notes on the cult of the 'fighter ace' in the Luftwaffe -why the Luftwaffe failed (3)

The basic combat unit of the Jagdfliegerei was the two-ship Rotte formation. Two Rotten constituted a Schwarm and three Schwärme comprised a Staffel  etc..The Rotte was led by a Rottenfuehrer and the duty of the other member of the Rotten was to protect the leader at all costs. This 'individualist' approach had in the view of some commentators serious structural consequences for the Luftwaffe only occasionally touched upon in the literature. This approach was essentially a system of promotion and honours that emphasized personal aerial victories over leadership.  As the 'dashing fighter pilot' scored more victories so his status was enhanced, along with his officer career. Stilla writes ;

".. He who did not kill could not assert himself as unit leader for long. (…) The front units were exclusively led by "aces", whose main focus and ambition consisted, and had to consist in, leading the squadron's kill list. In turn the aerial victories returned by that CO's Gruppe had to be ahead of those of other fighter Gruppen..."

The example of Helmut Wick (above; carried on the shoulders of his crew and cigar in his mouth to celebrate another successful sortie, 29 October 1940..) who progressed from lowly Staffelkapitän to Kommodore of the Richthofener -Jagdgeschwader 2 - in only a matter of months during the Battle of Britain is perhaps a good example. Having claimed some thirty victories during the summer of 1940,  received the Eichenlaub from Hitler himself on 8 October 1940, Wick was shot down and killed over the Channel in late November 1940 barely two months after being appointed CO. Having given interviews in the American press that came across as arrogant and dismissive of the qualities of RAF fighter pilots, he certainly paid for his hubris - " I want to die shooting down RAF pilots.." he was quoted as saying. His death was the result of  " his greed for fame and laurels " according to Robert Michulec in 'Luftwaffe Aces of the Western Front'.

"..NAZI FLIER LAUGHS AT BRITISH AIRMEN; Says Best of Foe's Aviators Have Been Shot Down-- Thinks Others Scared CLAIMS FULL AIR MASTERY Decorated Fighter Ridicules Anti-Aircraft Fire and Use of Barrage Balloons.."
headline in the New York Times, 13 October 1940 here

What drove Wick and other Jagdflieger appointed to command in the 'good years' was an almost over-riding concern for the Abschussliste- the system of points and then decorations awarded for a certain number of 'victories'- which was ultimately no more than personal ambition and the need for recognition. The 'good years' of course being the 'years' when the 'ace' shot down fighters and not bombers. Over France and England, over North Africa and in the East..in all these theatres the Luftwaffe fighter ace concentrated on shooting down other fighters..

" although this gave them big scores which was certainly Luftwaffe policy, strategically it was a war-losing approach as it was the Allied bombers that destroyed the Wehrmacht's fighting power.." (Eriksson in 'Alarmstart')

The results of such policies only became evident later on. When the Battle for Germany got underway in mid-1943 the Jagdflieger were hard-pushed to take on the US bomber fleets effectively. And then, when in a  matter of months the Jagdflieger had worked out tactics to counter the heavy defensive armament - US bomber formations could number upwards of one thousand Viermots - hundreds of fast, agile and long-legged escort fighters appeared on the scene.

The 'rush' for honours in the Jagdwaffe via aerial victories also led in some cases to something approaching systemic over-claiming. It may be true perhaps that all fighter pilots over-claim and the vast majority of over-claiming may well have been made in good faith in the heat of very dangerous action. However and most importantly - and this is the point that should be made to those who say, well, over-claiming..yes, maybe, but everyone did it - in the Luftwaffe there is no doubt that  more than a few aces sought glory and career advancement at the expense of all else.

With the launch of Barbarossa in June 1941 one Geschwader in particular - JG 53 -  began a run of colossal victory scores. Through June, July and August 1941, the Stab and I./JG 53 returned over 200 victory claims. The Kommodore von Maltzahn picked up his Oakleaves in July taking his score from 16 to 49 in a six week period although he was nonetheless forced to make three crash landings during the same period. Oblt Hans-Joachim Heinecke went from 0 to 16 and was appointed Staffelkapitän of I./JG 53. It was a similar story for II./JG 53 (minus its 6. Staffel) Despite the early loss of Kommandeur Bretnuetz, over fourteen weeks and for the loss of six pilots the Gruppe returned some 194 victories.  According to Jean-Louis Roba in his four volume treatment of the Geschwader published by Lela Presse these figures are patently "inflated".

The exploits of III./JG 53 over the fourteen week period from the launch of Barbarossa to the end of September 1941 have assumed almost 'legendary' status - by the end of the first summer in the East, III./JG 53 had submitted claims for some 373 victories! But as Jean-Louis Roba has pointed out ;

   "..operating over Heeresgruppe Mitte, this latter organisation seems to have largely abdicated its authority to 'adjudicate' in the claims confirmation process..".

 While its defenders claim Wilcke's Gruppe - established by Mölders - was a nursery for Draufgänger, as evidenced by the three Ritterkreuze awarded in this short space of time, Roba continues;

 " ..it is nonetheless a fact that many of these pilots' victory claims were no more than flights of fancy and that they were 'encouraged' to file these claims by a benevolent hierarchy and propaganda media looking for new heroes.. ".

 These 373 claims were made for the loss of some 31 Friedrichs either seriously damaged or destroyed and just three pilots killed..including Ritterkreuz holder Lt. Erich Schmidt, ( RK awarded 23 July for 31 victories) who was downed by Soviet anti-aircraft fire near Dubno.

Above; Erich Schmidt III./JG 53, RK 23 July 1941. Note the forty seven Abschussbalken, his final tally.


