Messerschmitt Me 262 A-2a

The Me 262 A-2a, christened Sturmvogel ("Storm Bird"), was the definitive fighter-bomber version of Messerschmitt's jet and the direct product of one of the most debated decisions of the air war. Its technical origin lies in the "Jäger u. Jabo" (fighter and fighter-bomber) proposal contained in the September 1943 report, one of several derivatives the company was studying on the Me 262 airframe; its political origin lies in the Insterburg demonstration of 26 November 1943, when Hitler asked Willy Messerschmitt whether the aircraft could carry bombs. Messerschmitt, who had already looked into the question, said yes, and Hitler made series production conditional on the aircraft being used chiefly as a bomber: the "Blitzbomber" that he believed would let him strike the expected Allied invasion on the beaches.

The order produced nothing for months. In May 1944, on discovering that no Me 262 existed in bomber configuration and that nobody had told him, Hitler flew into a rage, stripped Erhard Milch of much of his authority and, on 27 May, ordered that the Me 262 be regarded strictly as a fighter-bomber, although a few days later he allowed fighter testing to continue as long as it did not delay deliveries of the "Jabo" version. Messerschmitt then improvised a solution on the tenth prototype, the V10: two pylons under the nose, each for a 250 kg bomb, plus an extra fuel tank in the rear fuselage; to compensate for the weight, two of the nose cannon and most of the cockpit armour plating were removed. The result was clearly an improvisation, and since Arado was already working on an optimised jet bomber, the Ar 234, the Sturmvogel could only serve as an interim solution.

This was the birth of the production A-2a configuration. It was very similar to the A-1a fighter, but featured ventral bomb racks capable of carrying two 250 kg or 500 kg bombs, and the upper pair of MK 108 cannon was deleted for balance; some aircraft retained their empty upper gun ports in the nose. The "Jabo" equipment (bombsights and bomb racks) also existed as the R6 field modification kit applicable to other sub-types. Two developments were tried on this basis: a single A-2a/U1 fitted with an improved TSA bombsight, and two A-2a/U2 prototypes with a glazed nose to accommodate a prone bombardier, in search of the accuracy that a lone pilot, with his limited view of the ground, could not achieve. Neither went beyond the experimental stage. The A-2a airframe, with its wings and tail, was also to be the basis of the P.1099A multirole project of January 1944, which was never built.

The first unit was Erprobungskommando Schenk, formed in late June 1944 from a detachment of Kampfgeschwader 51 "Edelweiss" under Major Wolfgang Schenk, which converted to the jet at Lechfeld. The first nine A-2as were transferred to Châteaudun, France, on 20 July 1944, the same day as the bomb attempt on Hitler at the Wolf's Lair, to oppose the "real" invasion still expected in the Pas de Calais. Only five arrived, and their efforts were hobbled by an order from the Führer that they not fly faster than 750 km/h or dive below 4,000 m, which made accurate bombing almost impossible. The Sturmvogel pilots accomplished little, fell back with the German retreat to Chièvres, Belgium, and on 28 August suffered their only combat loss in France, when P-47Ds flown by Joseph Myers and Manfred Croy of the 78th Fighter Group brought down the aircraft of Sergeant Major Hyronimus Lauer west of Brussels: the first Me 262 to be claimed by Allied fighters. With the invasion now history, Hitler rescinded the order to focus solely on the "Jabo", while still insisting that any fighter be easily convertible to that configuration at short notice.

From its base at Rheine-Hopsten, near Osnabrück, III./KG 51 continued attacks on Allied airfields in the Netherlands: one of its A-2as was shot down on 26 November 1944 by a Bofors gun of 2875 Squadron RAF Regiment over the forward airfield of Helmond, near Eindhoven, in what one account regards as the first confirmed kill of an Me 262; others were lost to ground fire on 17 and 18 December. On 1 October 1944 KG 54 became the second bomber wing to receive A-2as; it was not combat-ready until mid-December, when it made desultory attacks on American ground targets in the Ardennes. On 9 February 1945, with Allied air superiority now overwhelming, its fighter-bombers joined the interceptors against B-17 formations, downing two at the cost of four pilots; the wing claimed 50 Allied aircraft by war's end, but lost 70 percent of the more than 150 A-2as assigned to it to aerial combat, accidents and attacks on its bases.

The only A-2a whose survival is beyond doubt is Werknummer 500200, "Black X" 9K+XK of KG 51, captured by the British as Air Min 81 and today displayed at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.