by Stout, Jay
High-ranking Luftwaffe officers underscored this fact—and its effects—to Allied interrogators following the war:
Your ever-present fighters with their constant strafing attacks on our airfields kept the GAF [German Air Force] grounded in the later stages of the war. Strafing affected the morale of the Luftwaffe personnel more than bombing. While communications were not interrupted and casualties were light, strafing had a disrupting effect on efficiency. It seemed to impress on those involved, the matter of your superiority more effectively than any other means.11
In fact, when it is considered that a single fighter brought to bear as many heavy machine guns as a U.S. Army infantry battalion, there is no wonder that the Luftwaffe men grew disheartened.
Righetti, perhaps wanting to underscore to his men that he would and could do anything he asked of them, sometimes was the first one to attack, and sometimes was the last. However, on January 6, the surprise at Giebelstadt was not complete and Claire Buskirk, at the head of the four-ship Righetti sent to open the attack, was hit on his first pass. He climbed away to the west with his wingman.
Meanwhile, Righetti orbited overhead and watched the remaining pilots destroy seven enemy aircraft during the course of three separate firing passes. Smoke from the burning aircraft drifted across the airfield, greatly reducing visibility and increasing the risk of midair collisions. At the same time, the streams of cannon fire that laced the sky over the airfield intensified. It was then that Righetti dove on Giebelstadt with the rest of the squadron.
The formation of silver Mustangs leveled off just above the ground and scythed through the smoke and haze and enemy fire. Righetti rested the illuminated pipper of his gunsight on a twin-engine Ju-88, and held forward pressure on the control stick to keep it there. Once in range, he squeezed the trigger and felt the barking rumble of Katydid’s guns vibrate into his seat.
He released the trigger a couple of seconds later. To both sides he saw muzzle flashes as the rest of his formation fired on other targets. Ahead of him, his gunfire spattered into the Ju-88 and the ground around it. The armor-piercing incendiary rounds sparkled and flared and set the enemy ship ablaze as he roared past.
Righetti pulled Katydid into a hard, climbing turn and looked over his shoulder and down at the seething, smoking mess that was the airfield. The antiaircraft fire that had earlier lashed out at the speeding aircraft in individual streams now came together to form a seemingly impenetrable curtain. Nevertheless, the last of his formation punched unscathed through the deadly veil and climbed after him.
Save Buskirk and his wingman, the squadron was safely back at altitude and out of range of the enemy guns. Righetti considered the flaming wrecks on the airfield below. Notwithstanding the destruction that he and his squadron had wrought, he saw through the smoking pall that several enemy aircraft remained undamaged. He called over the radio that he was readying for another pass, and that any others who wished to chance the enemy fire again, could join him.
Righetti dove for the deck a moment later. One other pilot followed in trail. The smoke that drifted across the airfield made it difficult to find the aircraft he had spotted earlier and he sped through it without hitting anything worthwhile.
There was a flash and a deafening crack as a foot-wide section of Righetti’s windscreen disintegrated under the impact of an antiaircraft round. A breath-snatching gale of air rushed through the hole. Momentarily stunned, Righetti blinked through his goggles against the shards of Plexiglas and dust and other debris that swirled around the cockpit. At the same time he hauled Katydid skyward and grabbed reflexively at the map that blew into his face.
The citation that accompanied Righetti’s recommendation for the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross described his subsequent actions:
Undaunted by this damage, Lieutenant Colonel Righetti, in complete disregard for his personal safety, carried on his onslaught and made another pass, this time alone. On pulling up he observed two Junkers Ju-88s parked in the same small area and as yet undamaged. Peeling around, he came down in a return pass, his fourth and last, and destroyed both of these German aircraft, one exploding almost immediately, and the other bursting into flame, having received a considerable concentration of strikes.
On the way home, the 338th shot up six locomotives and a truck. Righetti made it back to Wormingford, although Buskirk did not. His damaged engine eventually failed and he was forced to bail out and was quickly captured and made a POW.
