Original subtitles

[THEME MUSIC]

NARRATOR: On 1 September 1939, at 0426 hours,

three Ju 87 Bs took off for the very first

bombing attack of World War II.

[AIRCRAFT WHIRRING]

Their targets were the approaches to two

railway bridges at Dirschau.

They had to be blocked to prevent

the destruction of the bridges.

It was a partial success because the Poles

managed to blow up one bridge.

That first day of the war was not

an overall success for the Luftwaffe and the Ju 87.

Most of the strength of the Luftwaffe

was sent far behind the lines to destroy

the Polish Air Force on the ground

but without conclusive results.

[EXPLOSIONS]

But during the next few days, the cooperation

between the ground forces and the Stukas improved.

Every time the Polish army tried to organize resistance

to the rapid advance of the tanks,

Stukas were called in to destroy them.

[EXPLOSIONS]

In the largest Polish counterattack of the war,

a force of 170,000 men attacked the rear of the 10th Army

in the Battle of the Bzura.

This was brought to a halt by relentless air attacks

from the Stukas.

The broken Polish army was surrounded at Kutno

and completely destroyed.

After the fighting in Poland, Joseph Goebbels

ordered the Ministry of Propaganda

to make a movie about the power of the Ju 87

and the devastation it had caused.

The movie ended with a threat against England

if it did not seek peace.

As far as England and the Ju 87 were concerned,

it was a hollow threat.

There was little reason for the Stukas and the Messerschmitt Bf

109 fighters to intervene in the land battles

during the fight in the Scandinavian countries

during the spring of 1940.

Instead, the Ju 87 was used extensively

for attacks against Allied ships, which

tried to supply their own expeditionary force in Norway

and to prevent the Germans from reinforcing theirs.

The attacks of the Stukas concentrated mainly

on the Allied attempts to recapture

Narvik and Trondheim by landings at Harstad,

Namsen, and Andalsnes.

At Narvik, the Luftwaffe sank a cruiser

and damaged two others, as well as the battleship resolution.

For the Royal Navy, this was a serious lesson about operating

under enemy air superiority.

It was a lesson that would soon have to be rethought

in the English channel.

Poland and the Scandinavian countries

were not much of an opponent for Germany.

It was in May 1940, during the invasion of the low countries

and France, that the Luftwaffe really proved its effectiveness.

In the opening days of the Battle of France,

the Stukas became legendary.

There, it was not only its accuracy as a dive bomber

but also the fear that it spread among combatants and civilians

alike that was decisive.

Of course, it did not help that the French army had

two commanders and three headquarters,

none of which actually knew what was going on at the front.

Nor did it improve things that French generals

had been too complacent to properly train their soldiers.

The French had expected that after any serious move made

by the Germans, they would have days or weeks to react,

while reinforcements and artillery were laboriously

moved to the front line.

Their old-fashioned army, based on the tactical principles

of World War I, was completely unable to defend itself

against this kind of attack.

The fatal breakthrough came on 13 May near Sudan after

a concentrated attack by the Ju 87s wreaked havoc

among the French defenders.

Small groups of Stukas methodically

attacked the villages in front line, road crossing,

and artillery positions.

Even the Germans, moving forward under protection of

these attacks, were frightened.

The commander of the French second army, General Huntzinger,

refused to call in fighters to chase the attackers away.

He feared the attrition that such operations would cause.

The prevailing view was that air force

was a vulnerable weapon that would

soon be lost if it were used.

General Maurice Gamelin, Supreme Commander of the French army,

is alleged to have predicted it will burn itself in a flash.

When the French Commanders saw their mistake,

they began to ask for British fighter aircraft

to protect their troops.

They were unaware that because of monumental incompetence,

most of the French Air Force had remained inactive.

3/4 of the French fighters were never committed to the battle,

leaving the Luftwaffe free to attack anything that moved.

The Luftwaffe may have had a free hand during the race

across France, but it was unable to perform

the coup de gráce on its surrounded foe

on the French Channel Coast.

The Luftwaffe's attack on Dunkirk

showed the limitations of both the Luftwaffe and the Ju 87.

There, the French and British soldiers, finally accustomed

to the screaming attacks of the dive bombers,

resisted admirably.

