liddell Hart, "Hitler was only too willing to accept these objections." According to the same source General Blumentritt defined the current opinions held in army circles as follows: "We looked upon the whole thing as being a kind of war game." For the air force and especially for the fighter arm it became anything but a game. To the air force fell the main responsibility of parting the way for Operation Sea Lion. This order for preparation was adhered to long after the actual Battle of Britain was over. The Sea Lion, which at the second phase of the Battle of Britain, July 24, 1940, was ready to pounce over the Channel, was never let loose. The beast was finally recalled by Hitler on September 17, 1940, and died in a pigeonhole in the archives of the General Staff.

The second phase of the Battle of Britain, lasting from July 24 to August 8, 1940, was essentially a fighter battle. On its opening day I was with my squadron for the first time in action over England. Over the Thames Estuary we got involved in a heavy scrap with the Spitfires, which were screening a convoy. Together with the staff flight I selected one formation as our prey. We made a surprise attack from a favorably higher altitude. I glued myself to the tail of the plane flying outside on the left flank. During a right-handed turn I managed to get in a long burst. The Spitfire went down almost vertically. I followed it until the cockpit cover came flying toward me and the pilot baled out. I followed him down until he crashed into the water. His parachute had failed to open.

The modern Vickers Supermarine Spitfires were slower than our planes by about 10 to 15 mph but could perform steeper and tighter turns. The older Hawker Hurricane which was at that time still frequently used by the English compared badly with our ME-109 as regards speed and rate of climb. Our armament and ammunition were also undoubtedly better. Another advantage was that our engines had injection pumps instead of the carburetors used by the British, and therefore they did not conk out through lack of acceleration in critical moments during combat. The British fighters usually tried to shake off pursuit by a half-roll or half-roll on top of a loop, while we simply went straight for them, with wide-open throttle and eyes bulging out of our sockets.

During this first action we lost two aircraft. That was bad, although at the same time we had three confirmed kills. We were no longer in doubt that the R.A.F. would prove a most formidable opponent.

3

A Battle for Life and Death

The German fighter squadrons on the Channel were in continuous action from then on. Two or three sorties daily was the rule and the briefing read : "Free chase over southeast England." The physical as well as the mental strain on the pilots was considerable. The ground personnel and the planes themselves were taxed to the limit.

After the take-off the formation used to assemble in the coastal area, still over land, at an altitude of 15,000 to 18,000 feet, in order to climb to between 21,000 and 24,000 feet when crossing the English coast. In the attempt to outclimb the opponent our dogfights occurred at ever-increasing altitudes. My highest combat at that time took place at 25,000 feet. But at 27,000 feet and more—close to the lower limits of the stratosphere—one could usually see the vapor trails of German or English fighters.

It used to take us roughly half an hour from take-off to crossing the English coast at the narrowest point of the Channel. Having a tactical flying time of only 80 minutes, we therefore had about 20 minutes to complete our task. This fact limited the distance of penetration. German fighter squadrons based on the Pas de Calais and on the Cotentin peninsula could barely cover the southeastern parts of the British Isles. Circles drawn from these two bases at an operational range of 125 miles overlapped approximately in the London area. Everything beyond was practically out of our reach. This was the most acute weakness of our offensive. An operating radius of 125 miles was sufficient for local defense, but not enough for such tasks as were now demanded of us.

In the Battle of Britain a powerful air force was to be used strategically on a big scale for the first time in the history of warfare. The bomber is the vehicle of strategic air warfare. It is therefore amazing that the opening of the battle was not allotted to them but to fighters, which previously had only been regarded as a tactical weapon. It was assumed that the appearance of German fighter squadrons over England would draw the British fighters into the area within our range where they would be destroyed, beaten, or at least decimated in large-scale air battles. Although only a small portion of the English homeland was covered by the operational range of our fighters, it was hoped in this way to achieve air supremacy, or at least sufficient superiority in the air over the whole of the British Isles, to expose it to the attack of the German bomber force.

