by Stout, Jay
Certainly, this was no exaggeration. Earlier gunsights projected fixed, illuminated circles on a plate of glass. The pilot was required to not only estimate the range to the aircraft at which he was shooting, but also to calculate the deflection. An aircraft heading straight away made an easy target at zero degrees of deflection, while one that crossed in front of the firing aircraft from one side to the other presented 90 degrees of deflection and was very difficult to hit.
During a twisting, turning dogfight a pilot had to not only fly his aircraft against his quarry, and keep an eye on his wingman, and watch for other enemy fighters, but also determine the correct firing solution after solving for range and deflection. Then, he fired his guns. A second or two later—if he had correctly considered all the variables—his rounds arrived at precisely the same point in the sky at the exact same instant as the enemy aircraft.
It didn’t work very well. Most pilots fired from too far away and underestimated how much lead (rhymes with seed) was required. That is, they misjudged how far ahead of the enemy aircraft they needed to aim. Indeed, some of the most successful pilots were those who eliminated these difficulties by flying directly behind their intended targets and holding their fire until they felt a collision was imminent. Other pilots simply sprayed bullets in front of their intended target and hoped for the best.
The K-14 greatly eased the task. It was manufactured by Sperry and was actually a licensed version of the British Mk IID gunsight developed by Ferranti. The system’s mechanical analog computer used information from its gyroscope to analyze the firing aircraft’s motion and calculate the lead required to hit a target.
To use it, the pilot first set the wingspan of the type of aircraft he was most likely to encounter by moving a pointer along a scale mounted on the front of the sight. The wingspan was usually set at 30 feet which worked well for both the FW-190 and the Me-109. When the sight was turned on, six small illuminated diamonds formed a circle on the glass plate that made up the sight. In the center of the circle of diamonds was an illuminated dot, or “pipper.” When the gyroscope was “uncaged,” or released, the pipper and its circle of diamonds moved around the sight depending on how the aircraft was maneuvering.
On the throttle was a twist grip that was connected to the gunsight via cables and pulleys. As the pilot maneuvered to fire on an enemy aircraft, he twisted the throttle so that the circle of diamonds with the pipper at its center changed size to match the wingspan of his target. “As you maneuver to place and keep the dot on the enemy,” explained the manual, “use the twist grip to adjust the reticle of diamonds, so that the inner points surround him. You must keep the sight on the target for one second before firing to give the sight time to do its work. Fire a burst of at least two seconds.”
And it was essentially that easy. Herman Schonenberg recalled that after the introduction of the K-14 that, “there was little guesswork in aerial fighting.”
Following his first combat mission on October 30, Righetti flew eleven missions through the month of November during which he quickly proved his competence. Although the original plan was for him to gain experience before being sent to take charge of a different group, that plan was changed and he was notified that he would be given command of the 55th’s 338th Fighter Squadron, preparatory to being moved up to command the entire group—if things went well.
Darrell Cramer—who had earlier upbraided Righetti for his single-minded aggressiveness when the two had downed an Me-109 together—recalled and appreciated Righetti’s forthrightness. “Before it was announced that Righetti was being assigned permanently to the 55th, he came to me and told me what was going on. He told me that he knew I was counting on becoming the next 338th commander. He told me I should not be disappointed he was being assigned to that position, because he would be there only a few weeks, then he would become the new group commander and I would get the 338th at that time.”
Righetti led the 338th in combat for the first time on November 21, 1944. It had been only three weeks since his first mission. He was given command of the squadron just a few days later on November 25, 1944. If he celebrated at all it was likely a low-key event as he spent only one sentence in announcing the new assignment to his family: “Have my own squadron now, so am very happy about things.”
And there was no question about his readiness as recalled by Darrell Cramer, the 338th’s most experienced pilot. “By the time he became a squadron commander,” said Cramer, “he had already established himself as a very capable pilot and an aggressive combat leader. He was the kind of leader whose attitude was ‘come follow me,’ and we were glad to follow him.”
