Hitler's Jet Plane: The ME 262 Story

by Mano Ziegler

Overview

The first operational military jet in the world, towards the end of the Second World War the ME 262 was to be the German ‘miracle weapon’. Mano Ziegler was involved from its inception and contributed to the design, testing, and training and even served in it operationally.

Could the ME 262 have broken the Allied supremacy in the air? Why did it take so long to come into service and why were hundreds of German pilots sacrificed in developing it? Why did the ME 262 prove not to be the unparalleled success claimed by Goering and why were German cities left dangerously exposed against Allied bombing campaigns? These are only some the important questions this new book answers.

Mano Ziegler, born 7 June 1908, had a lifetime fascination with flight. At the age of eight, he wrote to Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, the famous ‘Red Baron’, asking to be allowed to fly with him. Richthofen even replied, telling him, ‘Yes, we'll fly together!’ When war broke out in 1939 he became a pilot in the Luftwaffe, and from 1943 until the war's end, he flew the Me 163.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781805000211
Publisher:	Pen and Sword
Publication date:	06/30/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	956,502
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Mano Ziegler was a pilot and air craft designer in Nazi Germany.

Table of Contents

Plates 7

About the Author 9

Author's Foreword 10

Acknowledgements 12

Chapter 1 Fritz Wendel - A Test Pilot Possessed 13

Chapter 2 Messerschmitt AG Developments 1926-41 18

Chapter 3 Shortages, Technical Difficulties and the First Me 262 Crash 27

Chapter 4 A Fatal Crash and Hitler's Fatal Decision 42

Chapter 5 The Me 262 as Bomber - The Crucial Lost Year 58

Chapter 6 'Mein Führer, every child can see that that is a fighter and not a bomber!' 71

Chapter 7 Kommando Nowotny - The Sop to Galland 82

Chapter 8 Clashes over the Western Front - Late 1944 113

Chapter 9 The Loss of Nowotny 120

Chapter 10 Rudi Sinner and 1I1/JG7 - Best of All German Jet-fighter Units 132

Chapter 11 III/JG7 - the Last Great Air-battle over the Reich 145

Chapter 12 Last Gestures of Defiance 152

Chapter 13 Kurt Welter - The Most Successful of the Me 262 Aces? 165

Chapter 14 A Last Flight to Cherbourg 173

Chapter 15 Fritz Wendel's Closing Report, 1945 184

Notes 195

Selected Sources 199

Index 201