Aircraft of the Aces 025 - Messerschmitt Bf 110 Zerstorer Aces Of World War 2 (1999).pdf

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OSPREY AIRCRAF T OF THE ACES

• 25

Messerschmitt

Bf 110

Zerstörer

Aces

of World War 2

John Weal

SERIES EDITOR: TONY HOLMES

OSPREY AIRCRAF T OF THE ACES • 25

Messerschmitt

Bf 110

Zerstörer

Aces

of World War 2

John Weal

SPREY

PUBLISHING

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

THE EARLY SUCCESSES 6

CHAPTER TWO

FIRST REVERSAL 42

CHAPTER THREE

THE STEADY DECLINE 62

APPENDICES 98

C O L O U R P L AT E S C O M M E N TA R Y 1 0 0

INDEX 105

THE EARLY

SUCCESSES

CHAPTER ONE

or the third time in less than ten minutes a British heavy bomber

filled his sights. Carefully, at little more than wave-top height, the

young leutnant eased his twin-engined Bf 110 up into position

directly astern of the labouring Wellington. There was no sign of life from

the rear turret. He moved in even closer, before opening fire. Flames

erupted from both wings of the stricken bomber as the punctured tanks

spewed fuel. With an almost imperceptible dip of its nose, the Welling-

ton wallowed into the sea and, to use the leutnant’s own words in later

describing the action, ‘immediately sank like a stone’.

He circled the oil slick that marked the bomber’s last resting place on

the sea bed some 25 km off Borkum, westernmost of the German East

Frisian Islands, in a vain search for survivors. A light sea-mist was already

beginning to gather as the dark-green Bf 110 set course for the mainland.

Within 15 minutes the fighter was roaring in low over the hangars of Jever

airfield, its wings rocking to indicate an unprecedented success – three

RAF bombers downed in a single sortie – to the cheering crowds below.

The date was 18 December 1939, and Luftwaffe fighters had just

inflicted a major defeat upon the enemy. In a series of short, sharp clashes

spread over 30 minutes across some 150 km of the North Sea (since

dubbed the ‘Battle of the German Bight’), the defenders claimed the

destruction of no fewer than 38 of the attacking bombers. Although

actual RAF losses were to prove far fewer, they were nonetheless severe

enough to finally convince Bomber Command of the folly of unescorted

daylight attacks on German targets.

The true significance of the 18 December ‘Battle’ has since come to be

measured not in the number of immediate RAF casualties, but in the fun-

damental effect it had on British bombing policy. Henceforth, with but a

few, well-publicised, exceptions, Bomber Command’s offensive against

Germany would be carried out only under the cover of darkness.

Although the defending Luftwaffe fighters had been a mixed force of

Bf 109s and Bf 110s, the latter had played a prominent, if not dominant

part. Thus, the machine which was arguably the most successful fighting

aircraft to emerge from the recent campaign against Poland (and the one

which had certainly been the most respected by its Polish counterparts),

had now – in an entirely new role in defence of the Reich – been instru-

mental in delivering a swingeing, strategic defeat on the RAF. The origi-

nal, somewhat contentious, concept which had given rise to the

Zerstörer

appeared fully vindicated. And the Bf 110’s continued success now

seemed assured . . .

Although the Luftwaffe had first differentiated between

‘leichte’

Jagdgruppen

and

‘schwere’ Jagdgruppen

(i.e. ‘light’ fighter wings and

‘heavy’ fighter wings) as early as 1937, such a distinction initially had

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