They defended the city until almost all the British and many

of the French soldiers could be evacuated by sea.

At the same time, the operations of the Royal Air Force,

protecting the evacuation, caused heavy losses

for the attackers, although a large number of Allied ships

were sunk or damaged.

It was the first sign of the vulnerability

of the Ju 87 and the Luftwaffe.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

When France fell, Hitler had hoped that Churchill would see

the hopelessness of continuing the war,

but the British War Cabinet rejection of German terms

was emphatic.

Recognizing this, and in an effort

to finish the war in the West, Hitler

ordered the rapid preparation of an invasion plan

against Britain.

The first step to invasion was control of the air.

On 10 July, the battle begin with the Kanalkampf or Channel

War.

The Channel War comprised a series of running fights

above convoys of freighter vessels

speeding through the English Channel.

These battles off the coast tended

to favor the Germans, whose bomber escorts massively

outnumbered the convoy patrols.

[EXPLOSIONS]

The number of ship sinkings became so great

that the British admiralty canceled all further convoys

through the channel.

However, these early fights provided

both sides with experience.

[BELL RINGING]

By the end of this period the RAF was winning, at least

in terms of pure numbers.

The Luftwaffe had lost 248 fighters and bombers

to the RAF's 148 fighters lost.

While these numbers were encouraging to the RAF,

it became clear that sustaining such a battle of attrition

was impossible.

This was not so much because of the loss of fighter craft.

British fighter production was doing

a relatively good job in maintaining

fighter production numbers.

More importantly, the loss in qualified pilots

was slowly crippling the RAF.

The situation looked grim, and the real onslaught

had yet to materialize.

On August 1, Fuhrer Directive Number 17 was issued

from Hitler's headquarters.

It read, in part, "The Luftwaffe is

to overpower the Royal Air Force in the shortest possible time.

The intensification of the air war may

begin on or after 5 August."

The Nazi War Machine was again gearing up for battle.

The German strategy was influenced by pre-war theories

of strategic bombing that stressed

the weakness of air defense and the effects of terror bombing

on public morale.

After the Spanish Civil War, the emphasis

of German Air operations had shifted

toward a more tactical force.

In Poland and France, the Luftwaffe

had operated jointly with the Wehrmacht

in its Blitzkrieg or Lightning War.

In the Battle of Britain, however, the Luftwaffe

had to operate alone, not as support for an advancing army,

but as a decisive offensive weapon in its own right.

[RAPID GUNFIRE]

The Luftwaffe was facing an opponent the likes of which

it had not met before--

a sizable, highly coordinated, well-supplied Air Force

that fielded aircraft every bit the match for the German Bf 109

and Twin Engine Bf 110 fighters.

The majority of the RAF's fighting

would rest upon the workhorse, Hurricane Mk 1.

But more shocking to the German pilots

was the newer Spitfire Mk 1, which

was quickly recognized as a nimble world-class fighter.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Initial Luftwaffe estimates allotted four days

to defeat the RAF's Fighter Command in Southern England,

followed by four weeks for the bombers and long-range fighters

to mop up the rest of the country

and destroy the UK's aircraft industry.

The plan developed by Luftwaffe command

called for a concerted strike against British radar

installations.

This was to be followed by the actual Adlertag

or Eagle Day mission the next day against RAF

Fighter Command bases.

August 10 was set as Eagle Day.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The weather, which was to prove an important feature

of the campaign, delayed Adlertag until 13 August.

But on the 12th, the first attempt was made to blind

the doubting air defense system when aircraft from

the specialist fighter bomber unit, Erprobungsgruppe 210,

attacked four radar stations.

Even though the Germans lost more aircraft than the RAF,

they did succeed in downing a significant portion

of the radar defense system.

Eagle Day itself saw concerted strikes against airfields

all over Southern England.

The Luftwaffe, who announced they had destroyed

84 fighters and 8 air bases, deemed

these strikes a great success.

[RAPID GUNFIRE]

In truth, it was a failure.

The British were able to get all but one of their RDS stations

back in service.

This gave some warning of the oncoming operation

and allowed them to shoot down 46 German aircraft with the loss

of only 13 of their own.

As the week after Adlertag drew on,

the airfield attacks moved further inland

and repeated raids were made on the radar chain.