Righetti never mentioned this specific mission in his letters home, other than to note that he had been recommended for the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Virtually every important population center, industrial plant and military installation in Germany was protected by various types of antiaircraft weapons, collectively known as Fliegerabwehrkanone, or “flak.” The most famous and ubiquitous of these guns was the 8.8-centimeter, or 88-millimeter, cannon that fired 20-pound shells at a rate of nearly 20 rounds per minute. Most commonly called “eighty-eights,” they were universally hated by American airmen, especially the bomber crews who had no choice but to punch through dense curtains of exploding shells, any one of which had the potential to blow them out of the sky. The bomber men could shoot at the Luftwaffe’s fighters, but against the highly coordinated, computer-aided and sometimes radar-guided heavy flak guns, there was little they could do other than pray, hunker down and endure.
Although the USAAF’s fighters were sometimes targeted by these heavy German cannons, it was the lighter flak guns that caused them so much grief as they trolled the countryside at low altitude looking for targets, or when they attacked military convoys, troop concentrations and, particularly, airfields. The most common of these weapons were the 20-millimeter Flak 30 and Flak 38 guns which fired explosive shells at rates of up to 180 rounds per minute. Employed in single, dual and quad mounts—both mobile and static—they were relatively simple to maintain and operate. In adequate numbers, and complemented by the 37-millimeter Flak 43, they could be, and often were, deadly against the types of strafing attacks practiced by the American fighter groups.
Still, they often were not effective enough as evidenced by the fact that the 55th and other fighter groups regularly made successful attacks against defended targets. The Germans were hard pressed to concentrate antiaircraft guns in numbers large enough to deter forty or fifty or more aggressive Allied fighters. This was especially true when the fighters made the antiaircraft guns and crews their first targets. Of course, it was exceedingly risky for a fighter pilot to duel with an antiaircraft gun, but the odds of success increased when he was joined by multiple squadron mates.
Moreover, solving the physics required to shoot down an aircraft flying at treetop level at three hundred miles per hour or more, although less complex than air-to-air gunnery, was still not simple. Approaching aircraft could be engaged by the 20-millimeter guns from as far away as half a mile. However, keeping a weapon properly trained against a fast-flying aircraft became increasingly difficult as the firing angle increased and the aircraft flashed past and sped away. In reality, the time available to engage a single aircraft was only about a dozen seconds.
Although advanced sighting equipment was available for these lighter guns, it was expensive, temperamental and difficult to use and maintain. In most instances antiaircraft units in the field resorted to using simple visual sights. And often, rather than trying to track individual aircraft, all guns were aimed so that their fire intersected to form a deadly shroud through which attacking aircraft were forced to fly. Such barriers made a fearful sight as tracers crisscrossed the sky and cannon rounds detonated upon reaching maximum range. Few were the pilots who did not instinctively duck low in their cockpits as they passed through these linked streams of gunfire.
All these weapons—heavy and light—cost Germany dearly. There was no arguing that the resources to manufacture not only the guns, but also the ammunition and other necessary material was expensive and could have been useful elsewhere.
But more important was the human capital necessary to operate it. More than half a million men were committed to manning the guns—men who were desperately needed at the fighting fronts. Indeed, as the war dragged into its later years, many of the purpose-trained soldiers making up the antiaircraft organizations were transferred into infantry and armored units only to be replaced by older men, adolescent boys, women and even POWs.
Gerhard Oberleitner, a 15-year-old boy, served with an antiaircraft unit in Austria. “My mother was a particularly frequent visitor and brought me, her youngest, provisions and fresh underwear as often as possible, and looked after my well-being. She was obviously the most diligent of the mothers and I used to get teased by my comrades because of it, but I didn’t give a damn.”12
Armin Langheinrich was a schoolboy drafted to help operate the light antiaircraft weapons that protected the huge flak tower at Humboldthain in northern Berlin. “We had to live in those towers with the regular air force personnel, the antiaircraft people … and in the morning the teacher came. When it was summer, we would sit out on the grass outside for class. And sometimes we hoped for the air raid, so we could get out of class…. You know how young people are, we were stupid.”13
Notwithstanding the fact that Germany’s antiaircraft units were in large part manned by a nontraditional mix of personnel, they were still effective. The 55th’s men never belittled the capabilities of the guns that targeted them. Indeed, when they were mentioned it was because the fire they put up was so fearsome: “Flak barrages of a type more intense than heretofore encountered belched from all sides of this Enemy Landing Ground and to a point 10 miles south.”14 Ultimately, it was antiaircraft fire rather that German fighters that shot down the majority of the Eighth Air Force’s fighters.15
“IT ALL HAPPENED PRETTY FAST”
Righetti’s eagerness for air combat was such that he actually flew with another fighter group on one occasion. On January 7, 1945, he flew to Duxford to visit his old friend and boss Fred Gray, the commander of the 78th Fighter Group. The following day he flew an escort mission to Stuttgart on Gray’s wing. Regardless of his hope for action, the mission was a dud and he returned to Wormingford that afternoon.