I./JG 53 returned to Russia for the offensives of 1942 and received its first Bf 109 G-2 fighters later that summer. Roba again;

 " From the outset the huge victory list accumulated by I./JG 53 simply staggers - 913 victory claims in a 19-week period for only 15 pilots lost at an average of 7 victories/day. "

 One of these losses was Kommandeur Kaminski, shot down and wounded on 24 July 1942. (On his return from convalescence during late 1943 Kaminski was appointed CO of Zerstörer Gruppe II./ZG 76) Oblt. Tonne opened this second campaign in the East with 19 victories and finished it with 101 ! A youthful Uffz. Wilhelm Crinius had yet to open his score on his arrival in the unit in February 1942 - on 22 September he had 'achieved' his 100th! By now 'Stalin's Falcons' had learnt the lessons of 1941. Moreover, new, more modern types had made their appearance in addition to Allied equipment supplied under Lend-Lease.

" The pilots exaggerated claims were probably not the result of deliberate falsification, but it was self-evident that there was no rigour in the claims validation process whatsoever ".

This blogger is tempted to add - as is so often claimed for the Jagdwaffe !  Jean-Louis Roba argues that these huge victory totals should be divided by two, three, four or even five to arrive at claims approaching the reality of Soviet losses. I./JG 53 went back to Sicily prior to Stalingrad, while of those JG 53 aces who had run up such huge scores in just a short three-month period, very few would see the end of the war - Uffz. Franz Hagedorn (25 or 37 vics), Uffz. Helmut Peissert (38) and Ritterkreuz holder Walter Zellot (86) would all perish soon afterwards in Russia.

Having been told by Alfred Price and others over the years that the Luftwaffe aerial victories verification process was not open to abuse, more recent (Russian) research also appears to have demonstrated the contrary...

Johannes Matthews writes " ..Hartmann was ambitious and had worked out that the best way to be the best was to survive the longest, so cut out all the risks.."  For example, Hartmann made very few IL-2 claims, even avoided combat with the IL-2 Shturmovik altogether..Matthews writing on the TOCH forum goes further .." Hartmann's Staffel .. (were ).. not happy with him, though this could be down to his avoidance of anything other than high altitude combat... ...I will confess regarding fraudulent claims that I have noticed certain traits that would support this, firstly why when a whole Gruppe is in a certain region such claims are almost all made by the same Staffel, also it takes at least two to make fraudulent claims i.e Rudorffer and Tangermann, Schall and Anton Resch always seemed to claim together, and are in my mind suspect. Hartmann makes large numbers of claims whilst with Birkner. Another telling point is if they get transfered to the West, or just another unit how different their claims are in volume. With 9./JG 52 if false claims are true here, it must have continued for years, so replacement pilots must have been groomed to assist. Generally I have found JG 52's claims not outrageous. Sad thing is that some over-claimers caused inflation in the medals league, and some appeared to have been so much more deserving than others. But my only defense for Hartmann is that in August 1944 when he accelerated towards the "300" mark that he was the only pilot in his Staffel actually making claims. He also made so few claims over the Il-2, which would make sense, if he had claimed many I would question it as they flew at extremely low altitude, and his claims were almost all at high altitude. Yet Hartmann was not popular with other pilots(for whatever reason). Perhaps they suspected that he was a fraud, or perhaps he was just selfish in his pursuit of numbers.......he was also a poor officer..."

Price ignores the fact that in the Luftwaffe there were incentives to over-claim. In addition, the approach to medals and promotions may have skewed fighting efficiency. An example often cited now is the "Expertenschwarm" of 4./JG 27. The risk of being exposed was not very great and the official punishment not necessarily harsh. While Sawallisch was killed in a crash shortly after the fraud was exposed, Bendert, besides being sent to train new pilots - which might or might not have been a punishment - received the Ritterkreuz for his troubles. And of course there was the 'propaganda' aspect; the 'ace' might well bring 'glory' not only on himself, but also to his unit and his CO. So if the CO began to suspect that one of his “stars” was in fact over-claiming badly he might well try to solve the problem inside his unit. Or not.

Long suspected of being an 'unreliable' over-claimer (see above) Erich Rudorffer of II./JG 2 notes in Mombeek's "Dans le ciel de France"   (Vol. 4, 1943) following the death of Wolf von Bülow, Staffelkapitän of 5./ JG 2 and son of the former Kommodore Maj. Harry von Bulow in a bombing raid on Kairouan on 23 February 1943;

" ..although he had sought refuge in a shelter, Oblt. von Bülow's body was riddled with shrapnel. His death was a terrible blow to morale. The atmosphere within the unit was going downhill fast following Dickfeld's departure. There was far too much bad feeling and competitiveness around aerial victories and the 'scramble' for decorations and promotion had become far too important. In fact each individual pilot's motivation turned on his claims and what they could get him and such a state of affairs could only harm any 'esprit de corps' ..."

It is of course possible to argue the opposite case - that this 'system' of constant front-line action made the most of the limited resources available to the Jagdwaffe. As Claes Sundin points out in his latest profile book, an ace like Grislawski could by 1944 anticipate every opponent's manoeuvre in the sky such was his level of experience. At the same time the average Allied fighter pilot would perhaps only fly or have flown 50-100 sorties before being rotated away from the front. ".. Just how good could they be ? " Those Luftwaffe aces still in the air had far more experience than the average Allied pilot.

