‘I dived and turned to port, closing to 1000 yards before firing a one-second burst with ten-degree deflection. Looking down and around, I saw another jet plane flying below in the other direction. I closed to 200 yards and fired a two-second burst dead astern, and a huge explosion with red flame occurred.’
Varley’s victim was a jet from 9./KG 76 flown by Leutnant Eberhard Rogle, whilst the other aircraft he fired on and claimed as damaged in fact crash-landed and was written off. Varley ended the war with four victories to his name.
On 12 March Flt Lt Len Watt of No 401 Sqn claimed his first victory when, on a patrol over the Rhine, he spotted an Me 262 at 2500 ft just west of Wesel. Positioning himself astern of the jet, he fired two bursts and saw it ‘issue smoke and go down’. His victory was later confirmed. The following day Flg Off Howard Nicholson claimed the first jet victory credited to Spitfire XIV-equipped No 402 Sqn when he shot down an Ar 234, another of which fell to No 222 Sqn Tempest Vs on the 14th.
Four frames taken from the gun camera film exposed by ‘Slops’ Haslope when he downed his Me 163 on 10 April. The Komet proved to be Haslope’s only aerial success (No 165 Sqn Records)
It was almost a month before the next 2nd TAF jet victory. On 10 April Flt Lt Tony Gaze, now with No 41 Sqn, chased an Ar 234 but the jet outpaced him and he then had to avoid a patrol of Fw 190s. However, two days, later he had better luck when on patrol with Flt Lt Derek Rake, who recounted the highlights of the mission to Andrew Thomas;
‘Tony was leading the flight. We came out on top at around 20,000 ft, and as we levelled out, I recall seeing what I recognised as an Arado 234 twin jet break cloud to port ahead of us and below. I was in the near perfect position for a quarter attack. My Spit, a XIVE, was fitted with a gyro gunsight with a ranging twist grip on the throttle. As I dived towards the target I was able to position the jet within the diamond markers on the gunsight, thus having the correct range and deflection to open fire. My opening burst hit the starboard engine and it was smoking as it rolled over and dived towards the cloud. I got in one or two more bursts as I followed it down. I believe that I claimed the “kill”, but I think that Tony must have had a share in finishing it off.’
Jet victories were then regularly claimed, and on 14 April No 41 Sqn’s ace CO Sqn Ldr John Shepherd was near Nordholz airfield when he spotted two aircraft;
‘I recognised them as an ME 163 being towed by a ME 110. I was closing very rapidly but managed to get a short burst in on the ME 110, obtaining strikes on the port engine and cockpit. The 110 went into a left-hand diving turn, turned over on to its back and crashed into a field, bursting into flames. The 163 appeared to break away from the 110 and make a wide left-hand turn, finally diving straight in about three fields away from the 110.’
Shepherd was credited with both destroyed. The following day Flt Lts Jim McCairns and Neill Cox of No 56 Sqn were patrolling over the rapidly shrinking area of enemy-held territory when, north of Hamburg, they spotted a jet that they identified as an Me 262, but which was in fact an Ar 234, taking off from Kaltenkirchen. Cox’s Combat Report for the subsequent action, which gave him ace status, read as follows;
‘After Yellow Leader’s last attack, the enemy aircraft was making a gradual turn to port and I closed in astern to 200 yards, closing to 75 yards and firing all the time, allowing five-ten degrees of deflection. I saw strikes on the fuselage, wing roots and starboard power unit. The enemy aircraft began to turn more steeply, before striking a house and bursting into flames.’
On 17 April, in a solo attack on Ludwigslust, No 401 Sqn’s Flt Lt Johnny MacKay attacked aircraft in the face of heavy flak and damaged three Ar 234s. Two days later over Schleswig-Holstein during an armed reconnaissance, Flt Lt Tony Gaze’s section chased an Me 262 that was apparently leading what they initially identified as a V1 flying bomb ‘in formation’. However, it was subsequently assessed that this was probably one of the new He 162s that were based at Leck, making it one of the very few encounters that the RAF had with the Volksjäger. That same day, in the same area, No 222 Sqn almost certainly engaged another He 162, as Flt Lt Geoffrey Walkington described;
Tempest V pilot Flg Off Geoffrey Walkington of No 222 Sqn (right) claimed ‘one unidentified enemy aircraft destroyed’ that he described as having ‘twin fins and rudders and one engine’ over Husum on 19 April 1945. It is possible that his victim was Fahnenjunker-Feldwebel Günther Kirchner of 3./JG 1. If this was indeed the case, Walkington had shot down the only He 162 credited to the Allies (Chris Thomas collection)
‘I immediately broke off my attack on the airfield and chased this aircraft, which was camouflaged mottled green with a yellow underside and appeared to have twin fins and rudders and one engine. The nose of the aircraft had a drooping appearance and the wings (plan view) resembled those of a Me 109. Due to my loss of speed on turning, the enemy aircraft pulled away to about 1500 yards. Having now recognised this aircraft as hostile by its camouflage, I gave chase, but was unable to close, my IAS [indicated airspeed] being 350 mph. The enemy aircraft did a 360-degree turn to starboard, which I followed, turning inside. During my turn I managed to close to 1000 yards.