15 August was the greatest day, when

the Luftwaffe mounted the largest number

of sorties of the campaign.

It was also the day of the one attack by Luftflotte 5

in the entire battle of Britain.

Believing the strength of Fighter Command

to be concentrated away in the South,

raiding forces from Denmark and Norway

swept in for a series of raids on targets in the North.

The raids were a disaster.

The bombers ran into strong resistance from RAF fighters.

Inadequately escorted by long-ranged Me 110 Zerstorers,

the bombers were cut to pieces.

As a result, Luftflotte 5 would not appear

in strength again over England.

The 18th of August was the bloodiest day of the air battle.

The losses were so great that both sides

dubbed it the "hardest day".

Following the grinding battles of the 18th,

exhaustion and the weather reduced operations

for most of a week, allowing the Luftwaffe

to review their performance.

The "hardest day" had sounded the end for the Ju 87 Stuka

dive bomber in the campaign.

On 18 August, the so-called Stuka Slaughter

of Thorney Island occurred.

A large formation was caught without fighter cover,

costing the Luftwaffe 30 Stukas--

shot down, crash-landed, or damaged beyond repair.

The veteran of the Blitzkrieg was simply too vulnerable

to fighter attack over Britain.

To preserve the Stuka force, Goering

withdrew it from the fighting.

This removed the Luftwaffe's main precision bombing weapon

and shifted the burden of pinpoint attacks

on the already stretched Me 110 fighter bombers

of Erprobungsgruppe 210.

As a long-range escort fighter, the Messerschmitt Bf 110C

received a disastrous mauling at the hands of the more nimble

Hurricanes and Spitfires.

Rather than protecting the bombers under escort,

the Bf 110C formations usually found

that they were hard-pressed to defend themselves.

The farcical situation developed,

in which single-seat Bf 109E fighters had

to protect the escort fighters.

The Me 110 Zerstorer had proven itself

too fragile for dogfighting with single-engine fighters,

and its participation as an escort fighter was scaled back.

But with the withdrawal of the Stukas,

the Me 110 found new life as a dive bomber.

And in the years to come, it would serve Germany

well as a heavy night fighter.

Goering made yet another fateful decision

to order more bomber escorts at the expense

of free hunting sweeps.

To achieve this, the weight of the attack

now fell on Luftflotte 2.

And most of the Me 109 forces in Luftflotte 3

were transferred to General Field Marshal Albert

Kesselring's command to reinforce the fighter

bases in the Pa de Calais.

Drift of its fighters, Luftflotte 3

concentrated on the night bombing campaign.

Finally, Goering ordered the attacks on the radar chain

stopped.

The attacks were seen as unsuccessful,

and neither the technically inept Reichsmarschall

nor his subordinates realized how vital the Chain Home

stations were to the defense.

Starting on 24 August, the Luftwaffe

concentrated all their strength on knocking out Fighter Command.

Of the 33 heavy attacks in the next two weeks,

24 were against airfields.

These were desperate times for the RAF, which was also taking

many casualties in the air.

Aircraft production could replace aircraft,

but replacement pilots were barely keeping pace with losses.

And novice fliers were being shot down in droves.

For Luftwaffe aircrews, a bailout over England

meant capture, while parachuting into the English Channel

often meant drowning or death from exposure.

Morale began to suffer, and Kanalkrankheit, or channel

sickness, a form of combat fatigue,

began to appear amongst the German pilots.

Their replacement problem was even worse than the British,

and yet, the Luftwaffe was winning

the battle of the airfields.

Another two weeks of this pounding

may have forced the RAF to withdraw their squadrons

from the South of England.

But fate and Hitler's ego stepped in to save the British.

In the very early morning hours of 25 August, a lone He 111

veered off course and accidentally

bombed Central London.

This was against Hitler's standing orders not to do so.

Little did this lost pilot know his actions

would alter the course of the battle

and maybe even the war itself.

Outraged by such an attack on a completely civilian target,

Churchill ordered a retaliatory strike on Berlin for that night.

Goering himself had boasted that such a raid would never happen.

He had once stated jokingly that, "You can call

me Meyer if it ever occurs."