 "..by the time of the Normandy landings I had flown more than 800 sorties. In spite of the fact that the Allies had aircraft everywhere, in huge numbers, I always had complete control of the situation, able to predict every enemy pilot's slightest maneuver or tactical move...and just how good could they (US pilots) be when after 40-50 combat sorties they went home again? " (Alfred Grislawski quoted in Sundin, Luftwaffe Profile book no. 6)

In his 380-page study on the air war over Normandy 1944, David Clark writes: "..We noted how many German super-aces appeared in the air battle. The skill level of the pool of German pilots was not homogenous but rather, presented a dramatic contrast. The killing of so many good pilots in the first six months of 1944 left most Gruppen with a smattering of super-aces, a small number of experienced but not yet expert pilots, and the vast majority with but a few hours flying experience. These latter had been desperately pressed into service without sufficient training." ("Angels Eight: Normandy Air War", p. 59)

 Training or mentoring new pilots was a crucial role, but one shunned almost entirely by the fighter aces; as losses continued to rise through late 1943 and early 1944 new pilots arriving in front-line units were for the most part avoided by the old-hands, with one of two notable exceptions. They were simply not going to be around long enough to get to know. New German pilots lacked the training, experience and expertise which set off a long downward spiral, with the losses and the inability to replace pilots with comparable fighter pilots in experience and training let alone enough aircraft and fuel. In addition the Jagdwaffe was and remained throughout the war a 'fair-weather' force. Even aces such as Steinhoff were judged by the Americans post-war to have had 'lousy' instrument skills.

But the Luftwaffe cult of the 'fighter ace' could lead to other problems. There was for example no such thing as a culture of flight safety in the Luftwaffe as explained in a previous blog post here. The 'ace' lacked the wherewithal to clean up disciplinary problems. Or even create 'team spirit' - the victories in aerial combat had to be his! Some aces pushed claims to this end.

"..there were essentially two types of pilot. In the first category were those who were already relatively experienced. They would reveal nothing about how to engage in combat or shoot. We were in the second - just kids who had to try and acquire the experience. This is why my first successes happened relatively late on, after I had flown a lot and observed a lot.."

Uffz. Eduard Isken, 7./JG 77

Above; Nowotny in front of 3./JG 54 'Yellow 2' - he made his first claim with this Staffel.

While Luftwaffe fighter aces enjoyed 'celebrity status' - none more so than Nowotny, a 250-victory Russian Front ace with JG 54 - their political leaders were happy to keep them on a "loose leash", as long as they produced 'results'. But when Nowotny was appointed to head up the Me 262 jet fighter trials unit, one of the first to complain was Messerschmitt himself - Nowotny was not up to the task (see Boehme for more..) While mass production of the Me 262 had started in the summer of 1944 hardly any pilots had been trained to fly it by the time of the Allied Normandy landings. The first operational deployment of the Me 262 was chaotic - the first hurriedly trained jet bomber pilots of the Einsatzkommando I./KG 51 (otherwise known as Kommando Schenk) arrived in northern France in late August 1944. The first Me 262 jet bomber sorties were flown piecemeal against troop concentrations along the banks of the river Seine from 25 August 1944 before the survivors began falling back to Holland a matter of weeks later in September 1944.  And while it may seem unfair to blame Nowotny for this state of affairs the point is this; a number of fighter aces enjoyed reputations that were 'artificially' boosted (..by German propaganda) and which are repeated endlessly in the literature  - even today - but which do not always stand up to examination. Not surprisingly certain Luftwaffe officers were promoted to command positions who were not up to the tasks of leadership, neither in terms of character nor in terms of intellect.

As the war progressed and the numbers of inexperienced pilots increased and the numbers of 'super' aces decreased, the Luftwaffe's fighter ace 'model' could obviously not be sustained. In his history of JG 53 Jochen Prien discusses the Luftwaffe leadership's reaction to the aces 'failure' to halt the invasion of Sicily. The Luftwaffe hierarchy was quick to adopt a more repressive stance towards their fighter pilots - including courts martial - as soon as 'results' failed to materialize. Galvanising pilots - who naturally wanted to keep their jobs and to stay on the 'right' side of their superiors - may have led -dangerously- to claim 'inflation' and, as mentioned, may even be seen to have skewed the fighting efficiency of the Jagdwaffe as a whole.

More on this blog;

"Walter Dahl - his aircraft and his (inflated) claims" here

"JG 2 vs the RAF 1941 - Luftwaffe fighter ace claims and credits" here

"Aces of Aces -Erich Hartmann - 352 victories or 80? " here

Jochen Prien writes a response to this post. Read it here

" Göring's pill " - stimulant use and alcohol abuse in the Luftwaffe

A new translation of German writer Norman Ohler’s "astonishing account" of methamphetamine addiction in the Third Reich "Der totale Rausch: Drogen im Dritten Reich" has recently been published in English. "Blitzed" details the Wehrmacht's apparently extensive drug and amphetamine use - but doesn't go into much detail on alcohol abuse. The sheer numbers of people serving must have included many who took refuge in drink, especially considering the pressures they were under. While something of an overlooked area of inquiry, it is not one that is entirely unknown. For example, Ernst Stilla's PhD doctoral thesis, the "Luftwaffe in the battle for air supremacy over Europe" **** (see link below) also looks at a variety of 'Human Factors' that are very rarely covered in the literature relating to the Luftwaffe, including alcohol and stimulant use and occasional abuse. And while this subject is rarely touched upon anywhere, it does crop up fairly often in memoirs and personal accounts. As one noted Luftwaffe author put it me " No one thought in units-per-week then. Nor were there any pills for post-traumatic stress syndrome, even if such a thing was recognised, which I doubt it was.." So while we should perhaps not apply contemporary standards of responsible drinking to the behaviour of all-male groups 70 years ago, under constant threat and not expecting to live long, there does appear to have been a culture of alcohol and stimulant use in the Luftwaffe - especially in 1943-45 as the general war situation deteriorated sharply. The drunken party in the Reichskanzlei in "Downfall" comes to mind — that actually happened as far as I am aware. Phrases like "nervous exhaustion" may have been euphemisms for some of the spells at Bad Wiessee where people were sent to 'dry out'. It probably goes without saying that all of this probably had a deleterious effect on performance.

