Under a Bomber's Moon: The true story of two airmen at war over Germany by Stephen Harris

Author:Stephen Harris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: True Crime/General
ISBN: 978-1-877437-11-3
Publisher: Exisle Publishing
Published: 2008-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

THE HUNTER AS TARGET

The Raf led the Counter-Charge against the German night fighters in a superb, wooden warhorse – the twin-engined Mosquito fighter-bomber. Otto fell prey twice, possibly three times, to attacks by Mosquitoes. The first such encounter, in May 1944, left him badly injured. His squadron had just taken delivery of the revolutionary Heinkel HE219 Uhu, or owl, the best night fighter Germany produced. Otto had recently been appointed technical officer responsible for ensuring the squadron remained in good flying order, so was given the job of testing the new plane. By then thoroughly attuned to the ME110, he did not take immediately to the new HE219. One of the first aircraft to sit forward on a nose wheel, the Heinkel made Otto feel he was pitched forward, almost off balance. Instead of stepping up onto the wing and pulling himself into the cockpit, he scaled a tall ladder that had to be flipped end-over itself, to get into the Heinkel. Once inside, the two crew settled themselves into the world’s first ejector seats, needed to fire the pilot and Bordfunker well clear if baling out, so they would not risk jumping straight into the propellers on the wings mounted high and behind the cabin.

On that first trial flight on 19 May 1944, Otto had put the new plane through its paces in the early hours of the morning, running through the instrumentation routines and, most important, testing how the more sluggish aircraft reacted when thrown about the sky as if during combat. He had just settled on a leisurely course back for base when suddenly crashing and splintering rent the night and the port motor erupted in flames.

‘Enemy night fighter!’ Fred yelled. On reflex, Otto speared the Heinkel steeply down to starboard and shut off the fuel cocks for the burning port engine, hoping to starve the flames of fuel. Despite his efforts to feather, then shut down, the burning engine, it continued to sputter like a giant sparkler. Then the flames swelled more brightly to blaze with the intensity of a rocket’s after-burner. The safety of cloud cover lay well below, seemingly beyond reach as a potential refuge. But, puzzlingly, the unseen enemy night fighter – was it a Mosquito? – had not followed through on the attack.

Otto told Fred he was going to try to make it back to base, but would jettison the canopy in case they had to crash land and make a hurried exit. Otto tried to release the front half of the canopy, expecting it to flip up back on its hinge like a Messerschmitt’s and to be torn free by the slipstream. Instead, it telescoped back on the rear section, but with such suddenness that Otto, his seat raised to allow him to test the gunsight, took a tremendous blow to the forehead, which knocked him senseless and opened up a gushing cut along his hairline. He slumped forward, pushing the Y-shaped yoke forward and sending the Heinkel into a steep dive.

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