Much to the amazement of stunned Berliners,

on the night of 25 August, 81 British Hampden bombers

appeared over Berlin and delivered a blow to the heart

of the Nazi regime.

It was ineffective as a military strike,

but people were indeed calling Goering Meier a deep insult

to the anti-Semitic leader.

Goering promised it would never happen again,

but additional strikes did repeatedly come.

These missions hit the Nazis in probably their most

vulnerable spot, Hitler's ego.

He could not allow such an intrusion into the fatherland

to go unanswered.

Hitler immediately gave a radio address,

in which he stated, "If the British bomb our cities,

we will bury theirs."

Against the advice of his generals,

he issued orders to Goering to Institute a merciless bombing

campaign against London.

The first raid on 7 September targeted

docks in the East End of the city.

However, over the coming days, massive raids

were launched again and again.

Some of these raids targeted the docks but others

bombed indiscriminately.

The RAF defense was in greater numbers

than the Luftwaffe expected.

The change in tactics from bombing airfields

to relentless attacks on London gave the RAF

critical breathing space.

It was the turning point.

The Battle of Britain culminated on 15 September 1940,

with two massive waves of German attacks

that were decisively repulsed by the RAF.

The total casualties on this critical day

were 60 German aircraft shot down versus only 26 for the RAF

or a ratio of over 2 to 1 in favor of the RAF.

The German defeat caused Hitler to order the invasion

of Britain, called Operation Sea Lion,

to be indefinitely postponed.

Night bombing raids, known as The Blitz,

continued, but the Battle of Britain was over.

Thanks to one lone German bomber,

a successful, impossible mission to bomb Berlin and Hitler's ego,

the last bastion of freedom in Europe, had been saved.

Early on 22 June 1941, the Luftwaffe

launched a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union,

with 637 bombers and 231 fighters on 31 airfields.

The surprise was complete.

Hundreds of Russian aircraft were

destroyed, with only two German aircraft failing to return.

The attacks continued all day, and by nightfall,

fighters in aerial combat had claimed

almost 300 Russian aircraft.

At least 800 more were destroyed on the ground.

By 29 June, after one week of fighting,

the German armed forces' high command or OKW,

reported the destruction of at least 4,017 Soviet aircraft

to the loss of 150 of its own.

During the opening day of the invasion of the Soviet Union,

code-named Operation Barbarossa, air support was not as adequate

as it had been in France.

This was because the Luftwaffe was so enormously overstretched.

Too many aircraft had to stay in the West and the Mediterranean.

This lack of aircraft opened the door for a new role

for an old warbird.

The main task of the Ju 87 Stuka on the Eastern Front

was the destruction of enemy tanks.

One of the things that the Germans had not accounted

for in their war plans was the enormous number of tanks

the Red Army possessed.

The quality of those tanks had also escaped the observation

of German planners.

Confronted with the presence of large numbers of excellent T-34

tanks and disappointing production of their own armor

industry, the Germans sought to compensate

for their numerical inferiority in other ways.

For the Ju 87, it was a target-rich environment.

The Ju 87s had to operate from very primitive airfields,

which were at the end of long supply

lines and in a harsh climate.

Aircraft usually had to be maintained in the open air.

And hangars or shelters for parked aircraft

were non-existent.

In Russia, tactics changed from dive-bombing

to low-level attacks.

The use of dive bombing was finally

abandoned entirely with the delivery of the Ju 87G versions.

These aircraft carried two underwing-mounted Flak 18

37-millimeter anti-tank guns.

Eventually, the obsolescence of the Ju 87

would again be seriously felt and they would increasingly

be replaced by fighter bomber versions

of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190.

The Ju 87 continued to be effective,

mostly because of the very experienced crews.

The most successful Stuka pilot was Hans Ulrich Rudel,

who was to become the most decorated

German pilot of World War II.

He was also the pilot who flew the most combat missions,

a staggering 2,530.

He was credited with the destruction of the battleship,

Marat, 519 tanks, and over 2,000 other vehicles.

According to one rumor, Hitler was

so impressed by Rudel's actions that he contemplated

naming him as his successor.

During the summer of 1941, as German Panzers knifed deep

into Russia, the Messerschmitt design team

produced yet another variant of the now-aging Bf 109.