 The subject is thus both a delicate and intricate one. It is difficult to discuss without veering into slanderous territory both as far as the reasons and the consequences are concerned. It was originally prompted as far as this blog is concerned by a question in Professor Skawran's book (German psychologist who wrote a study of the personal characteristics of a group of German ace fighter pilots), specifically, how was 'free-time' organised in flying units? According to Skawran " in den meisten Verbänden „im Allgemeinen beim Alkohol, Spiel, Kabarett und Kino“..In other words, in the list of favoured past times enjoyed by Luftwaffe personnel, Skawran notes that alcohol comes top. Alcohol intake to excess appears to have been commonplace across all ranks- the memoirs of unit leaders hardly differ from those of sergeants, NCOs or Corporals. Dean Andrew went into more detail in a Defence Studies article "Strategic culture in the Luftwaffe" (2004) ;


"...Leisure time was spent on individual activities such as horse‐riding, or hunting, abseiling or driving fast cars (quickly). To a man (Luftwaffe)  fighter pilots enjoyed skiing – even those from northern Germany were keen winter sportsmen and all had a love of pure flying. Comparative research shows that in contrast to day bomber, night fighter and transport pilots, who saw their role as procedural in nature, Jagdflieger had a passion for aerobatics. There was very little interest in team related sports. In line with the Nazi Party ethos of developing a strong Aryan race, organised squadron sporting activities were based on individual prowess, such as swimming, athletics or shooting...."

" ...The Jagdflieger had a love of good food and of quality wine and spirits. Whenever poor weather or the operational tempo permitted, pilots would frequent high quality restaurants, eat expensive local delicacies and drink the best alcohol available. Adapting to the local tastes was something the pilots loved doing. On evenings off the Jagdflieger - who considered themselves as elite, and conducted themselves accordingly- would rarely socialise in large crowds, preferring small groups of two or three. Pilots drank heavily but were rarely drunk in public, indeed sobriety was an essential ingredient in another of the pilot’s favourite pastimes – flirting...."

 Drinking and boozing to excess could in fact take place in all conceivable situations; in periods of extremely tough front line service just as in times of rest and refit. Some men were drinking to overcome their fear, others to suppress the stress for a short while or the sadness caused by the loss of a close friend. Or out of sheer boredom. It was not just dreadful losses that would provide an excuse for a drink - it was victories, birthdays, bad flights, good flights, promotions, or a transfer by train rather than by aircraft. Bad weather could also be a good reason to head for the Kasino..

This from the late [Leutnant] Willy Ferling of NSG 9: ".. Ferried a Ju 87 over the Alps to Villafranca. Absolutely dreadful flight: no wireless operator, no radio contact, darkness coming on, fuel getting down to the dregs. Fireworks from the aerodrome saved machine and pilot. Fortunately, back with the old crowd and comrades … getting totally plastered..." (courtesy of Nick Beale)

And how different would that have been from what young men did in civilian life anyway? Just a somewhat heightened version, as the following anonymous account of 'high jinks' in NSG 9 makes clear;

 "..One evening we were already lying in our beds in the dormitory, our machine pistols hanging at the bed ends. [Fhr. Bernd] Jungfer comes into the room, grabs himself a machine pistol, aims at the lamp! "Stop! Quit messing around!" A salvo — lights out and darkness — lamp done for — holes in the ceiling. Next day, a visit from the Staffelkapitän, perhaps [it was] Hptm. Reither. Makes his way through the room, looks at the ceiling — Oh, Jesus! — sees the damage, walks on and says not a word. Well, well! "

Excessive drinking is mentioned in quite a lot of publications and memoirs - Heinz Knoke in his " I flew for the Führer" was one of the first to describe several incidents of boozing to excess.

" Als der Kommandeur wieder draussen ist, hole ich eine Flasche Cognac aus dem Schrank. Nach zwei Stunden hole ich die zweite...der Alkohol laesst uns die vergangenen Wochen vergessen..."

"..when the Kommandeur had gone I fetched a bottle of Cognac from the cupboard. Two hours later I got a second bottle...the alcohol helped us forget the past few weeks.."

In his memoir, the picture that Steinhoff paints of his leaving do as Geschwaderkommodore in late 1944 speaks for itself:

 "...It stank like a pub and the beer bottles were lined up in batteries on the table. Lutzow (former inspector of fighter pilots) lay sprawled outstretched in a chair and painted shapes with his index finger in the spilled liquor on the table top .. "

 And in Dickfeld, 'Footsteps of the hunter' ;

 ".. We got tanked yesterday as we do every night. Female companions ? We have neither the time nor the desire. The 'cat' in the morning is almost normal ( the 'cat' = der Kater. Slang expression for 'hangover' ). Last night they came again, replenishment for the fallen, wounded and missing of the previous day.. "

Kommodore Galland explained to his biographers how 'bad weather' provided the opportunity to spend time in the bars of Lille or Paris. Their evening trips out meant an admittedly brief but priceless respite from the war zone. But as Mahurin writes in 'Hitler's fall guys"; ".. the men drank whatever was available in the country where stationed and, since France and Italy accounted for much of the fighter activity, there was plenty of wine. (…) In the fighter arm drinking was the cause of most of the disciplinary problems..."