Righetti actually seemed more excited about being assigned an aircraft, Serial Number 44-14223, and having it personalized. “My own airplane is finally in the paint shop, getting the Katydid and picture inscribed on it—also one swastika.” He further described it in a letter to sister Lorraine: “My ship is the Katydid with one large sexy green grasshopper painted thereon and it’s the sweetest piece of equipment in the world.”
He wrote to younger sister Doris on December 2. “Thought I’d drop a note to say happy birthday. Never can tell about these deals. Might not get to say that I wish you a lot more of them.” His maudlin comment certainly wasn’t intended to take the shine from his birthday wish to Doris, but the fact that he might be killed was something Righetti mentioned regularly in his letters. He didn’t need to do so as the family certainly understood that he might perish, and they fretted about it continuously. Indeed, the war came especially close to home during this time when the family learned that James “Buster” Righetti, Elwyn’s cousin, had been killed while fighting as part of Patton’s 6th Armored Division.
That Righetti actually considered his mortality wasn’t unusual. Every airman did so—death was all around them. The loss rate for fighter crews hovered at just under two percent per sortie at that point in the war.4 This meant that anyone who flew more than about fifty sorties—which wasn’t even a complete combat tour of 270 hours—was on borrowed time.
“I do not believe Righetti ever talked to the pilots of the group about being shot down or of being made a POW,” said Darrell Cramer, “[But] on one occasion he did tell me that, considering the types of mission we were flying and the heavy flak that we encountered, he did not expect he would finish his combat tour—he expected he would be shot down some day.” Likewise, Righetti’s crew chief, Millard “Doak” Easton, remembered that Katydid’s tailwheel was hit on one sortie, and that a 20-millimeter cannon shell had punched through the ship’s cowling on another. “He told me the next one would be in the cockpit.”5
Righetti’s apparent fatalism was not unusual. In fact, some of the pilots fully believed that they would not survive their combat tours. One of these was Russell Haworth who had arrived at the 55th a few months before Righetti. His tendency to leave the group to hunt the enemy on his own earned the ire of his superiors and the nickname “Krazy Kid.” “I expected to die,” he said, “but intended to have as much fun and kill as many Nazis as possible in the meantime.”
Notwithstanding Righetti’s mawkishness, his attempt to lighten the mood of his letter to Doris fell flat. “Sunday, that’s tomorrow, has always been a fine day for us. We try to hit Germany about noon and in that way catch thousands and thousands of people coming out of church. They make the finest targets.” Of course, the notion of a fighter group gunning down churchgoers was preposterous, but not so outlandish that it worked as humor. Too many innocent people on all sides were being killed for the joke to be funny.
Certainly, there were isolated incidents when Allied pilots did gun down noncombatants. The German authorities took these very seriously and developed the gun camera film from downed fighters whenever possible. German interrogator Hanns Scharff recalled seeing some of these. “In one film, schoolchildren were shot on a street in front of their homes and schoolhouse. In another, a forester and a peasant in a field were hunted like rabbits until both died after
this pilot has [sic] made several strafing passes at each of them.”6
When four women were murdered by a strafing pilot near the town of Greifswald in northern Germany, several Americans who were shot down that day were rounded up for special interrogations. These sessions, conducted by Scharff, lasted for weeks. At one point, as the Gestapo got involved, it seemed that at least one of the fliers would be executed despite his protestations of innocence. Ultimately, the “Greifswald Seven” were exonerated when the Germans developed the gun camera film of another pilot that had been shot down and killed on the same day. The film clearly, “showed four German women in the middle of a small country road being mercilessly and needlessly mowed down by the Mustang’s .50 caliber machine guns.”7
More representative of Righetti’s real character was his report to Doris that he, “Just finished a note to Katy telling her what a pretty night it is. There’s not a cloud in the sky, no wind, and although it’s cold, it’s not uncomfortable. On top of that, there’s an enormous moon—almost full.” He noted that he also, “told Katy of our radio program—source, Heinie [the Germans]. They jam all British programs, which aren’t too good anyhow, and then put out some really wonderful stuff. Finest musical program I ever heard, with lots of Jerry propaganda chucked in.”
