“As it stopped, the flames reached above the canopy. I had difficulty in getting out of the right-hand side of the cockpit and, when I had reached a safe distance from the aircraft, my strength gave out and I collapsed and was taken to the hospital. It was not serious, just the initial shock. I was ‘lucky’ again; the Ami or Tommy pilot was either going so fast or had been surprised by my appearance that he had no chance to deliver a 100 percent decisive attack. I survived, and that was my last combat sortie in World War Two.”{17}
Buchner was probably ambushed by either Warrant Officer Ockenden of 130 Squadron who claimed a “probable” or Flight Lieutenant Stowe of 403 Squadron who claimed a jet damaged on the ground. Regardless of who destroyed his jet, Buchner’s war was over. Buchner was not alone, as most of the pilots still able to fly were either short of flyable aircraft or the fuel to fill them. Ammunition supplies had also become a problem, despite the fact that there were warehouses less than forty miles away with both products, driving on the roads was almost suicide by day, and the bombed-out roads were nearly impassable at night.{18}
The only base with an ample supply of materiel was the shared base at Ruzyne, which allowed both III./JG-7 and KG-51 to operate against the Soviets. They destroyed hundreds of aircraft and tanks with their rockets, but nothing could stop the Soviet advance, so on April 27 the unit moved north to Mühldorf in Bavaria. III./JG-7 no longer operated on assigned orders; every pilot who could (or wanted to fly) took off on his own to do what he could.
The last major action for JG-7 occurred on April 28 when the unit engaged Soviet forces in ground attack missions, with ten jets failing to return.{19} Another JG-7 pilot died when Leutnant Ernst-Rudolf Geldmacher was shot down while taking off from Ruzyne. Due to the lack of claims for a jet either damaged or destroyed, Foreman and Harvey came to the logical conclusion that it must have been a Soviet aircraft that made the kill.{20}
April 29 was uneventful for JG-7, and this was also the last roll call for the unit. JG-7 was effectively out of the war, although a few pilots took to the sky on their own volition. JG-7 had no encounters, although KG-54 lost four jets in their fight against the Soviets during ground attacks. The following day, April 30 saw a freie jagd with Leutnant Fritz Kelb of I./JG-7 was killed after being shot up by two fighters of the 358th FG, which was according to Foreman and Harvey, the result of 1st Lt. Joseph Richlitzky and Capt. James H. Hall each claiming a shared damaged jet.
Oberfähnrich Wittbold scored two kills against IL-2s and Oberleutnant Schlüter shot down a Yak-9.{21} I./KG-54 lost another jet due to flak and the pilot was never recovered.{22} No confirmed kills were reported again until Oberleutnant Fritz Stehle, who shot down a Yak-9 over Czechoslovakia, recorded the last kill by an Me 262 on May 8, 1945, at 1600 hours. He had not heard that the war was over. Stehle had given the Parthian shot as JG-7 and the Luftwaffe faded into history, and its pilots and remaining jets fell into captivity and near obscurity.
JG-7 had been the premier jet unit scoring victories against the Allies, but it also became the primary target of Allied fighter pilots. Allied intelligence knew the locations of the airfields, which were relocated occasionally, although photo reconnaissance always provided these new locations in almost daily updates to Allied intelligence officers. By the end of the war most of its pilots were dead, captured, or lingering in hospitals, too badly wounded to fly anymore, thus suffering an ignominious end to a great promising future in aviation history.
As JG-7 died a slow death, a few of its pilots drifted over to a new and exciting, if somewhat belated, jet unit, a new kommando of stars led by their patron saint, a defrocked lieutenant general who was one of only twenty-seven men to wear Germany’s highest decoration for heroism in combat. Their story is also unique and even more so when told in the words of a few of the surviving pilots themselves.
CHAPTER 19
Galland and the Squadron of Experts
Germany may not have won the war, but if they had the Me 262 even a year earlier, it would have been an even more tragic period for us.
JV 44 is established at Brandenburg-Briest with immediate effect. Ground personnel are to be drawn from 16./JG-54, Factory Protection Unit 1 and III./Erg JG-2. The commander of this unit receives the disciplinary powers of a Divisional Commander as laid down in Luftwaffe Order 3/9.17. It is subordinated to Luftflotte Reich and comes under Luftgaukommando III (Berlin). Verband ‘Galland’ is to have a provisional strength of sixteen operational Me 262s and fifteen pilots.
Galland’s JV-44, the legendary “Squadron of Experts,” was established on February 5, 1945. The unit was commanded by its founder, the legendary Generalleutnant Adolf Galland. Hitler had himself given his permission for Galland to organize a small unit to demonstrate the superiority of the Me 262 as a fighter. Adolf Galland had long championed the jet fighter as being the only viable method of challenging the bomber streams pounding Germany and getting through the Allied fighter escorts that outnumbered sometimes fifty to one in the air. Ever since his test flight in 1943, he used every method and contact at his disposal to try to push his plan ahead, as he stated:
“In the previous August 1944 meeting, Speer and I had discussed the critical fuel shortages experienced by the military all over Europe. Speer had just met with Hitler and Göring the previous month, and he was also working on increasing fighter production, and I had previously given him the recommendation that the Me 109 be phased out, and only Fw 190D and the later models be produced as far as conventional aircraft. I also told him, following my first test flight in the Me 262 jet at Rechlin, that this was the fighter we needed to focus upon. This was also the subject of discussion in 1943.
“However, as the world knows, Hitler had other ideas. Göring knew the reality, and he was very excited by the 262, and told me personally that he would see to it we received the new fighter. He read the reports on how and why it was a better fighter. It was not just the faster speed and heavier armament, it was also able to operate on much cheaper and readily available fuel, and did not require the high-octane fuel that the conventional fighters did. Speer also mentioned that, in order to appease Hitler, he would increase construction on the Arado and Heinkel jet models as bombers, allowing us to have the 262 as a fighter.
“Speer and I again met with Hitler, and Speer tried to get him to rescind the order to have the two thousand new fighters just built sent to the Western Front. I agreed, and I explained to Hitler that, given the tactical situation, lack of fuel, few highly qualified and experienced pilots, that the best we could do would be to use these aircraft as a protective force at our critical industries, especially the petroleum and aircraft locations. Speer even gave him the data, which normally Hitler would examine in great detail.