By mid-January 1945 the Germans were being turned back out of the Ardennes. Notwithstanding the successful penetrations that were made during the first few days of the assault just a few weeks earlier, stiff Allied resistance on the ground and in the air—together with limited supplies and poor roads—confounded the German effort. Despite a renewed push on January 3, the Wehrmacht was simply outmanned, outgunned and desperately short of fuel, ammunition and other supplies. Moreover, the Luftwaffe, especially after the Pyrrhic victory that was Bodenplatte, was virtually impotent over the battlefield.
However, the Eighth Air Force’s focus during this time was still directed against transportation targets. The objective was to keep reinforcements and supplies from reaching the embattled German forces in the Ardennes, while also bottling up the movement of needed war material throughout the Reich. On January 13, more than 1,500 bombers were sent against rail bridges and marshaling yards along the Rhine and in western Germany. The 55th was not tasked with escorting any specific bombing organization but instead was directed to sweep the area between Bad Nauheim and Mannheim.
The Luftwaffe declined to meet the group as it patrolled under the control of Nuthouse. When the bombers finished their work and Nuthouse released the 55th, the three squadrons separated to hunt on their own. Righetti led nine aircraft from his 338th Fighter Squadron to the airfield at Giebelstadt where the group had enjoyed such success the previous week on January 6. On this day there were approximately 20 enemy aircraft parked around the airfield.
As he had on January 6, he directed one of his four-ships to initiate the attack while he stayed back and choreographed the action. “We let down and I instructed Red Flight to attack the field while I covered with White Flight.” The four pilots making up Red Flight made a strafing pass before pursuing a twin-engine aircraft that was just taking off. “As the airdrome was clear,” Righetti said, “I sent Lieutenant Miller [Roy] and Lieutenant Henry [Carroll] down for an attack.” The two lieutenants made a couple of passes, flaming an Me-262 in the process.
In the meantime Red Flight returned to the airfield, having downed the enemy aircraft, another Me-262.1 Righetti watched as the four aircraft, together with Miller and Henry, shot up the airfield. Finally, with the enemy gunners fully alert, he took White Flight down. “Captain McGill [William] and myself were the last to strafe the field, and we made two passes, the first from northwest to southeast and the second from southeast to northwest. On the first pass I placed a 4-second burst in the engines and fuselage of a Ju-88 and saw it blaze up as I pulled away.”
The squadron’s pilots finished their work at Giebelstadt just as antiaircraft fire struck Phillips Eastman’s aircraft in the engine. It also punched through his cockpit, lacerating his left arm and disabling his throttle. Nevertheless he chased after an Me-262 for which he claimed credit after setting the jet’s right engine afire.