‘Being unable to gain further I trimmed my aircraft carefully, and allowing about three-quarters of a ring above the enemy aircraft, I fired short bursts. The enemy aircraft then pulled up through cloud, which was eight-tenths at 3000 ft. I followed through a gap and passed the enemy aircraft spinning down out of control from about 3500 ft. I then watched the enemy aircraft explode on the ground near Husum aerodrome. The enemy aircraft burned for about 30 seconds, emitting flames and thick black smoke, which, however, ceased completely at the end of the period. Claim one unidentified enemy aircraft destroyed.’
German accounts concur with this report, and it is possible that Walkington’s victim was Fahnenjunker-Feldwebel Günther Kirchner of I./JG 1.
By now Allied fighters were roaming at will over the shrinking Reich, and on 25 April No 41 Sqn’s Spitfire XIVs and No 486 Sqn’s Tempest Vs attacked Lübeck. No 41 Sqn’s Flt Lt Peter Cowell caught some Me 262s over the Ratzenburger See, shooting one down and damaging a second. Unusually, No 486 Sqn’s section was attacked by some Me 262s, but the pilots involved soon turned the tables and gave chase after the jets. Approaching Lübeck, V1 ace Flg Off Keith Smith finally got his chance;
‘I went down to attack and observed the 262 to have its wheels down. The enemy aircraft spotted me and broke sharply to port. I opened fire from 800 yards with two rings deflection, and following in the turn held my fire down to zero yards. I overshot, pulled up sharply and came down on him, opening fire from 400 yards with a half-ring deflection. The 262 was now at 50 ft over the runway. As it touched down I saw the starboard wing touch the runway and white smoke coming from the starboard unit. It slewed to starboard, and as I climbed away I saw smoke rising up to 200 ft and flames coming from the 262, which was now about 100 yards off the runway.’
Flt Lt Bill Stowe of Spitfire XIV-equipped No 130 Sqn also strafed an Me 262 as it lifted off from Lübeck, and the pilot bailed out as it crashed. He was only awarded a probable, however, although he ‘made ace’ on 30 April.
On 26 April Bremen fell, and that same day a section of No 263 Sqn’s Typhoons were bounced by Me 262s as they were landing at B111 Ahlhorn. The remaining fighters from the unit duly attacked one of the jets and brought it down. On the 29th the 21st Army Group crossed the Elbe with relative ease, and during the day one of the leading Canadian aces of World War 2 returned to action. Leading No 127 Wing, Wg Cdr James ‘Eddie’ Edwards was west of Hamburg when, as was described in his biography, ‘An aircraft popped out of a cloud. This time it was a brand new, and deadly, Messerschmitt 262 jet. As he was travelling very fast the Spitfires had no chance of catching him, so Eddie and his wingman fired at long range and saw hits on the fuselage. The jet kept going and disappeared into a cloud. The next day he got shots off at another Me 262, but it climbed away from them and easily escaped.’
High
-scoring ace Wg Cdr James ‘Eddie’ Edwards was leading No 127 Wing in his personal Spitfire XVI (TD147/JFE) on 29 April 1945 when he damaged an Fw 190 and an Me 262 (J F Edwards)
There was possibly one more encounter with jets during April, for on the 30th Leutnant Hans Rechenberg of II./JG 1 reported that he was shot at by a Spitfire while ferrying an He 162 from Rostock to Leck, forcing him to crash-land his Volksjager near Wismar. It is uncertain who shot him down, but it is possible that it may have been a pilot from No 412 Sqn, who claimed several Bf 109s in the same general area that evening.
By the beginning of May the Third Reich was almost finished, and on the evening of the 2nd Plt Off Des Watkins of the Belgian-manned No 350 Sqn was leading six Spitfire XIVs over Schleswig-Holstein when, west of Keil, they spotted an Ar 234 approaching Hohn airfield. The Welshman described how he became an ace;
‘I saw in the circuit of Hohn aerodrome a jet aircraft, which I identified as an Arado 234, going in to land. I dived from 8000 ft followed by the rest of the section, closed to within 50 yards behind the enemy aircraft and sprayed the mainplane and side of the fuselage with machine gun fire. I broke away to port as I saw the aircraft smoking.’