The Americans, like all the Allies, used a variety of slang terms to refer to their German counterparts. Most common were Kraut, Jerry, Hun, Fritz and Heinie. All were carryovers from World War I. Kraut was an obvious reference to sauerkraut, the shredded, pickled and very aromatic cabbage dish that was so ubiquitous throughout much of Germany. Jerry was derived from the word, German, whereas Fritz was simply a shortening of the common German name Friedrich. During the Boxer Rebellion Kaiser Wilhelm suggested that the German army in China should behave like Attila’s Huns. Later, during World War I, British propagandists leveraged this reference to portray the Germans as cruel, cold-blooded barbarians.
Righetti used Heinie most often. It was a term that was fairly common during the war but subsequently faded from usage. There was little that was derogatory about it as it was simply an Anglicized form of Heinrich. It is likely he picked up the expression from other pilots in the 55th as it appears quite often in the group’s mission summary reports and other official documents.
“EVERYONE LOOKS SO WELL”
On December 5, only a week or so after taking command of the 338th, Righetti acknowledged one of the downsides to being in charge rather than among the rank-and-file pilots. “This squadron leading ain’t so sharp—I have to sit up topside and call the shots. But then, maybe I shouldn’t squawk. There wasn’t a single German fighter that got thru to the bombers, so I got commended for the success of the show.” Certainly, Righetti was responsible for the performance of his squadron and that performance depended on how he handled and directed it. In some circumstances it was best for him to personally lead the attack, whereas in others the smartest move was to send other elements to engage. Considering his aggressive nature, he was exceptionally disciplined in how he employed his squadron.
“Things have been pretty quiet around here the last two days,” Righetti wrote home a few days later on December 9, 1944. “So something ought to pop up in short order. Weather has held us up. This long-range stuff is mean during winter, since it’s not always that flying conditions exist both here and on the continent.”
Righetti’s comment highlighted a characteristic of the air war that vexed Allied planners through the entire conflict. Weather fronts typically moved from the Arctic, through the North Atlantic and across the British Isles before coasting over Europe. Consequently, when a front cleared England and flying operations were possible again, that same front blanketed the continent. And when it finally blew through Germany, or disintegrated, the Eighth’s bases in England were often socked in by a new weather system. Frustrated Allied commanders—air and ground alike—didn’t merely chat about the weather. Rather they groused about the “goddamn” weather.
“Have had a tough time locating any Heinie pilots for my own shooting, of late,” Righetti continued, “but have really raised hell with their transportation.” He noted a new tactic for hitting locomotives: “Got one the other day, head-on, as an experiment. And the whole front end blew down the tracks 100 yards. Looks as though that might be the most damaging approach, and it’s better to work because then you can go right down the train.”
Righetti apologized for being unable to send Christmas presents. Wartime exigencies precluded the possibility. “But will bring some stuff when, and if, I come home.”
The following day, December 10, 1944, Righetti led the 55th to south-central Germany. Rather than escorting bombers along specific segments of their route, the 55th was tasked with patrolling in the vicinity of a number of targets, to include Frankfurt and Stuttgart. The group’s mission was to intercept German fighters before they could reach the bombers. Such a luxury would have been unthinkable only a year earlier as the Eighth had not had enough fighters of the right sort. Since that time, the wide availability of reliable external fuel tanks and the introduction of the P-51 had changed everything.
The Luftwaffe, for the most part, failed to make an appearance. However, a flight of three Me-262s pestered the group along part of its route as described by the mission summary report:
Enemy aircraft were content to feint attacks from the rear and head-on, pulling away before coming within range and never firing. Efforts to box them in were unsuccessful. However, one enemy aircraft misjudged by coming in range before pulling away and strikes were scored. They utilized their superior speed to the fullest, but served only as a nuisance and seemed content to harry us. Engagement continued for 20 to 30 minutes.