You will certainly find several alcohol-related incidents mentioned in the unit histories of JG 1, JG 11, JG 53 and JG 77 by Prien and Rodeike. These have mostly not been previously translated so I have picked out just one 'incident' as follows;

The evening of 20 May and morning of 21 May 1944 were long remembered by the pilots of II./JG 11. Because weather forecasts for 21 May warned of complete cloud cover over the whole of Germany, Oblt. Walter Krupinski decided to take advantage of this situation and arrange a slap-up dinner to celebrate his appointment as Kommandeur of II Gruppe. Uffz. Rudolf Strosetzki recalled:

  “...We partied until dawn and most of our pilots, especially the officers, got quite drunk. We suddenly heard a roar of aircraft engines - and realized that our black men were readying our aircraft, the fitters warming up our engines to prepare them for a sortie. The noise and the realization of an impending mission brought us brutally back to the present. We slouched along to the Gruppe command post where we learned that we were immediately to fly to the airfield of Burgh, where we were to stay at readiness for a sortie in cooperation with I./JG 3. Before being dispatched to Burg we all drank enormous amounts of coffee to sober ourselves up. “We have never seen a better formation take-off ” or so our technicians told us later. Well, it was the alcohol!” Having taken off, two pilots forgot to retract their undercarriage. Calling them by radio did not help at all, since neither of them had turned it on, given that they were suffering from terrible hangovers and any further noise would have caused them even greater suffering. Nevertheless, we landed without incident in Burg. Some of our pilots, however, to the astonishment of our I./JG 3 colleagues, climbed down from their cockpits, and disappearing slyly behind the tails of their fighters, promptly threw up....”

 This story is continued in Fw. Emil Bernd’s diaries; “As the most experienced Schwarmführer of 6. Staffel I flew with six machines to Burg near Magdeburg. After a smooth landing I reported to Oblt. Krupinski; ” 6. Staffel with six machines, combat ready, one pilot indisposed! ” Ofhr. Grill was holding tightly to his port wing, throwing up his dinner eaten that previous evening in our mess. Krupinski, who was still in his cockpit in his pyjamas and parachute –which was all he was wearing- ordered a fitter standing close by,.. "Run over to Hptm. Mertens (I./JG 3 Kommandeur) and fetch me a uniform.."

As one pilot account in Lorant/Goyat's history of leading Reichs Defence Geschwader JG 300 makes clear "..how could anyone refuse anything to men who perhaps only had a few hours to live ? " One of the leading fighter pilots in the Defence of the Reich during the summer of 1944 was Konrad Bauer; his Fw 190 A-8 “Red 3”, without doubt the most effective Focke-Wulf of II./JG 300 during the summer of 1944, quickly acquired a certain celebrity. The inscription "Kornjark" (or 'Cognac') was displayed on the port fuselage side as seen in the colorised photo below;

His wingman, Lt. Hans-Dieter Oehm, described him thus;

 " ...Konrad Bauer had next to no military bearing whatsoever. Undeniably the Defence of the Reich never exactly model soldiers, especially when it came to dress code and conforming with regulations. But it was in these areas that “Pitt” managed to outdo everyone. It is a fact that no disciplinary charges were ever leveled against him but was quite easy to understand why: he was one of the most formidable sharpshooters in the Gruppe.......you can imagine how he conducted himself and the effect this had on the young pilots who saw in him the archetypal fighter pilot. His behaviour was quite inappropriate. Above all he drank far more than was good for him, both before and after sorties… which did not seem to affect his abilities as a pilot! At the time I was rather lacking in maturity and could be counted among his admirers. He had come from Jagdgeschwader 51 Mölders and had brought down a considerable number of Soviet aircraft in a short space of time. He seemed just as sure of himself against the Americans. How could you fail to admire him? During the brief time I flew as his wingman, he taught me lots of very useful tricks for getting out of tight corners. I can recall one amusing detail. He had christened his 190 “Kornjark”. The inscription was emblazoned in highly visible letters on the fuselage. On my “Red 5”, I had the name “Schnarps” painted. This obviously stood for “Schnaps”. Whenever we landed at other strips after a sortie, we were always questioned about these inscriptions. With great aplomb, Bauer would always reply that they were 'not Nordic Christian names but spirits' - which of course was not entirely untrue….."

There is some evidence to indicate that even as the experienced Jagdflieger and Verbandsführer- what Stilla calls the Stammpersonal - were being entrusted with ever greater numbers of inexperienced Nachwuchs to mentor and to lead into battle and achieving even poorer results, then their own inability to evacuate the consequent heightened stress took its toll too. Anton Wöffen in his memoir "Ich war kein Jagdflieger As" describes as StaKa of 6./JG 27 having to curtail sorties due to being ill in the cockpit - throwing up on two occasions in one day following a particularly heavy drinking session. Drinking to forget losses and evacuating stress  through 'high jinks' - was most probably a consequence not the cause. The point about high alcohol consumption through the ranks leading to a decline in discipline is more than probably a consequence of the excessive losses of 'old hands' and the absence of authority figures who could maintain unit cohesion. But with increasing numbers of new and poorly trained replacement pilots arriving in front-line units it was a vicious circle - drinking led to a decline in fighting efficiency and spirit which led to more drinking. From Hubert Heckmann (II./JG 1) quoted in Prien/Rodeike, Jagdgeschwader 1 und 11, Teil 3: 1944-1945

" Die Staffeln (...) bestanden zu einem sehr starken Teil aus ehemaligen Mehrmotflugzeugführern,die zwischenzeitlich auf einmot umgeschult hatten, und aus vielen Neulingen. Es war nicht mehr so heimelig und kameradschaftlich wie früher, eine rechte Stimmung kam nicht auf und es wurde sehr viel getrunken .."

"..The Staffeln comprise mostly former multi-engine (bomber and transport) pilots retrained on fighters or new young pilots just out of training school. The atmosphere was no longer homely, there was little or no sense of comradeship as earlier - but there was an awful lot of drinking.."

These Nachwuchs have related some hair-raising stories; to (slightly mis-) quote Hubert Heckmann again , "...enemy to the left, enemy to the right, the way to ensure survival was to bale out if there was any risk of joining combat..better to be a coward for five minutes than dead for the rest of your life.."

  In the specific case of Germany in the later years of the war, a wider understanding by the pilots of the nature of the regime that they were fighting for was probably an additional factor fracturing morale and leading some individuals to take solace in drink - the rise of "Wehrgeistige Führung" officers and later NSFOs could be a trigger for some of this.

