- A 1450 km, or 900-mile one way flight without refueling? Just the kind of aircraft Britainneeded for bombing flights over Germany! After WWII, Hess spent the rest of his life in Berlin’s
Spandau Prison.
MEET THE MIGHTY MESSERSCHMITT FAMILY, RIVALS IN THE SKIES OVER BRITAIN
OF THE SUPERMARINE SPITFIRE AND HAWKER HURRICANE FAMILIES
Reviewed and recommended by Don DeNevi“MESSERSCHMITT Bf110/Me 210/Me 410 – – An Illustrated History”, by Heinz Mankau & PeterPetrik. Schiffer Military History Book: 2003, 8 7/8” x 11 ¼”, 360 pages, hc; $69.95. Visit,
www.schifferbooks.com.
In short, the Me 109 design was intended to serve as the first reliable model for Hitler’sfledgling Luftwaffe, especially as “schwarm”, “swarm”, tactics were being developed andrefined in the skies over Spain during its vicious Civil War in the late 1930s. Of course, theFuhrer had the full support of its dictator, Nationalist General Francisco Franco. What betterplace to practice “blitzkrieg” for the European war he was already planning?The original Me 109 was a slender single-seat monoplane capable of 550 km/h, or 342 mph,with two machine guns and two cannons. By 1937, Britain countered with the tough, huskyHawker Hurricane, slower but more capable of being handled. Its handsome younger brother,the 1938 Supermarine Spitfire, when in attack or danger, could reach 350 mph. Also, lithe andflexible, it was armed with eight heavy machine guns. During the raging Battle of Britain, theMe 109’s were usually the first to break off, in their case, high tailing it back to their Frenchcoast bases, reminding and delighting RAF pilots with the known fact the Me 109’s range wasonly a little more than 400 miles. The first Me 110, soon to be replaced by the Bf 110designation was designed at first to be a long-range fighter. But, again, to the joy of the RAFpilots, whether piloting Hurricanes or Spitfires, the Bf’s were known to be slower, harder tohandle, and less apt to equal the agility of either of the two British hero-fighters. Lest we forget,
the Bf individually, or in swarms, was generally successful in tackling the daily RAF night
bombers over Germany. But, in their raids over London and its environs, the RAF “boys”enjoyed attacking them as they defended Dornier bomber convoy runs. Both the clumsyDorniers and their sluggish Me 110s were pretty easy to deal with since the more dangerous109s, because of low fuel, were pivoting back to cross the Channel.Thanks to amazing co-authors Heinz Mankau and Peter Petrick, we are offered cogentlywritten aircraft examination summaries, nay biopsies, accompanied by hundreds of rarephotos, of virtually all the Messerschmitt variations beginning with the legendary Me 109 andMe 110, later the advanced Bf 110/ME 210/ME 410 series, right down to the introduction ofthe new trinomial species of jets. In easy to grasp technical narrations, we follow how by 1935the Bf, or Me 109, made Messerschmitt the leading manufacturer of fighter aircraft inGermany. The twin-engine Bf 110 followed on its heels in 1936, a type of the Luftwaffeproduced in high numbers as long-range fighters, heavy-fighters, fighter-bombers, nightfighters, and reconnaissance “platform” aircrafts. As its natural successor, the Me 210 wasairborne by 1940. But troubling was the inexplicable fact that its airframe (minus engine andpowerplant) was arrogantly designed willy-nilly dismissing without at least acknowledging theperfectly planned and assembled body structures with Rolls Royce engines and powerplants ofdamaged and crashed Hurricanes and Spitfires lying about. Me 210s almost immediately beganpiling up losses of pilots and aircraft due to the airframe’s poor flight handling characteristics.To Hitler’s chagrin, Air Marshal Goring refused to accept further Me 210s into his Luftwaffe.Almost instantly, the German aircraft assembly lines rolled to a startling stop. Hitler’s bestaviation experts headed back to the drawing boards and created the Me 410, a type which theRAF respected. By early Spring of 1945, new aircraft designs were being presented to Hitler,including “jets”, the fastest airplanes the world had yet known. But, by then, World War II wasin its final months of death and destruction. Most aircraft experts and military historians agreethat had Hitler watched the new designs roll off Germany’s excellent assembly lines even aslate as 1943, especially with the first Atomic Bomb nearing completion, we would all be
speaking German today.
