WWII Myths – The Me262 jet fighter and the dumb Fuehrer

One WWII myth that still endures to this day is that the production of the revolutionary Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter was fatally delayed by Hitler’s insistence that it be modified to carry bombs.

The Me262 was the first operational jet fighter and its engines gave it a massive advantage in speed versus the propeller driven aircraft used in WWII. This miracle weapon was expected to turn the tides of the war in the air. However according to the standard accounts Hitler instead wanted to use it as a bomber. This meant that lengthy modifications had to be made and so much time was lost than when it finally went into mass production the war was almost over.

 

For example Field Marshall Erhard Milch who was in charge of aircraft production says in his memoirs ‘The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe: The Life of Field Marshall Erhard Milch’, p316 ‘In desperation the field marshal appealed to Hitler to think again, but he was subjected to a torrent of abuse; and before he could control himself he shouted back, ‘Mein Führer, the smallest infant can see that this is a fighter, not a bomber aircraft!’

This story is satisfying on an emotional level as it has the dumb dictator who doesn’t listen to anyone and a miracle weapon that could have changed the outcome of the war. However both parts are wrong.  

According to ‘The Last Year Of The Luftwaffe: May 1944-May 1945’ by aviation historian Alfred Price, p147-8:

There can be no doubt that if it had gone into action in sufficient numbers in the fighter role, the Me 262 could have brought to a halt the daylight attacks on German industry by B-17s and B-24s. In May 1944 it had seemed that the large-scale operational use of the Me 262 was imminent. Components for airframes were being turned out in large numbers at numerous small factories dispersed throughout the country, and final assembly of Me 262s was moving ahead rapidly. The restricting factor was the Jumo 004 engine that powered the new fighter. The 004 was the first turbojet engine in the world to enter pilot production and initially its average running life was only about 10hr. That was too low for general service use, and until it was improved the design could not be frozen for mass production to begin. When engineers face technical problems never previously encountered, it is impossible to predict how long it will take to find a solution - hence the over-optimistic noises being made in May 1944 on when the 004 would be ready for mass production……………………………………………. It has become part of the accepted wisdom about the Luftwaffe that Hitler's decision was instrumental in preventing the large-scale deployment of the Me 262 in the fighter force. In fact his edict was not the main reason, or even a major reason, for the failure to deploy the fighter in the hoped-for numbers. Not until August 1944 was the average running life of the 004 jet engine raised to 25hr; that was still a very low figure, but it meant that the design could be frozen and mass production could begin. In September Hitler rescinded his order that all new Me 262s be delivered as fighter-bombers. By then more than a hundred fighter airframes were sitting around without engines, and as soon as 004s became available these aircraft were completed and delivered to the Luftwaffe. In fact Hitler's order delayed the introduction of the Me 262 into service in the fighter role by only about three weeks. For the real reason for the failure to deploy the fighter in large numbers, we must look elsewhere.

As a completely new combat aircraft, the Me 262 suffered its share of teething troubles when it entered service. Despite energetic efforts to eradicate these, serviceability was poor and its sortie rate was correspondingly low during the latter part of 1944.

The author also finds Hitler’s idea to turn the Me262 into a fast bomber reasonable:

Much has been written about the delay to the Me 262 programme supposedly imposed by Hitler's edict that initially the aircraft be used as a fighter-bomber rather than an air defence fighter. Few commentators have considered the possibility that Hitler's edict might have been correct in military terms, and this author believes it was. If the Allied landings in Normandy had run into serious difficulties - as actually happened to American troops coming ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day - repeated bombing and strafing attacks from a few score Me 262s could have tipped the balance and changed the operation from one that just succeeded to one that failed with heavy loss of life. If the jet aircraft were available only in small numbers they were better employed as fighter-bombers against the beach-head than in high-altitude jousts with Allied fighters aloof from the troops coming ashore. Yet the point is purely academic, for in June 1944 the Me 262 was quite unready for operations in any role.

For comparison’s sake an Arado Ar 234 prototype was able to penetrate Allied fighter defenses and take detailed pictures of the Normandy beaches on August 2^nd 1944, thus performing a task that the entire recon force in the West was not capable of.

Note: Me262 picture available from Wikipedia Commons user Softeis

Save the rich

After all the negativity in the news with NSA spying and economic crises it’s time for something funny to uplift our spirits.