Under the designation, Bf 109G, it was affectionately known

as Gustav among the troops.

The G6 model became the most produced Bf 109 version.

It was heavy armament armed with two 13-millimeter MG 131 machine

guns above the engine, a 30-millimeter MK 108 cannon

shooting through the propeller hub, and 120-millimeter

MG 151/20 in each wing.

The G6 was very often fitted with assembly sets.

These were used to carry bombs or a drop tank.

They were also used as night fighters.

To increase firepower, rockets or extra guns could be added.

It was in a Bf 109 G-14 that Major Erich Hartmann

of the Luftwaffe reached his unrivaled total of 352

confirmed aerial victories.

However, these victories were on the Eastern

Front, where German fighters easily outclassed

early Soviet fighters.

The Bf 109 was not Germany's only single-engine fighter.

When the Focke-Wulf 190A entered combat in the summer of 1941,

it immediately outclassed the Spitfire 5,

which appeared sluggish and outdated by comparison.

From that time on, in spite of some severe problems

with the BMW 801 engine, the 190 kept

even or ahead of Allied fighters through successive versions.

The standard Fw 190A was quickly modified to perform a number

of roles, particularly that of fighter

bomber in the F and G versions.

Carrying a reasonable bomb load or, in some cases,

rocket projectiles, new production

Fw 190s were quickly thrown into the fight against the Russians.

The Fw 190 basically evolved as a successor

to the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter,

although the official view was that it would

never be capable of matching the operational prowess of the Bf

109.

How wrong this proved to be.

The Butcherbird became Germany's most potent piston-powered World

War II fighter.

[DRUM BEATING]

During World War II, the Luftwaffe

raised a variety of Fallschirmjager, Paratrooper,

and Panzer armor units.

Unlike Britain and the USA, these ground

forces were part of the Air Force

rather than the regular army.

Starting from a small collection of Fallschirmjager battalions

at the beginning of the war, the Luftwaffe

built up a division-sized unit of three Fallschirmjager

regiments, plus supporting arms and air assets, known

as the Seventh Air Division.

Later in the war, the Seventh Air Division's Fallschirmjager

assets were reorganized and used as the core

of a new series of elite Luftwaffe infantry divisions.

They were numbered in a series, beginning with the

first Fallschirmjager division.

These formations were organized and equipped

as motorized infantry divisions and often played a fire brigade

role on the Western front.

The origins of the German parachute arm

can be traced to 23 February 1933.

It was the date that Hermann Goering

issued a decree, founding the police detachment, Wecke.

This was formed almost exclusively

to combat and suppress communist cells in the Berlin area.

In planning its many raids, aerial reconnaissance was used,

and then a small police parachute

unit would Jump on the target.

The Wecke detachment became part of the German Air Force

in October 1935 and became Regiment General Goering.

German paratroops first saw limited action

in Poland and Norway.

It was at Eben-Emae the Fallschirmjagers

faced their real test.

In the opening moments of the Battle of France,

strategic objectives had to be taken

to allow the advancing German 6th Army to pass

unhindered into Belgium.

These objectives were three bridges over the Albertkanaal

at Veldwezelt, Vroenhoven, and Kannes,

and the Fortress of Eben-Emae.

Eben-Emae was considered to be virtually impregnable

due to its location.

It had a formidable arsenal of 16 75-millimeter and two

120-millimeter artillery pieces in four casemates

and three revolving turrets.

It was decided that a parachute assault was out of the question

due to the limited space at Eben-Emae and the chance

that some men might miss the drop zone.

Instead, the Germans used light assault gliders.

The paratroopers met stiff resistance

from the Belgian defenders, who had

even resorted to firing shells set

with the minimum fuse settings.

At one stage, Stukas were called in to bomb

the stubborn objectives.

The Stukas did not succeed in destroying the targets

but forced the gunners to keep their heads down

while German engineers went to work placing charges

to blow the concrete redoubts.

One by one, their objectives were destroyed

and the Fallschirmjagers held out until early on the morning

of the 11th when they linked up with men

of the 51st Pioneer Battalion.

Together, they started to sweep the last of their reserves

from the fort and made way for the motorized section

of the engineer battalion to get through and relieve

the para-assault group.