Others in Watkins’ section then finished off the last German jet to fall to the guns of the ‘King’s Men’, who, in all, had been credited with 37 jets destroyed. Of the pilots to make claims against a jet, 29 of them were aces.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOVIET VICTORIES
Due to the simple fact that most of the Luftwaffe’s jets were used to combat the Allied aerial onslaught in the West, fighter pilots of the Red Army Air Force (Voenno-Vozdushniye Sily Krasnoy Armii, VVS KA) in the East had scant opportunities to engage such aircraft until the Red Army began to close in on central Germany. Because of the sheer number of jets shot down by the USAAF and RAF, history has lost sight of the fact that a handful of Soviet pilots, several of them aces, downed at least five Me 262s and Ar 234s in the closing months of the war.
The first Soviet pilot to do so was Maj Ivan Kozhedub, the leading Allied ace with 62 confirmed victories and three times a Hero of the Soviet Union (HSU). He was serving with the 176th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment (Gvardveyskiy Istrebitelniy Aviapolk, or GIAP) at the time of his success against the Me 262, having joined the Lavochkin La-7-equipped unit on 21 August 1944 upon its creation. By this late stage in the war Kozhedub had received two HSU awards and been credited with 48 aerial victories. In this unit each pilot was assigned his own aircraft and would fly with the same wingman. Kozhedub’s new wingman was Maj Dmitrii Titarenko, who would end the war with 23 victories to his name.
The first Soviet pilot to shoot down a jet was Maj Ivan Kozhedub, the leading Allied ace with 62 confirmed victories and three times a Hero of the Soviet Union. He was serving with the La-7-equipped 176th GIAP when he claimed an Me 262 shot down south of Frankfurt. Kozhedub’s victim, Unteroffizier Kurt Lange of 1./KG(J) 54, was killed when his fighter literally disintegrated in mid-air after being hit by 20 mm cannon rounds (Gennady Petrov collection)
On 19 February 1945, Kozhedub and Titarenko were patrolling an area south of Frankfurt at 10,000 ft when they spotted an unidentified aircraft flying in the opposite direction down the River Oder. Many years later, Kozhedub recalled;
‘Titarenko and I were on a “lone wolf” south of Frankfurt when I noticed an aeroplane below us at an altitude of 350 metres [2170 ft]. It was flying along the Oder at a speed that was marginal for my La-7 to match. Nevertheless, I made a quick “about-face” and started pursuing it at full throttle, coming down so as to approach it from under its “belly”. My wingman opened fire, and the Me 262 began turning to the left, over to my side, losing speed in the process. That was the end of it. I would never have overtaken it if it had flown in a straight line. The main thing was to attack enemy aeroplanes during turns, climbs or dives, and not to lose precious seconds chasing them.’
Kozhedub had closed to within 500 yards of his unsuspecting victim, Unteroffizier Kurt Lange of 1./KG(J) 54, and was just about to open fire with his 20 mm cannon when he saw green tracer rounds flying past the Me 262. Titarenko had seemingly spoiled Kozhedub’s chances of claiming a rare victory over a German jet by firing too early. As the Soviet ace subsequently related, the enemy pilot, now fully aware that he was under attack, broke left towards Kozhedub, who fired a highly accurate burst that caused the jet to disintegrate in mid-air. Lange did not survive the encounter, which gave Ivan Kozhedub his 58th aerial success.
Just over a month after Kozhedub’s victory, on 22 March, Lt L I Sivko, a non-ace with Yakovlev Yak-9-equipped 812nd IAP, shot down an Me 262 that was attacking an Ilyushin Il-2m3 Shturmovik. Minutes later Sivko in turn fell victim to another Me 262 from 10./JG 7, the latter possibly being flown by high-scoring jet ace Oberleutnant Franz Schall – 16 of his 133 victories were claimed in the Me 262.
As the Red Army closed in on Berlin, the situation presented many VVS-KA units with the opportunity to occasionally engage jets. Amongst the successful pilots was Lt Gen Yevgenii Savitskii, who was the highest ranking Allied pilot to claim a jet victory. By mid-1944 he had risen to the rank of lieutenant general and been placed in command of the 3rd Fighter Aviation Corps (Istrebitelniy Aviakorpus), which included more than 200 fighters – mainly Yak-1Ms.
In November 1944, Savitskii’s corps was withdrawn from the front for conversion to the Yak-3. Once this had been completed his unit was redeployed and attached to the 16th Air Army (Vozdushnaya Armiya) for the assault on Germany, which began in January 1945. The following month Savitskii and Maj P Okolenov engaged a lone Me 262 without success. In late March Savitskii spotted an unidentified twin-engined aircraft flying at very high speed, and he managed to fire several ineffective bursts before it escaped. The aircraft was later identified as a Me 262, and despite stating that he was unsure whether he had hit the aeroplane or not, Savitskii was given credit for shooting it down. He ended the war with a final score of 22 individual and two shared victories, making him the most successful general officer of the Soviet forces in aerial combat.