Here is ‘Save the Rich by Garfunkel and Oates’

Awesome Eastern Front picture galleries

Site allworldwars has some fascinating picture galleries of the fighting in the East in WWII:

AGAINST ALL ODDS, Pictures of the Campaign in the East, 1942

PANZER ARTILLERY REGIMENT 78 IN RUSSIA, 1941/42:  PHOTO COLLECTION

ROMANIAN AND GERMAN TROOPS IN BESSARABIA, UKRAINE AND CRIMEA, 1941-42 (3 parts)

You can find more collections at their site.

Also englishrussia.com (link found through commenter Joe Public) has some nice galleries, such as

Different sides of the war

Unusual perspective on WWII

wikipedia plagiarism

My friends at Wikipedia have decided to include parts of my work on their T-34 page.

However instead of mentioning my site they copied the AFV strength statistics from my piece Tank strength and losses – Eastern Front and just state ‘Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voina 1941-45. Dejstvuyushchaya Armiya’ and ‘Jentz, Thomas L. Panzertruppen: The Complete Guide to the Creation and Combat Employment of Germany's Tank Force, 1933-1942’

The person who copied the statistics obviously didn’t understand that the German figures are based on several books, not only Jentz’s and in some cases are basically my guesstimates.

I left a message at the talk page and will wait to see if they do something about this!

Regarding the Snowden case

As you’ve probably heard the NSA is spying on all of us. They intercept everything and they plan to keep it forever in their databases. The reason I haven’t commented more on this is that I thought people already knew what was going on.

The NSA (and the similar agencies in other countries) can take advantage of the proliferation of new technologies. Back when people wrote letters they needed to physically open them and copy the contents. Now with computers and email it can be done automatically.

It used to be that each house had one phone and ‘taping’ the line was a complicated operation. Now we all have mobile phones and they are easy to compromise, it can be done automatically.

You really thought that the NSA had a budget of several billion dollars and tens of thousands of personnel in order to spy on a few goat herders in Afghanistan?

Can you protect yourself with encryption? We already know that NSA technicians worked with Microsoft in order to make Windows more ‘secure’ and it seems reasonable to assume that they have a similar relationship with Intel. So both PC hardware and software is compromised at the source. We also know that the largest internet companies work with them...

In the end all this information gives the NSA (and similar agencies) the opportunity to become a Super-Gestapo. What can a person do to prevent this? I simply don’t know.

Book review – British Intelligence in the Second World War

In the 1970’s the first books came out that revealed how in WWII the Allied codebreakers were able to solve the German Enigma cipher machine (and other systems). Those early books were written without access to all the official documents and many of the things they claimed were incorrect. They also greatly exaggerated the effects of codebreaking on the various campaigns of the war.

Unfortunately historians have mostly relied on those early books so most history books continue to claim that the Allies won specific battles or campaigns because they could read German messages etc.

If you are looking for a more reliable analysis of the role that secret intelligence played in WWII then you need to read the official ‘British Intelligence in the Second World War’ volumes:

Volume I: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, 1979

Volume II: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, 1981

Volume III, Part 1: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, 1984

Volume III, Part 2: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, 1988

Volume IV: Security and Counter-Intelligence, 1990

Volume V: Strategic Deception, 1990

These books are large and heavy with many chapters and appendices, covering all the campaigns of the war and the role that intelligence played.

They’re also out of print so you’ll have to go to a used books store and be prepared to pay a premium. If you do get hold of them however you will undoubtedly be impressed by their scope and analysis.

The first four books on operations each cover a specific time period. There are separate chapters for the organization of the intelligence agencies, economic and strategic assessments and of course the role that intelligence played in the actual campaigns. Volume 4 deals with internal security, ‘double’ agents and the operations of the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst. At this time I haven’t gone through the fifth volume.

Overview

1). The first volume covers prewar intelligence arrangements and ends with operation Barbarossa in the summer of 1941. The campaigns of Norway, France, Battle of Britain, Battle of the Atlantic, the Balkans and N.Africa are covered. Among the most interesting appendixes are: appendix 1 which covers the Polish and French contribution to the solution of the Enigma machine (with mistakes that were corrected in vol3), appendix 9 ‘Intelligence in advance of the GAF raid on Coventry’ and  appendix 11 ‘GAF Navigational Aids’.