It was Righetti who scored the strikes on the Me-262. “Tangled with 3 jets and got one damaged. They’re a little too fast to destroy but I took all the fight out of him.”
The 55th’s pilots referred to the Me-262s they encountered as “blows” or “blow jobs”; the latter term carried the same sexual connotations then as today. And beginning in late 1944 they encountered the jets with a frequency that increased until the end of the war. The Me-262 frustrated Allied fighter pilots as its speed allowed it to avoid close-in combat and also gave it the ability to attack the big USAAF bomber streams almost at will. Had the type entered service only a year earlier, the air war certainly would have developed very differently.
That the Me-262 didn’t begin combat operations sooner was due to several factors. Among those, the one most commonly offered is that Hitler ordered it to be developed as a fast “Blitz” bomber rather than as a fighter. Certainly this is true, as is the fact that the mandate did cause friction and delays. But it is also certain that Göring and Messerschmitt and others were—initially at least—not big proponents of the jet’s potential. Moreover, they misled Hitler about the maturity of the project and the state of the technologies that were required to support its introduction into combat.
In fact, rather than exploring advanced efforts like the Me-262, emphasis was put on producing greater numbers of existing aircraft types in hopes of winning the war sooner. Considering that there was no plan to greatly expand the numbers of pilots available to fly those great numbers of aircraft, it was an ill-considered and naïve decision that caused significant delays in getting the jet into the field. The truth was that regardless of what Hitler did or did not demand, not enough resources had been spent early enough in the design’s development. Consequently, the pioneering new aircraft—not surprisingly—encountered a considerable number of technical issues that were impervious to decrees by Hitler or anyone else.
However, even had more resources been put into accelerating the introduction of the promising new type, it is not certain that they would have made an appreciable difference. The various technologies associated with the concept were novel and not well understood. Integrating them into a new aircraft demanded intensive engineering which took time. Moreover, the precision required to manufacture the t
ype’s engines was problematic, as was the scarcity of the materials that could withstand the tremendous heat created by the engines.
The end result was that the Me-262—which first flew with a piston engine during 1941, and jet engines during 1942—finally began tentative combat operations with a test unit during the late summer of 1944. The scope of Me-262 sorties remained trifling for several months and increased only in fits and starts through the rest of the year. It was only during the last couple months of the war that the jets started flying in barely meaningful numbers. By then, it was too late.
Nevertheless, from the experience of Frank Birtciel of the 343rd Fighter Squadron, it is apparent how the superior speed of the Me-262 might have neutralized the tremendous war machine the USAAF had become. “The 262 pulled out from underneath the Big Friends [bombers] and headed out ahead of them at about 17,000 feet. This put the 262 and I almost head on. I was coming in about 45 degrees to him head on and started tracking and shooting. I followed him past 90 degrees then pulled in dead astern. Due to his superior speed, he pulled away from me in a matter of seconds.”1
The performance of the new type was indeed startling. Its two Junkers Jumo 004 turbojets propelled it to speeds of more than 550 mph, while its service ceiling exceeded 35,000 feet. And, although its four 30-millimeter cannon were relatively short-ranged, a couple of strikes were often adequate to knock down a heavy bomber. Later, underwing-mounted R4M unguided rockets were even more deadly. Moreover, rather than burning the same high-octane fuel as its piston-powered counterparts, it used a low-grade benzoil-based fuel that was simpler to produce in smaller refineries. Consequently, it was not hobbled by a lack of fuel to the same degree as the conventional fighter force.
However, the jet was not a good dogfighting machine and an Me-262 pilot who let himself get suckered into a turning fight with P-51s or P-47s, or any of the excellent RAF fighters, soon found himself in trouble. Noted German ace Walter Krupinski recalled, “The only great downside to having the jet was the loss of maneuverability; we could not turn as tight as the other fighters, so speed was our life insurance.”2 Moreover, aside from its limited agility, the Me-262’s engines were notoriously unreliable and had to be replaced after only 20 hours of flight time.