Things turned out differently. Our fighter formations took off. The first air battles took place as expected and according to plan. Due to the German superiority these attacks, had they been continued, would certainly have achieved the attempted goal, but the English fighters were recalled from this area long before this goal was reached. The weakened squadrons of the R.A.F. left their bases near the coast and used them only for emergency landings or to refuel. They were concentrated in a belt around London in readiness for our bomber attacks. Thus they evaded the attack in the air in order to encounter more effectively the attack from the air, which would logically follow. The German fighters found themselves in a similar predicament to a dog on a chain who wants to attack the foe but cannot harm him, because of the limitation of his chain.

As long as the enemy kept well back, our task could not be accomplished. Rather aptly we called the few bombers and Stukas, which from now onward accompanied our roving expeditions, "decoy ducks." Only with bombers was the war from the air over England a possibility, and to prevent such a development was the decisive aim of the British Command. To this end the R.A.F. called out the fighters again, but the German hope of attracting them into annihilating combats was never realized.

In the opening encounters the English were at a considerable disadvantage because of their close formation. Since the Spanish civil war we had introduced the wide-open combat formation in which great intervals were kept between the smaller single formations and groups, each of which flew at a different altitude. This offered a number of valuable advantages: greater air coverage; relief for the individual pilot who could now concentrate more on the enemy than on keeping formation; freedom of initiative right down to the smallest unit without loss of collective strength; reduced vulnerability, as compared to close formation; and, most important of all, better vision. The first rule of all air combat is to see the opponent first. Like the hunter who stalks his prey and maneuvers himself unnoticed into the most favorable position for the kill, the fighter in the opening of a dogfight must detect the opponent as early as possible in order to attain a superior position for the attack. The British quickly realized the superiority of our combat formation and readjusted their own. At first they introduced the so-called "Charlies": two flanking planes following in the rear of the main formation, flying slightly higher and further out, on a weaving course. Finally they adopted our combat formation entirely. Since then, without any fundamental changes, it has been accepted throughout the world. Werner Molders was greatly responsible for these developments.

From the very beginning the English had an extraordinary advantage which we could never overcome throughout the entire war: radar and fighter control. For us and for our Command this was a surprise and a very bitter one. England possessed a closely knit radar network conforming to the highest technical standards of the day, which provided Fighter Command with the most detailed data imaginable. Thus the British fighter was guided all the way from take-off to his correct position for attack on the German formations.

We had nothing of the kind. In the application of radiolocation technique the enemy was far in advance of us. It was not that British science and technics were superior. On the contrary, the first success of radar must be recorded on the German side. On December 18, after the R.A.F. had previously tried in vain to attack Wilhelmshaven on September 4, 1939—the day following the British declaration of war —a British bomber formation approached the German Bight, making for the same target. An experimental Freya radar set sighted their approach in time for German fighters to intercept and practically destroy the enemy task force which flew without fighter protection; the attack was defeated. After this defensive success thanks to timely radio location, the British bombers never returned without fighter protection.

There could be no more singular proof of the importance of high-frequency technique for defense against air attacks. However, since the German Command was predominantly occupied with offensive plans, not enough attention was given to this technique. The possibility of an Allied air attack on the Reich was at the time unthinkable. For the time being we were content to erect a few Freya sets along the German and later along the Dutch, Belgian, and French coast; they had a range of 75 miles but gave no altitude reading.

Under the serious threat for England arising from the German victory in France—no one described it more forcefully than Churchill in his memoirs—the British Command concentrated desperately on the development and perfection of radar. The success was outstanding. Our planes were already detected over the Pas de Calais while they were still assembling, and were never allowed to escape the radar eye. Each of our movements was projected almost faultlessly on the screens in the British fighter control centers, and as a result Fighter Command was able to direct their forces to the most favorable position at the most propitious time.