Eastman’s account conflicted with that of Kenneth Schneider: “We strafed the airdrome and as I was making my second pass I heard Lieutenant Eastman say he had been hit and might have to bail out,” Schneider said. “When I finished my pass I saw an Me-262 and started to chase him. I looked around and spotted Lieutenant Eastman was chasing the same jet. We chased him east for about three minutes. We could not catch the jet so Eastman called and said he was heading out on 270 degrees and repeated that he might have to bail out.”2
Schneider pointed out to Eastman that he was actually headed north rather than west. Eastman subsequently turned to the left to take up a westward course. However, his engine was overheating and it was apparent that it would not get him back to Wormingford. Schneider reported that Eastman made a radio call before parachuting from his aircraft: “He said that he had destroyed three enemy aircraft and to tell his wife he was OK and that he was bailing out.” Righetti’s account echoes Schneider’s. “It is believed that Lieutenant Eastman clobbered two or three enemy aircraft also, as he later had to bail out as the result of a flak hit, and his last words over the R/T were, ‘tell my wife I’m OK and I got three of them.’”3 Eastman was quickly captured and treated for his wounds. “The next day they took me to see the large crater my P-51 made. They then took me to an airdrome—Giebelstadt from the looks of it, I didn’t ask—on my way to Dulag Luft.4 He received no official credit for the aircraft he claimed as destroyed that day.
Meanwhile, Righetti headed northwest and encountered an Me-109. In a letter home he described the German pilot as “damn near as cagey as I am.” Indeed, he was nearly caught unaware by the Me-109 pilot. “It all happened pretty fast. I was intent—fat, dumb and happy—on busting a loco. All alone, which was my first mistake. Darn train was in a canyon and I couldn’t get at him on my first pass. Pulled a big, hairy Chandelle to come in again at him and spotted the Heinie just sliding in for the thrust.” A chandelle was a sharp climb followed by a quick reversal in direction and a steep dive.
Righetti reacted instantly. “Split-essed out [rolled upside down and pulled toward the ground]. He didn’t expect the maneuver at all so he was almost caught flat-footed. He tried to turn with me, but once around and my 2,200 [flight] hours, and Katydid, was a little too much for him. He chickened out and broke for home, so I slid on his tail and clobbered him. Easiest one I’ve had yet.”
The crash was gruesomely spectacular. “He went in pretty hard on fire. Impact broke the chute open and it spilled—on fire too—across the snow.”
In describing this encounter Righetti noted the superiority of his experience and training, and additionally showed pride in Katydid. But he did not denigrate the aircraft his opponent flew. And that is because the Me-109 was a good fighter. To be sure, although the majority of the USAAF pilots who flew the P-51 were smitten with it, few of those same pilots dismissed the two main German fighters—the Me
-109 and the FW-190—as inferior.
The Me-109 was the most dated of the three aircraft, having won the Luftwaffe’s competition for a new fighter during 1936, almost a decade before Righetti encountered it for the first time. When it debuted as a mostly metal monoplane with an enclosed cockpit, retractable landing gear, and inline engine, it was far and away the best fighter in the world. Moreover, it was menacingly modern in appearance whereas many fighters in service at the time were biplanes that more closely resembled their World War I forebears.
The Me-109 performed well during the Spanish Civil War beginning in 1937, and later dominated its opposition during the invasions of Poland and the Low Countries. It likewise swept aside the fighters operated by France’s Armée de l’Air. It met its equal only when it encountered the RAF’s Supermarine Spitfire over Dunkirk in 1940.
It was a sleek, powerful and very small aircraft that, despite having met its match in the Spitfire, continued to perform well through the war as it was continuously evolved with more powerful engines, heavier armament and updated equipment. However, its small size did not readily accommodate many of the modifications and it was consequently scabbed with bulges, bumps and fairings that only partially mitigated the weight and drag of equipment that was too large to be incorporated entirely inside its airframe. Later in the war, due to shortages of aluminum, the Me-109’s tail section was made of wood. Indeed, as time passed and the Allies fielded ever more capable types, it grew more difficult to maintain the Me-109’s viability as a frontline fighter.
The cockpit, covered by a heavily framed canopy, was very cramped—almost claustrophobic. The Me-109’s pilots did not have the same clear fields of view enjoyed by the pilots of its more modern counterparts—especially the P-51D with its bubble canopy. The windshield was small and the canopy was mullioned with thick, vision-blocking members. The nose, with its two protruding fairings, was long and further obstructed the field of view. An American pilot flying a captured example noted: “This airplane is as blind as any fighter I have seen. Vision in all directions is restricted and no rear-view mirror is provided. In the air the visibility over the nose does not appear sufficient for deflection shooting.”5