 Oblt. Fritz Wegner of II./JG 1 recalled the Bodenplatte briefing on New Year's Eve 1944 in Prien/Rodeike JG 1 und 11 (Teil 3) - " dass „alle Feinde am 1. Januar noch vom Feiern betrunken [seien], und daher (...) dies der geeignete Jahresauftakt [sei]. Man wusste offenbar nicht, dass Amis und Tommies nicht so feiern wie wir!“

 "..we were told that the enemy would still be out of it on New Year's Day after the revelries ..What we didn't know was that the Amis and the Tommies just didn't party like we did.."

Göring's Pill - an account by Karl Nitschke of Wekusta 2 (extracted from Pierre Babin's 'Wekusta 2', Heimdal, 2016)

".. the majority of the sorties I flew with my crew were long range over the ocean. Our Wekusta 2 machines took off from the Atlantic coast heading towards the north of Ireland, a relatively short distance for today's jets but a flight of several hours for our Ju 88s. Getting airborne from Nantes we would usually be feeling okay but by the time we arrived off the coast of Ireland fatigue would start to set in. To combat this the Luftwaffe High Command had decided that in each aircraft a small stock of very effective stimulants would be available - Pervitin or similar. It was up to the individual crew member whether or not he availed himself of this. In my case I would take a pill when we reached Ireland. As pilot and aircraft commander I could not take the risk of having my performance impaired by tiredness. So I'd swallow a pill with a drink. It was enough to perk me up for some of the sometimes critical remaining moments of the sortie. The other crew members would do likewise if they felt that they needed to. Basically the pills were taken to keep us going through the mission all the way back to Nantes. By the time we were approaching Nantes to land at the end of the sortie fatigue was intense and, the effects of the first pill having virtually worn off, I'd swallow a second pill. You have to understand that a cup of coffee couldn't do what the pills did. Were there any side effects?Difficult to say.. possibly. I will state though that taking Göring's pill hasn't stopped me reaching 93 years of age.."

Below; Pervitin. Benzadrine pills, an amphetamine - these were also given by the USAF to P-51 pilots; eg flying VLR sorties (Very Long Range) from Okinawa. RAF aircrew survival kits contained two packets of benzedrine tablets, clearly labelled as such. Crew bailing out at sea were to use them to stay awake so they could spot an ASR plane and fire a flare...but evaders on land used them to stay awake as long as possible to put as much distance as possible between themselves and where they came down. If Benzedrine was designed to keep combatants awake, it no doubt left them rather 'twitchy'. Alcohol must have had a calming effect in this circumstance and helped in 'winding down'.

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" Die Luftwaffe im Kampf um die Luftherrschaft. Entscheidende Einflussgrößen bei der Niederlage der Luftwaffe im Abwehrkampf im Westen und über Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Faktoren „Luftrüstung“, „Forschung und Entwicklung“ und „Human Ressourcen " available as a PDF download from the University of Bonn's website here http://hss.ulb.uni-bonn.de/2005/0581/0581.htm

Pilot training in the Luftwaffe - flight discipline, pilot culture and the development of procedures and check lists - "Why Air Forces Fail " (2)

“Mister Steinhoff, you might be a hero but your instrument flying is lousy!”

 (US instructor to Oberst Johannes Steinhoff -176 aerial victories - after a jet training sortie post-war)

The Germans have a reputation for being orderly and efficient in everything they do. In reality they were/are probably very far from this idealised image. (2015's VW scandal and Merkel's recent decision making in the current European migrant crisis are good and very recent examples of this 'indiscipline' !) This is especially true of flight training and attitudes to flying in the war-time Luftwaffe. Although the Germans started the war with a cadre of well-trained, even experienced pilots, training was to become " the Luftwaffe's greatest failure.." (James S. Corum in 'Why Air Forces fail' p219) In general terms it is probably true to say that the majority of Luftwaffe pilots were technically rather poorer than their counterparts in other air forces, certainly in comparison with USAF, RAF and even Soviet pilots the longer the war continued. As the war progressed the large disparity in training time between Allied and German schools grew - Corum goes so far to state that by 1944 ..." replacement pilots in the Luftwaffe were so poorly trained they did not need Allied fighters to bring them down in large numbers.. " ('Why Air Forces Fail' p221).  Inexperienced or poorly trained pilots could not cope with engine failures, rough field takeoffs or landings, bad weather or heavy cloud cover..

The problem with pilot training in the Luftwaffe from the outset was linked to that of culture and discipline. Two studies look at aspects of indiscipline in flight training and pilot culture in the wartime Luftwaffe. Ernst Stilla's PhD doctoral thesis on the "Luftwaffe in the battle for air supremacy over Europe" looks at the factors in the defeat of the Luftwaffe in the defensive battles in the West and over Germany, with particular consideration given to research and production, technical development and " human factors", such as pilot training. Elsewhere US academic Roger Bohn's study 'Not flying by the book' looks at the adoption of better flying methods and procedures, especially check-lists during WWII and post-war up to the adoption of the Standard Flying Procedure system and is a very useful read for non-linguists as it exploits parts of Stilla's dissertation. The 'human factor' in flying is of course an important cause in accidents - the wartime Luftwaffe lost literally thousands of aircraft through non-combat causes. In February 1944 alone over one thousand Luftwaffe aircraft were lost in accidents, a good proportion of which were " considered due to inadequate training.." (Boog quoted in Isby 'The decisive duel'  p361)..

Faced with the development of increasingly more complex aircraft during WW II and the training of huge numbers of new pilots to fly them, some air forces recognised that standardised procedures and check-lists had to be drawn-up to maintain and increase military effectiveness. Few air forces though did this. The Luftwaffe certainly did not, and the 'culture' of this organisation simply would not have allowed it - quite the opposite. Accidents and surviving them were almost a badge of honour for the pilots. This had little to do with the intensity of the war in the air - Werner Mölders noted as early as 1935 in his diary that there were very many accidents due to lack of discipline, and Galland's biographers noted that accidents among the 'macho' German fighter jocks were a daily occurrence in 1938.