2). The second volume covers the British strategic assessments from mid ’41 to mid ’43, the War at sea up to summer ‘43 and most importantly the North African campaign from July 1941 till the fall of Tunisia. Some of the appendices have interesting information on the security of British ciphers (appendix 1), the German police ciphers (appendix 5), the British assessment of German tanks and A/T guns (appendix 14) and the compromise of the initial German plan for the battle of Kursk (appendix 22).

3). Volume 3 part 1 has the strategic assessments from June ’43 to June ’44, the British assessments of the German war economy, the Italian campaign, the developments in occupied Yugoslavia (Chetnik-Partisan conflict), the War at sea from summer ’43 to summer ’44, the air war in the West and the intelligence on the V-weapons (V1 flying bomb and V2 rocket). There is interesting information in appendix 2 describing the solution of the Tunny teleprinter, in appendix 4 ‘Intelligence estimates and German statistics on the German war economy’, in appendix 10 ‘’German anxieties about Allied ability to locate U-boats’ and appendix 16 ‘Decrypt of the Japanese ambassador’s report to the foreign ministry Tokyo of his interview with Field Marshal Milch in Berlin, 17 August 1943’.

4). Volume 3 part 2 is the largest book (1.038 pages!) and covers the planning and execution of operation ‘Overlord’, the fighting in the Eastern Front, the Italian campaign, the War at sea and the Allied strategic bombing offensive up to the defeat of Germany. There is interesting information in appendix 9 ‘Intelligence on Germany’s reinforcement of the Cotentin peninsula and its effects on First US Army’s operational plans’, appendix 10 ‘Allied intelligence on German divisions on the Eve of D-day’, appendix 14 ‘Intelligence relating to 21st Panzer division and 352^nd Infantry division up to D-day’, appendix 26 ‘Intelligence on the Axis oil situation up to the summer of 1944’, appendix 29 ‘TA project: Enemy intelligence’ (nuclear weapons research) and appendix 30 ‘Polish, French and British contribution to the breaking of the Enigma: A revised account’.

5). Volume 4 is smaller in size than the previous books but it has interesting information on the counterintelligence operations of the British security services in the UK and abroad. In 1940 the sudden German successes in Norway and France led to the belief that a vast underground network of spies, saboteurs and collaborators had assisted the German forces. This led to a ‘Fifth column’ panic with the authorities fearing that such a network might be operational in the UK. In reality the actual German spy network was very small and was quickly rounded up by MI-5. Attempts of the Abwehr to insert spies were so clumsy that they all failed. The Brits not only arrested the German spies and interrogated them but in many cases they were able to use them in radio-games and thus transmit false information to the Abwehr.  Things were not as easy abroad as the German agencies were assisted in their work by friendly foreign governments, for example in Spain. Codebreaking played a major role in uncovering the German spy networks in neutral countries since in 1940-41 the hand cipher and the Enigma machine used by the Abwehr were ‘broken’ and their communications could be read. Interesting information is included in the appendices, especially appendix 1 which has an overview of the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst and appendix 14 dealing with the resistance leader turned double agent Christiaan Lindemans.
 
As in all books there are some small mistakes (or white lies) especially regarding the influence of codebreaking on actual operations (for example on the sinking of Rommel’s supplies). However these are nothing compared to the monstrosities that one reads in other history books.

Overall the ‘British Intelligence in the Second World War’ volumes remain the most authoritative source on signals intelligence in WWII.

WWII Myths – Hitler should have [insert dumb idea]

One of the problems of WWII historiography is the belief that things would have happened differently if it wasn’t for Hitler messing things up.

How many mistakes he (supposedly) made… From halting the tanks at Dunkirk, to antagonizing the Russian population that would like nothing more than to fight against the communists, refusing to allow retreats, refusing to listen to his generals etc etc

Add your own dumb alternative strategy in the comments and I’ll try to debunk it.

Update

I added the title of SRH-368 in WWII Myths - U-boat tankers and ULTRA intelligence, which is ‘Evaluation of the Role of Decryption Intelligence in the Operational Phase of the Battle of the Atlantic, U.S. Navy OEG Report #68, 1952’.