Knowing the battle was lost the Belgian commander, Major Trond,

surrendered the fortress at midday on the 11 of May.

The Fallschirmjager's most famous airdrop was

in the Battle of Crete in 1941.

Known as Operation Mercury, this was

the first operation conducted entirely by airborne troops.

The operation was successful after 10 hard days of fighting.

But the high casualties among the Fallschirmjager

convinced Hitler that such mass airdrops

were no longer feasible.

After Crete, the Fallschirmjagers

would never again be used in large-scale airborne operations.

However, these highly-trained elite soldiers

would conduct smaller-scale operations throughout the war,

culminating in the pinnacle battle

that won them their place in the annals of military history.

That place was a Benedictine monastery on a hilltop town

in Italy, called Monte Cassino.

During the Battle of Monte Cassino,

the first Fallschirmjager division operating

as ordinary infantry held out for months against repeated

assaults and heavy bombardment.

They earned the nickname, "Green Devils" by the Allied forces

for their tenacious defense.

Polish and French-Moroccan forces finally forced them out

of the position.

The Battle of Cassino would result

in some 175,000 casualties, 115,000

Allied and 60,000 Germans.

The first Fallschirmjager division in particular

impressed its adversaries by digging in and enduring

relentless pounding by artillery and bombs,

then emerging to throw back one Allied assault after another.

At the end of the battle, the first company

of the first battalion was down to one officer,

one NCO, and one soldier.

After mid-1944, Fallschirmjager troops

were no longer trained as parachutists

due to the realities of the strategic situation.

But they still retain the Fallschirmjager honorific.

German paratroopers were heavily engaged

during the Allied invasion of France on 6 June 1944.

Defending the fortifications at Brest,

the second Fallschirmjager division under General Ramcke

held out against the Americans until 20 April 1945.

German paratroop units took part in the Ardennes Offensive,

acting as spearhead troops for the attacking forces.

Near the end of the war, the series

of new Fallschirmjager divisions extended to over a dozen.

They fought with distinctions in the defensive actions

along the Rhineland and the Reichswald Forest.

The end came when the ninth Fallschirmjager

division, was finally destroyed in Czechoslovakia

in early May 1945.

As RAF and United States Army Air Force bombing raids got

heavier and heavier in Europe, some

German fighter units flying the new

Fw 190s employed new tactics.

Against US heavy bombers on daylight raids,

several Fw 190s would form a line and approach from the rear

of the bomber formation.

At very close range, the fighters

would then open up, giving the rear gunners in the bombers

very little chance of firing methodically

at all the attackers.

Demands of the air war over Germany led to a new role

for the Luftwaffe's most disappointing fighter.

The complete failure of the Bf 110C,

in the role for which it had been conceived,

led to its eventual withdrawal from

the channel coast but did not result

in reduction in its production.

They were being used extensively on the Russian front

and in the Middle East.

By the fall of 1943, the Zerstorer gruppens once again

began to have great success in the skies over Germany

as bomber interceptors and night fighters.

On 11 January 1944, the Allies sent 650 heavy bombers deep

into Germany to attack the aircraft factories

in the Braunschweig area.

The masked Bf 110s of the Zerstorer gruppen poured

their 250-millimeter rockets into the tightly packed groups,

breaking up the bombers' protective formations.

They then joined the Bf 109s in attacking individual aircraft.

41 American bombers failed to return to their bases

in England.

On 16 March, 43 Bf 110s of ZG 76 caught

American bombers without fighter escorts

and knocked down 18 B17s.

After their third pass, however, the bomber escort arrived

and dived to the attack.

During the ensuing battle, 26 or 60% of the Zerstorers

were shot down.

Shortly after this, the Zerstorer gruppen traded

their Bf 110s for Bf 109Gs.

One of the most versatile planes of World War II

was the Junkers Ju 88, a solid aircraft with great performance.

It went on to be one of the Luftwaffe's

most important aircraft.

It carried out almost every kind of mission ever imagined,

even as a giant flying bomb in every theater with many nations.

In the fall of 1942, the Ju 88 C-6

became the first Ju 88 fighter variant

to be equipped with on-board air intercept radar.

And by mid-1943 the Ju 86 C-6 was

being used more extensively in the long-range night

fighter role.