Pre-war, in Spain, and during the early years of WW II, the Luftwaffe was heavily dominated by individualistic fighter pilots. While experienced pilots valued their 'autonomy', free of the constraints of 'rigid discipline' and had developed their own 'flight craft' and decision-making skills to fall back on, newer pilots did not have this luxury.  Accidents " were common and accepted .. there were few procedures, no checklists and little written documentation.." (Roger Bohn -see below) Gunther Rall's account of converting onto the Luftwaffe's standard fighter - the Messerschmitt Bf 109-  is revealing - while he had almost 200 hours of flight time,  he was operating without any checklist, not even a simple memorised checklist as used in the RAF. The Bf 109 may have been one of the best fighter aircraft in the world in 1940, but it was a pretty unforgiving machine;

" ...its spindly narrow-track undercarriage is actually much too weak to cope with the enormous torque, rate of yaw, and turbulence of the airscrew. Take-off accidents are therefore commonplace, not just in the training schools, but also among front-line units... And once in the air the pilot still has his hands more than full: the undercarriage must be retracted...before a certain airspeed is reached, engine and propeller have to be set manually to cruise, the flaps cranked up by a large hand-wheel....and the now tail-heavy bird....trimmed for level flight..... [A few moments later].... frantically carrying out in reverse order everything that they had somehow successfully managed to do at take-off. It is advisable under such circumstances not to mix up, let alone forget, any of the actions described above, for the Messerschmitt is no docile carthorse, but a highly-strung thoroughbred. If the propeller pitch is not reduced in time, any attempt to go round again will end in a crash beyond the airfield perimeter. If the undercarriage has not been lowered, because the pilot has never before needed to lower an undercarriage in his life, he'll at least get down on the field, but in a resounding belly-landing .... But even then the Messerschmitt still has a few more tricks up its sleeve. If the stick is not held firmly back after touchdown, or if the pilot tramps a little too heavily on the brakes, a somersault is almost inevitable...."

It is striking to note that high accident rates in the Luftwaffe were mostly not the result of combat. In his study Ernst Stilla (see below) quotes Milch who - in early 1943 - complained to the leadership about 'declining aviation discipline' and highlighted loss rates during transfer (long-distance change of base) flights, which had risen to some 20% damaged or destroyed (during the period May-September 1942). In comparison overall American losses during transport flights from the US across the Atlantic Ocean in September 1944 - a journey of several thousand kilometres - were just six aircraft out some 1,200!

In retrospect, the situation cried out for checklists and standardised procedures but Luftwaffe commanders saw little or no use for such developments - one Luftwaffe General, Walther Wever, had famously died in 1936 piloting his own aircraft, having forgotten to remove the external gust locks. The Wever crash was the putative spur to the USAF’s invention of aviation checklists. But this crucial aspect in the management of technological change in aviation was entirely neglected by the Luftwaffe. The 'technology' was not even "classified" and could have been copied easily. In the US, 'Life' Magazine ran an article on the B-17 checklist in 1942, and by the mid-war years American aircraft shot down over Germany carried checklists in various formats.

One important area where the Luftwaffe also and critically failed to adopt 'best practise' was in the area of instrument training. The Luftwaffe was primarily a "fair-weather" air force in 1940, and it remained such throughout the war. Only the desperate expedient of putting bomber pilots trained on instruments into fighters from spring 1943 - the so-called wilde Sau fighters - enabled the Luftwaffe to deploy fighter aircraft to intercept bombers in bad weather. The day fighter arm was troubled by bad weather through the war. As General der Jagdflieger this was one of Adolf  Galland's biggest mistakes according to Caldwell;

 " ..he did not realise the need for instrument training for single-engine day fighter pilots until it was too late. His attitude was typical of the macho prewar  fighter jock. Fight over the Reich? Against planes that fly in clouds? What nonsense! "

This was an area where Luftwaffe pilots were at a severe disadvantage as the air war intensified as Steinhoff pointed out;

  “..very frequently fighting took place over long distances above cloud cover, and the completely disoriented fighters had to go below the deck and attempt to land wherever they could. Together with insufficient navigational aids, this resulted in many additional losses and a wide scattering of our aircraft. "

By late 1943 the Luftwaffe had lost most of its original complement of pilots. In the first six months of 1943, Germany lost 1,100 fighter pilots, which was about 60% of the number at the start of the year. It lost another 15 percent in each of July and August. It is interesting to note that of the 100+ Luftwaffe 'aces' credited with over 100 victories during WW II only eight of them started their flying career after 1942. The high pilot losses had two disastrous effects. First, even if they had been well trained, newer pilots were inexperienced and inevitably sustained more accidents and combat casualties than the pilots they replaced. Aside from the fact that the Luftwaffe's leadership expected every campaign to be a short one and for many of them stripped training schools of experienced instructors, pilot training programmes in the Luftwaffe were heavily curtailed. Already in early 1944, the Luftwaffe fighter pilot training was shortened to an average of 160 flight hours. A few weeks later, it was further shortened to only 112 hours. Finally, in the spring of 1944, the B flight schools were disbanded, and the pilots were sent into first-line service directly after A schools. The condition for the A2 flight certificate included a basic training of sixty training flights with a total of 15 flight hours. Meanwhile, the average USAAF or RAF fighter pilot's training consisted of 225 flight hours. German survival rates correspondingly reached a nadir. During the first five months of 1944 Luftwaffe fighter units underwent a complete turnover of pilots so that the German achievements in production during 1944 were entirely hollow.