In battle we had to rely on our own human eyes. The British fighter pilots could depend on the radar eye, which was far more reliable and reached many times further. When we made contact with the enemy our briefings were already three hours old, the British only as many seconds old—the time it took to assess the latest position by means of radar to the transmission of attacking orders from Fighter Control to the already-airborne force.

Of further outstanding advantage to the English was the fact that our attacks, especially those of the bombers, were of sheer necessity directed against the central concentration of the British defense. We were not in a position to seek out soft spots in this defense or to change our approaches and to attack now from this direction, now from that, as the Allies did later in their air offensive against the Reich. For us there was only a frontal attack against the superbly organized defense of the British Isles, conducted with great determination.

Added to this, the R.A.F. was fighting over its own country. Pilots who had baled out could go into action again almost immediately, whereas ours were taken prisoner. Damaged English planes could sometimes still reach their base or make an emergency landing, while for us engine trouble or fuel shortage could mean a total loss.

Morale too and the emotions played a great part. The desperate seriousness of the situation apparently aroused all the energies of this hardy and historically conscious people, whose arms in consequence were directed toward one goal: to repulse the German invaders at any price!

Thus, during the first weeks of our air offensive it was apparent that in spite of our good bag of enemy planes, this was not the way to achieve our air superiority. The German Command, which in any case lacked clarity in its aims, grew more uncertain. The order came for low-level attacks on English fighter bases. This was a difficult and costly under-taking. The sites were well protected by a host of heavy and light ack-ack guns. We also met with a novel defense: aerial cables, fired by rockets during our attack, which descended slowly on parachutes, protecting the lower air regions above the targets. The planes themselves were magnificently camouflaged, so that our efforts were out of proportion to the number of effectively destroyed enemy planes.

During this time we provided fighter cover for the attacks by bomber formations and Stukas on shipping and convoys. We could not miss the splendid opportunity of continuously attacking the convoys, so important to Britain's subsistence, under the protection of the German fighter squadrons stationed on the channel coast. Here the slow speed of the JU-87 turned out to be a great drawback. Due to the speed-reducing effect of the externally suspended bomb load she only reached 150 mph when diving. As the required altitude for the dive was between 10,000 and 15,000 feet these Stukas attracted Spitfires and Hurricanes as honey attracts flies. The necessary fighter protection for such sorties was considerable, and the task of the pilots was fraught with great difficulties. The English soon realized that the Stukas, once they peeled out of formation to dive singly onto their targets, were practically defenseless until they had reassembled. We made numerous attempts to counteract this shortcoming. With our greater speed it was impossible to follow the Stukas into the dive without a dive-brake. Equally impossible was the idea of providing fighter cover on all different levels between the start of the dive and the pull-out. The losses of JU-87s from sortie to sortie rose.

We fighter pilots were blamed. The Stuka was regarded as the egg of Columbus by the German Air Command. It was not born in the eyrie of the German Eagle, for Udet and other experts had brought it over from the New World. This type had been developed in the U.S.A. as a small, handy light bomber suitable for pinpoint attacks. The idea of the Stuka was taken up in Germany with enthusiasm because it promised the greatest success with a minimum expenditure of material and manpower. Single precision attacks on pinpointed targets instead of mass attacks on large areas became the motto of the German bomber strategy. The greatest effect was to be achieved with the smallest expenditure of material. This demand was imperative owing to the situation of German raw materials—a situation which would became dangerous in the event of a long war. Major General Jeschonnek, then Luftwaffe Chief of Staff, was a keen champion of this idea. In spring, 1939, he said to his colleagues of the Luftwaffe, "We must save more: not money but material."

Only the Stuka seemed to solve this problem. Thus originated the JU-87, which had contributed considerably to the successful Blitzkrieg in Poland and France, although in actual fact it encountered little opposition. Right until the end of the war it proved repeatedly its value as a tactical weapon in support of an army, especially against tanks. In the Battle of Britain it proved disastrous.