[Regarding the R4M rockets] “We had some spectacular missions, especially when we received the R4M air-to-air rockets for our jets. My introduction to the unit was interesting. JV-44 had some success the previous day, when on April 8 Steinhoff shot down a Liberator and Ernst Fährmann shot down two B-17 Flying Fortresses.{6} Steinhoff had come over from JG-7, along with a few of the others, and they had already used the rockets with success even before we were a formed group. Having that experience in the unit was invaluable.{7}
“The first time I saw them work was I think on April 5, 1945, as the unit shot down five heavy bombers. I had recently been made adjutant of the unit, meaning paperwork, which I hated. There were quite a large number of enemy escort fighters around, so that tended to keep you busy in the cockpit. There was no way we were going to dogfight with these Mustangs, Thunderbolts, and Lightnings. We had to just come in fast, hit [the bombers] very hard and then get away very quickly. Once we were at least four to five miles away we could turn back and line up another target. The one great advantage that we had in the 262 over the 109 or 190 was our approach and climbing speed. This was both a positive and a negative thing.
“The other factor that supported our speed when flying ‘clean jets’ was that we were at least one hundred miles per hour faster than the Mustangs and other Allied fighters. They would have to drop from very high altitude, convert that into increased airspeed, and then hope to close in on one of us, and even get a good deflection shot. This was the most common way our jets were shot down, other than being shot up trying to take off or land, when we were very vulnerable and had no maneuverability or speed until about two to three minutes after takeoff. That is a lot of time when you have the enemy on your tail.
“The thirty-millimeter cannons were incredible weapons. It took only a half dozen or so to bring down a heavy bomber if you hit it in the wing root, which weakened the structural integrity of the aircraft, and also housed fuel cells. Just one explosive shell could bring down a fighter. When thinking back about those days, I never really had much fear in flying the jet even against such large numbers of enemies. Well, that was until I decided to land once after a mission. The one thing you had to be aware of was the fact that the Allied fighter pilots would use two methods of getting you once you broke off combat.{8}
“The next day [April 17] I took off with Galland, Steinhoff, Grünberg, and others, and I attacked a B-17 formation targeting Munich. We scored hits, and one of our pilots collided with a B-17, which I think was Eduard Schallmoser, taking it down, and I managed to hit another B-17 myself, but it did not go down. I did not see this collision between Schallmoser and the bomber, but Steinhoff radioed this information to us.
“On the day Steinhoff crashed, his flight of six jets was commanded by Galland. Other pilots that day, including me, were Hein Wübke, Gerd Barkhorn, then with three hundred victories, ‘the Rammer’ Eduard Schallmoser [so named for his penchant for ramming his jet into enemy bombers once his ammunition ran out], Ernst Fährmann, Klaus Neumann, and Heinz Bär, who had sixteen kills in the jet, and myself were all either taking off for a bomber-intercept mission or preparing to go on the second mission on the morning of April 18, 1945.
“The reason Steinhoff crashed was that the previous day we had an American bombing raid on our field, and there were still a few potholes in the grass strip, bomb fragments scattered about, and although the men were trying to patch them up as well as possible, some remained filled with water and were sometimes hard to see. There had not been much damage inflicted upon the planes or the fuel depot, although one of the barracks took a hit and had some damage.”{9}
The one thing that all the jet pilots faced was not just the enemy fighter streaking down to kill them landing or taking off or strafing their aircraft on the runway. The bombing raids that damaged and destroyed aircraft also damaged the runways, making them treacherous and just as dangerous as the enemy, as Krupinski stated:
“All of us felt that we were only a thread away from a similar fate [as Steinhoff] after that accident, as well as the later loss of Günther Lützow [who went missing on April 24], and others too numerous to list. Steinhoff suffered for many years with many surgeries after the war, but his strength of character and determination to survive pulled him through. I give his wife, Ursula, a lot of credit, as she was his strength during those tough years.
“Bär actually shot down two Thunderbolts on the mission that day, and he said that he would gladly give them back if he could trade them for Macky. Normally, we would celebrate victories, but no one felt like saying or celebrating anything. I would have to say that Steinhoff’s crash dropped our morale, and Lützow’s failure to return from a mission the following week plummeted our morale even further. Then Galland being wounded a few days later, and Barkhorn being injured and out of the war pretty much closed the door on JV-44.
“Although I scored one hundred ninety-seven victories in the war, I was only able to confirm two of them in the 262, with a third bomber claimed as a probable. This was on the April 16 mission with Galland, Steinhoff, Lützow, Bär, Barkhorn, Schallmoser, and I think Fährmann. There are probably many pilots who damaged enemy bombers that later crashed, but without verification on the ground or in the air these were not counted.
“I need to say something about some of the pilots in JV-44. [Gottfried] Fährmann [four kills in the jet] keeps coming to mind, along with Schallmoser, who was successful, but he was also a rammer, bringing his bombers down by crashing into them sometimes. These guys were just a different cut of the cloth. Günther Lützow was another great man. While not a great ace in the jet, he was an outstanding leader, and a very brave man for many reasons.
“At the end of the war the unit was disbanded. Galland had been badly wounded by a fighter and crashed his 262, but we did not have as near as many losses as, say, JG-7. However, we were also a smaller unit, and did not operate as a unit as long. Some of the JG-7 pilots were recruited by Steinhoff, such as Köster, Lützow, Grünberg, Fährmann, and a few others. These men brought great jet experience with them when Steinhoff brought them in. I still do not know how he and Galland managed to accomplish this, since both of them had fallen from grace with both Göring and Hitler. Steinhoff once said that if you looked a gift horse in the mouth, it was often missing teeth.
“As the war ended, and the fighters were being destroyed, I was captured when the unit surrendered after blowing up the last of our jets, when the Americans were practically rolling onto the airfield with tanks, infantry, everything. An American Intelligence officer found us and took us via Heidelberg to the U.S. Army Air Forces/Royal Air Force interrogation camp in England.”{10}
Retired Brigadegeneral Erich Hohagen also recalled his introduction into JV-44, and gave his thoughts on the unit, the war, and the final days of the Third Reich: “I was in the hospital with Krupinski and some others, when I hear this voice. Then this head looked around the corner; ‘Erich? Are you in there?’ It was Steinhoff. I looked up and said, ‘What in the hell are you doing here, Sir?’ He said, ‘Looking for you, you cripple. Get your things together, you are out of here.’ I laughed and said, ‘And who authorized this?’ Then another voice, Galland, walked in, and I instinctively tried to jump to attention, forgetting that I was not in the best physical shape. They both laughed and came to help me get back up.