Sunday 2 June 2024

from the Milch papers - Besprechungsnotiz 'single-engine unguided night fighting'

 

'Top Secret'  - minutes of a meeting held on 27 June 1943 at Obersalzberg in the presence of RM Göring. Maj. Hermann (sic) presented his plan for single-engine unguided night fighting. 

He justified this by explaining that current defensive methods and installations ('..Riegel Aufstellung..') and individual guidance of night fighters ('... die einzelne Nachtjagdflugzeugführung..') held in small 'areas' controlled from the ground were only suitable for countering widely spaced and spread incursions. Where attacks were concentrated in time and space only a fixed number of 'downings' ('..Abschüsse..') were possible....any real concentration of the defensive effort ('..eine wirkliche Schwerpunktbildung der Abwehr..' ) was not possible with the current system..