Lt Gen Yevgenii Savitskii, shown here standing in the cockpit of a Yak-7, was the highest ranking Allied pilot to claim a jet victory in World War 2. In late-March 1945, 34-year-old Savitskii, known as ‘Drakon’, engaged an unidentified twin-engined aircraft and fired several bursts before it escaped. The aeroplane was later identified as an Me 262, and Savitskii was credited with its destruction. He finished the war with 22 individual and two shared victories, making him the most successful general officer of the Soviet forces in aerial combat (Gennady Petrov collection)
Maj Arsenii Vorozheikin had the unique distinction of engaging an Ar 234 during the final weeks of the war in Europe, the high-scoring pre-war ace serving with the Yak-3-equipped 7th Guards Fighter Aviation Division at the time. A veteran of combat against the Japanese in the Khalkin Gol border clashes in the summer of 1939 and the Winter War in Finland later that same year, Vorozheikin had claimed 46 individual victories in five years of combat by the time he joined Frontal Aviation (Frontovoi Aviapolk) as its senior inspector pilot for combat preparedness in the autumn of 1944. This role allowed him to fly on a number of fronts, imparting his hard-won knowledge of aerial combat to young Soviet pilots.
A combat veteran, and ace, from the Khalkin Gol border clashes with Japan in the summer of 1939 and the Winter War in Finland later that same year, Maj Arsenii Vorozheikin engaged an Ar 234 over Berlin in mid-April 1945. The pall of smoke that hung over much of the German capital at this time prevented the Soviet ace from seeing the jet crash, and the victory, one of his last of the war, was not officially credited. Vorozheikin’s final tally totalled 63 victories in three wars (including 13 shared), of which 46 were claimed in World War 2 (Gennady Petrov collection)
Whilst working with units assigned to the Yak-3-equipped 7th GIAD in mid-April 1945, Vorozheikin was over Berlin when he bounced an Ar 234. The pall of smoke that hung over much of the German capital at this time preve
nted the Soviet ace from seeing the jet crash, and the victory, one of his last of the war, was not officially credited. Vorozheikin’s final tally totalled 63 victories in three wars (including 13 shared), of which 46 were claimed in World War 2.
On 27 April both JG 7 and JV 44 launched a number of sorties, and after downing a handful of P-47s, several pilots headed east. Here, they sighted a column of Soviet trucks, claiming 65 destroyed in strafing attacks. Shortly thereafter, a group of 20+ Il-2 Shturmoviks where spotted and attacked. The JG 7 pilots claimed six Il-2s destroyed for the loss of two of their own. The next day, Leutnant Ernst-Rudolf Geldmacher of 11./JG 7 was shot down and killed while taking off from Prague-Ruzyne. Although it is impossible to determine with any certainty, Geldmacher may have fallen to Yak-3 pilot Snr Lt Garri Merkvaladze of the 152nd GIAP. He finished the war with 15 victories (two shared) to his name. On the last day of April, ten-victory ace Snr Lt Ivan Kuznetsov of the 107th GIAP claimed an Me 262 destroyed – the last known jet claim made by a Soviet pilot. German records indicate that I./KG(J) 54 lost an Me 262A-2a and its pilot on this date, although it was listed as having fallen to Red Army anti-aircraft fire.
APPENDICES
COLOUR PLATES
1
P-38J-15 42-104425 BOOMERANG of Capt Arthur Jeffrey, 434th FS/479th FG, Wattisham, July 1944
On 28 July 1944, the 479th FG was providing withdrawal support for a group of B-17s when ‘Newcross Yellow’ Flight leader Capt Arthur F Jeffrey of the 434th FS noticed that B-17G 42-107997 She Hasta was steadily falling behind the formation. When the bomber was attacked from ‘five o’clock’ by a Me 163, Jeffrey engaged the rocket fighter and scored many hits. The Komet, with the P-38 pilot in pursuit, went into a vertical dive that saw its speed easily exceed 500 mph. Jeffrey pulled out at the last possible moment, but the Me 163 was last seen entering a solid undercast at around 3000 ft still in a vertical dive doing an estimated 600 mph. The Komet was Jeffrey’s second of four P-38 victories, and he would go on to score ten victories in the P-51. His Me 163 was the only jet/rocket-powered aircraft to fall to a P-38.
Allied Jet Killers of World War 2 Page 12