In 1943, the Luftwaffe developed a night tactic

for use by Ju 88 and Bf 110 units, known

as Zahme Sau or "Tame Boar".

Once a Luftwaffe fighter had infiltrated a British bomber

formation, it would mount a long-distance pursuit

in an effort to pinpoint and destroy

as many bombers as possible.

So successful was the tactic that the RAF began

to suffer considerable losses.

The worst was the night of 30 to 31 March 1944,

when the RAF lost 97 out of 725 bombers

that were dispatched against Nuremberg, Germany.

One of the most effective armament modifications made

to Luftwaffe night fighters was Schrage musik, jazz or oblique

music, an installation of one or two upward-firing cannons

mounted in the Fuselage spine.

First appearing late in 1943, the Schrage musik installation

was mounted at an angle of between 70 to 80 degrees

forward.

This allowed the German night fighters

to attack British bombers in their blind spot, which

was below and to the rear.

Literally, it seemed that anything

was possible with the Ju 88, except, in the end, victory.

More than 100,000 Luftwaffe aircraft were

lost between 1939 and 1945.

320,000 pilots and aircrew were killed

and 230,000 seriously inJured.

By April of 1944, the tide had overwhelmingly

turned against the axis.

The US Army air forces complicated proper air

defense of Germany with bands of long-range P-51

Mustang fighters.

Their purpose was to escort Allied bombers on their daylight

raids over the Reich.

Not only had air superiority been lost in all theaters

by 1945, but also, many of the aircraft that remained

in frontline squadrons were outclassed

by their Allied counterparts.

Yet, the fact remains that certain technological

advantages, if they had been exploited,

might have made an appreciable difference

in Germany's military fortunes.

On 25 July, for example, a British pilot

reported that his Mosquito encountered

an aircraft of incredible speed high over Southern Germany.

That aircraft was the Messerschmitt Me 262 Turbojet,

known as the Schwalbe or "Swallow".

German planners hoped that the Me 262 would arrive in the skies

at Just the right time to take on the Deadly P-51s

and put a serious hitch in the confidence

the Allied forces placed in the effectiveness

of their bombing raids.

The Me 262 B-1A was produced as the first-night fighter jet.

Equipped with long wavelength radar and superior homing gear,

this machine became a deadly force in the hands

of the right pilot.

In fact, Luftwaffenkommando Kurt Welter

became one of the first jet aces by incorporating

wild boar night fighting tactics and scoring 20 Allied kills.

Likely the highest number of kills by a pilot in history.

But Hitler's insistence on making the Me 262 a bomber

put an end to that hope.

By April 1945, only about 200 of the jet fighters

were available for combat.

When all was said and done, the Me 262 A-1A "Swallow"

emerged as an impressive war machine,

but in too few numbers and much too late to serve

the Luftwaffe in Germany.

The most futuristic of all the new German aircraft

was the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet.

It was a rocket-powered aircraft,

which held the record as the fastest

aircraft of the war years.

On October 2, 1941, it set a new world speed

record of 623.8 miles per hour.

Fueled by an extremely unstable mix of propellants,

it proved to be something of a death trap for its pilots.

Operations began in 1944.

As expected, the plane was extremely fast.

And for a time, the Allied fighters were at a complete loss

as to what to do about it.

The plane often climbed to the bombers

faster than the escorting fighters could dive

in an attempt to intercept it.

That high speed proved to be a problem.

The builders were never able to make a truly effective weapon

for the plane, one that could fire

fast enough to allow it to kill a bomber before passing it.

It wasn't long before the Allied pilots noted the extremely short

lifetime of the powered flight.

They would wait it out.

And as soon as the engine went off, they would hunt them down.

They also quickly identified the fields the planes

operated from and started strafing

them after the Me 163s landed.

In any operational sense, the Komet was a failure.

More were lost to landing accidents

than they ever accounted for in bomber

kills, which were only 16.

If weapons such as these and the vengeance weapons like the V1

and V2 rockets had been available in sufficient numbers

earlier in the war and had been coordinated

with conventional bombing raids, their impact

might have been significant.

As it was, their development was too late.

By late 1944, the Luftwaffe was already a broken force.

[THEME MUSIC]