Luftwaffe Bomber Aces; Men, Machines, Methods (Luftwaffe at War)

241 Pages·2001·8.41 MB·English

by  Mike Spick

LUFTWAFFE
BOMBER ACES

LUFTWAFFE
BOMBER ACES
Men, Machines, Methods
MIKE SPICK
GREENHILL BOOKS, LONDON
STACKPOLE BOOKS, PENNSYLVANIA
Luftwaffe Bomber Aces
First published 2001 by Greenhill Books
Lionel Leventhal Limited, Park House, 1 Russell Gardens,
London NW119NN
and
Stackpole Books, 5067 Ritter Road, Mechanicsburg,
PA 17055, USA
© Mike Spick, 2001
The author's rights have been asserted
At! rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without the written
permission of the Publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Spick, Mike
Luftwaffe bomber aces : men, machines, methods
1. Germany. Luftwaffe 2. Bomber pilots - Germany
3. World War, 1939-1945 - Aerial operations, German
I. Title
940.5'44943
ISBN 1-85367-444-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
Edited, designed and typeset by Roger Chesneau
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Creative Print and Design (Wales), Ebbw Vale
CONTENTS
List of illustrations and tables 7
Prologue 11
1 The Storm Clouds Gather 15
The Planes in Spain . . .—Equipment and Organisation—Crises—
Level Bombers—Level Bombers/Dive Bombers—Dive Bombers—
Organisation—Nomenklatur
2 Blitzkrieg 32
Low-Level Attacks—Assault on Poland
3 Anti-Shipping Operations, 1939-40 42
German Carrier Aviation—Küstenflieger—Trial and Error—Operation
'Weserübung'
4 Victory in the West 55
The Burning of Rotterdam—France—Breakthrough at Sedan—The
Race for the Sea—Assault on the Ports—Two Miracles—The
Capitulation of France
5 Assault on England, July 1940-May 1941 70
The Channel Battles—Adlerangriff—Bombs on London—The Night
Blitz—German Blind Bombing Systems—The Firelighters—Tactics
Against the Night Fighters
6 Campaigns in the South 118
Assault in the Balkans—Crete—Malta—North Africa
7 War in the East 132
Leningrad, 1941—The March to the East—The Road to Stalingrad—
The Tide Turns—The Long Road Back
LUFTWAFFE BOMBER ACES
8 The Strategic War at Sea 149
The Battle of the Atlantic—Over the Atlantic—Desert Diversion—
Fliegerführer Atlantik—Arctic Operations—Guided Missiles
9 Western Front, July 1941-May 1944 173
Stratospheric Strikers—The Baedeker Raids—Angriffsführer England
—Operation 'Steinbock'
10 Last Stand in the West 186
Mistel—Doodlebugs—Fighter-Bombers—The German Jets
11 The Bomber Aces 199
12 Stuka and Schlacht Aces 212
Appendix: Main Luftwaffe Bomber and Attack Aircraft 227
Bibliography 235
Index 237
ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES
Plates (pages 97-112)
1 Ugly and angular—the Ju 87 dive bomber
2 The He 111, the backbone of the Kampfflieger in the early years
3 A shot-down He 111H-5 of Stab III/KG 26
4 The Henschel Hs 123B, which gave sterling service over Poland
5 The Heinkel He 115, mainly used for minelaying early in the war
6 A German SC 500 bomb which landed at Mosta, Malta
7 The Dornier Do 217E, which entered service in 1941 with II/KG 40
8 A Do 217M damaged by a 'Z' rocket battery over Ealing
9 The Focke-Wulf FW 200C, which caused damage to Allied shipping
10 The Junkers Ju 188A—a very much improved Ju 88
11 The Heinkel He 177A, which was endlessly delayed by engine fires
12 The Henschel Hs 129B—first of the 'big gun' anti-tank aircraft
13 The Junkers Ju 87G tank-buster, lethal in the hands of an expert
14 The Focke-Wulf FW 190, which started to replace the Ju 87 in 1943
15 The 1,800kg Satan—one of the largest bombs used by the Luftwaffe
16 The Messerschmitt Me 410, a replacement for the elderly Bf 110
17 The He 111H as a carrier for the Fi 103 'Doodlebug'
18 The Arado Ar 234—the world's first operational jet bomber
19 The final variant of the Ar 234, with a conventional undercarriage
20 The Messerschmitt Me 262A, which was adapted as a fighter-bomber
21 Hans-Georg Batcher celebrates his 500th sortie
22 Werner Baumbach, who had a full and varied career
23 Walter Bradel, who was killed when his Do 217 crashed at Amsterdam
24 Hans-Joachim Herrmann with Reichsmarschall Herman Goering
25 Full military honours for Walter Bradel and his crew
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LUFTWAFFE BOMBER ACES
26 Martin Harlinghausen after his grand tour of the Suez Canal
27 Karl-Heinrich Hofer as Kommandeur II/KG 55
28 Bernhard Jope, one of the most distinguished Condor pilots with KG 40
29 Ritterkreuz holder Robert Kowaleski
30 Ritterkreuz holder Viktor von Lossberg
31 Dieter Lukesch, awarded the Eichenlaub to the Ritterkreuz
32 Helmut Mahlke, awarded the Ritterkreuz after 145 sorties
33 Volprecht Riedesel Freiherr zu Eisenbach
34 Horst Rudat, awarded the Ritterkreuz on 24 March 1943
35 Hans-Ulrich Rudel, the most decorated soldier of the Third Reich
Diagrams (drawn by John Richards)
1 The Staffelwinkel 22
2 The Staffelkolonne 23
3 The Stqffelkeil 26
4 The Gruppenkolonne aus Staffelwinkeln 28
5 The Gruppenkolonne aus geschlossenen Staffelkeilen 30
6 Typical dive bombing attack by a Junkers Ju 88 46
7 Effectiveness of slatted air brakes as fitted to the Junkers Ju 87 64
8 The Lorenz beam 90
9 The Knickebein bombing system 91
10 The X-Gerät bombing system 93
11 The Y-Gerät bombing system 94
12 Fighter evasion with a Junkers Ju 88 114
13 Hajo Herrmann's flight, 6/7 April 1941 123
14 The Eastern Front: front lines 138
15 The Battle of the Atlantic 151
16 Single-aircraft attacks on shipping 152
17 The 'Swedish Turnip' attack 156
18 Torpedo attack (1) 162
19 Torpedo attack (2) 163
20 The 'Golden Comb' 164
21 The fate of convoy PQ.17 166
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