As Bob Goebel pointed out in his memoir 'Mustang Ace', all fighter pilots - certainly all US P-51 pilots - could probably fly well. But while only relatively few could shoot well, in the Luftwaffe, Nachwuchs or new growth pilots-at the controls of their high-powered and heavily armed Bf 109s-could do neither. In his two volume history of the leading Luftwaffe Defence of the Reich fighter Geschwader JG 300, Jean-Yves Lorant noted that " ..the average life expectancy of a JG 300 pilot for the last year of the war amounted to just 11 hours of flying - barely four sorties..including check and ferry flights.." So while there was almost no fuel for training, there were plenty of aircraft, so the Luftwaffe kept sending pilots up to be slaughtered. Bohn argues that better training procedures could have prevented many deaths and at the very least would have facilitated the rapid training of large numbers of new pilots. In the end, improvisation and then desperation dominated. The ideological image of the fanatical fighter - which led to the creation of 'specialist' ramming units - had increasingly overtaken professional capabilities and skills. Little thought was given to the pilots' lives.

With the post-war establishment of the Bundesluftwaffe ,German vets were sceptical and ambivalent towards American training procedures, once again highlighting the war-time Luftwaffe's indifference to training and accidents; despite good language training, the German pilots had difficulty adapting to American  training procedures -  learning by rote, repetition, and precise implementation of standard check lists. This was in stark contrast to the experiences of the German veterans. The longer the war had lasted,the shorter and less professional the German pilot training had become. Shortages of fuel due to bombing and Soviet recapture of oil fields also forced reductions in flight training hours with dramatic consequences.
Günther Rall gives a balanced evaluation, writing many years after his retraining.Here is his colourful comparison of checklists with Catholic religious rituals.

" ...Then, on 19 Sept 1956, I am at last once again strapped into a proper aircraft: a North American T-6.... And on my knees, for the first time in my flying career, I have a check-list. On this the Americans have set down, step by step, every action that has to be taken to get the T-6 into the air and then back down again. The list is arranged in handy sections and anyone who doesn't carry out all the moves and checks in exactly the right sequence is automatically flunked, despite the fact that he might be a hundred times more efficient by doing things in his own individual way. Procedures and checks do for US pilot training what the rosary and litany do  for the devout Catholic -- more in fact: if employed with sufficient ardor, both will get you into heaven, but only the former will return you to earth afterwards. It takes some little while before I learn to appreciate the benefits of this system that at first sight seems so rigid and stupid. Anyone who knows his procedures and has the acronyms in his head to call them up, can hardly go wrong even in the most difficult situations..."

..and that last sentence is -in a nutshell- why there is a Standard Flying Procedure today....

Sources for this blog post;

James S. Corum in " Why Air Forces Fail - The defeat of the Luftwaffe 1935-45 "

Ernst Stilla's PhD doctoral thesis on the "Luftwaffe in the battle for air supremacy over Europe" is entitled Die Luftwaffe im Kampf um die Luftherrschaft. Entscheidende Einflussgrößen bei der Niederlage der Luftwaffe im Abwehrkampf im Westen und über Deutschland im Zweiten Weltkrieg unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Faktoren „Luftrüstung“, „Forschung und Entwicklung“ und „Human Ressourcen“ and is available as a PDF download from the University of Bonn's website here
http://hss.ulb.uni-bonn.de/2005/0581/0581.htm

US academic Roger Bohn's study 'Not flying by the book' on the implementation of check lists and procedures in the world's air forces

https://art2science.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/standard-proced-adoption-bohn-2013.pdf#page=80

Aircraft salvage and repair in the Luftwaffe

Simply put, the Luftwaffe was not very good at aircraft salvage. On the offensive during the early stages of the war the Luftwaffe 'existed' to support short sharp land campaigns - a tactical air force operating close to the front  helped maximise sortie rates. It did not require a large salvage organisation. The Luftwaffe's logistics and support operations were designed accordingly. Front-line units only had limited means to repair and rebuild aircraft; damaged aircraft had usually to be entrained for rear area repair facilities which meant that they were out of action for a correspondingly lengthier time frame. In his book 'Unflinching Zeal' Robin Higham indicates that during 1940 the RAF salvaged and repaired some 44% of aircraft 'shot down' compared with just 8% retrieved by the Bergungskommandos (salvage detachments) of the Luftwaffe. As the tide of war turned, aircraft serviceability rates in the Luftwaffe plummeted. Many aircraft  - only slightly damaged or requiring only relatively minor interventions - simply had to be written off. In addition large numbers of Luftwaffe aircraft fell in inaccessible areas - such as the UK or North Africa (see below). On top of this, Luftwaffe losses through accidents and non-combat causes were huge...by way of example over one thousand aircraft were lost in the month of February 1944 alone....some 50% of these were accidents caused by inadequate training. (Boog quoted in Isby p361).

  Given that  the Luftwaffe did not have the resources or a logistics system in place to repair and put aircraft back into service, Luftwaffe serviceability and maintenance rates were considerably lower than that of the Allies; 50-60% compared to 70-80%. (James S. Corum writing in " Why Air Forces Fail ") As the tide of war turned against the Germans " the Luftwaffe's weak repair system ensured the loss of thousands of aircraft.." (Corum p210). As much as one third of the Luftwaffe's losses during 1943-44 was the result of aircraft simply being abandoned. Many airfields over-run by the Allies - for example in North Africa - were little more than dumps..

Below; in the UK 49 Maintenance Unit salvage party retrieving Otto Zauner's II./ JG 53 Emil during late November 1940. More than 90 Bf 109 Emils made successful force landings in the UK during 1940, although some seven of these were partially or wholly destroyed by fire and a number were stripped and appraised at Farnborough.

Oblt. Gunther Bode's Stab I./ JG 27 Emil on display at Stanhay's garage in Ashford, Kent during 1940