One of the most hushed up secrets of the war, back before the surrender
of Japan, was
the damage and inconvenience caused by the suicide-bent Kamikaze pilots of the
Japanese Air Force. Troops who sailed to the invasion of Okinawa remember the
Baka bomb, the winged aerial torpedo with its human pilot. But not until the end of
the war, when intelligence officers began nosing around in the former Nazi domain, was
it disclosed that a small group of fanatical Nazis had also organized a suicide
corps for the purpose of breaking up the seaborne invasion of the continent with a
German version of the Japanese Baka.
In fact, there is much evidence to indicate that the Nazi suicidists were laying
their plans long before their Japanese allies conceived the idea for this
unconventional tactic. Only bureaucratic inefficiency, and disinterest in official
circles as high as Hitler himself, forstalled the appearance of Nazi Kamikazes
in the air over Normandy on D-day.
The inception of this strange project goes back to the year 1943, when the fortunes
of war were beginning to turn against the hitherto victorious German Army. At that
time, many people in Germany were beginning to see that the Fatherland would
ultimately go down to defeat, unless some miraculous event produced a severe
set-back to the Allied cause. Among these thinking Germans was a small group of
idealists who were determined to do something about it. These people, who at first
numbered no more than 30 or 40 persons, came together from all walks of life. Some
of them were from the Army, others were civilians, and one of the leaders was a
well-known German woman flyer.
It was the common belief of these people that the war was lost unless a most decisive
blow could be struck against the Allies. They believed that this could only be
accomplished by the complete disruption of the eventual Allied assault upon the
continent, thus convincing the Allied leaders that Germany was secure and
impregnable within her "fortress Europe."
AN IDEA IS BORN
From this line of reasoning, the idea of a suicide corps was born. It was thought
that a weapon could be devised in the form of a flying bomb which, when piloted to
its target, could sink a large warship or troop transport. Enough of these, the
idealists believed, could completely wreck any seaborne invasion with an expenditure
of less than 1,000 volunteer pilots. The members of this strange group were ready to
volunteer. They asked only that they be given a weapon which would be certain to
achieve its end, and they felt there were persons among their membership who had
the skill to design such a weapon.
By October 1943, under the leadership of the woman flyer, a doctor of the
Institute of Medical Aeronautics at Rechlin, and a first lieutenant of the
Luftwaffe, organizational plans had advanced to a point where it was necessary
to obtain official recognition and cooperation in conducting the project
further. Because of her unique position in German aviation circles, this duty fell
to the aviatrix.
The woman first presented the idea to the Luftwaffe High Command, and met with
immediate rebuff. The German Air Force was not interested in an idea they considered
to be the unstable reasoning of a group of psychopaths. After much delay, the
Luftwaffe was by-passed, and the aviatrix went directly to
Field Marshall Milch, at that time the head of the German Air Ministry. Again no
progress was made.
After more weeks had passed, the woman determined to exploit her position and
reputation in German aviation circles, and succeeded in gaining a hearing before
the German Academy of Aeronautics. This Academy had the power to assemble the
necessary scientists, technicians, and air tactical authorities, and eventually a
meeting was called by the Director of the German Aeronautical Research Council. After
a lengthy conference, the committee of authorities decided that the idea was indeed
operationally sound.
With this authoritative evidence in hand, the next step before the group of idealists
was to obtain official support and leadership for the suicide plan. Application was
made for an interview with Hitler, and in February 1944, the woman leader of the
project was summoned to Berchtesgaden for a 3-hour discussion with
the Fuehrer.
INTERVIEW WITH HITLER
Hitler did not approve. He objected to the philosophy of suicide entailed in the
plan, and pointed out that there was no precedent in German history like it. Therefore,
he said, the whole idea was not in keeping with the character of the German people. The
woman countered this with the argument that never before in German history had the fate
of the country been in such a precarious position. This, apparently, was the wrong
thing to say, for Hitler replied emphatically that the position was not
precarious, and that if it ever became so, then he, Hitler, would personally give the
orders for such desperate measures to be taken.
The interview was anything but successful, but before she left, the aviatrix did
obtain Hitler's permission to continue with the development and planning so that
the organization would be ready to operate if ever the Fuehrer felt the
time had come to take such desperate steps. His parting remark was to the effect
that he did not want to be bothered with the idea again until the time for action
was ripe.
Meanwhile the group of suicide volunteers had grown to about 70 or 80 members. As yet
no concerted recruiting effort had been made, and such volunteers as were accepted were
a very select group. Once accepted, a candidate for membership in the suicide corps was
required to take a pledge to the effect that "I hereby volunteer as a pilot of the
manned glider-bomb. I am convinced that this action will end with my death."
On the basis of Hitler's permission to continue with the development of the
program, the matter was laid before the Chief of the General Staff of the
German Air Force. He half-heartedly assigned the official direction of the project
to the commander of a Luftwaffe bomber wing that was engaged in all sorts
of special operations and clandestine activities. At first it appeared that the
plan was finally on the road to fruition, but it soon became evident that the new
commander accepted the assignment mostly because he saw in it the means of receiving
the glory and credit which would be brought by the self-sacrifice of the volunteers
under him.
THE WEAPON
But at the same time, the German Air Ministry was ordered to perfect the technical
preparations which would be necessary to put the plan into effect. The
Messerschmitt 328, originally designed as a fighter or fighter bomber, was
selected as the flying weapon to be used by the volunteers. Production of the plane
was ordered, but proceeded so slowly that the volunteers began to suspect that some
sort of official sabotage was afoot. As a result, the suicide group
began to look around for another weapon—one which was easy to
produce and would be available on short order. The V-1 "buzz bomb,"
rebuilt to carry a pilot, was decided upon. In less than 3 weeks, four types of
this piloted missile were ready for testing.
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This is the Nazi version of the Japanese "Baka" bomb. It is driven by a typical
V-1 jet engine. Carrying a load of explosive in the nose of this craft,
Nazi suicide pilots planned to wreak destruction among our D-day fleet with this
weapon. Although the weapon was developed, the plan went astray through official
indifference and bungling among the higher echelons of the Nazi command.
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Contrary to the wishes of the volunteer group, the Luftwaffe testing
division insisted upon using their own pilots for the test flights. The two
Luftwaffe men were soon seriously injured, and it was then that
the woman pilot was called in and permitted to do the test flying. It was not
an easy proposition. In order to train the suicide pilots, a two-seater "buzz bomb" had
been built. Of course, it was necessary to land this model, if trainees were to be
kept alive for the D-day mission. But since it was necessary to glide
to a landing without power, and since the missile was not of conventional aircraft
or glider design, the approach to the runway was necessarily steep, and landing
had to be made at speeds approaching 155 miles per hour.
But as the technical development of the weapon went on with fair success, the rest
of the program began to go astray through the bungling of the Luftwaffe officers
put in charge of the volunteers. Although the suicide group at first believed the
Luftwaffe wing commander—the one who had been appointed their official
leader—was fully behind their plan, it soon became evident that he had
little sincere interest in the project. What was worse, he appointed a staff of
other Luftwaffe officers to responsible planning and operational
positions. These officers apparently had no conception of the original mission of the
volunteers—to destroy the eventual Allied invasion fleet. Instead, they were
continually fostering half-baked ideas, such as suicide attacks upon Soviet
ammunition trains on the Eastern Front. Although the volunteers were willing to
give their lives to deliver a smashing blow to the Allies, they were reluctant to
die on some comparatively non-essential mission. Meanwhile the training program
had also bogged down. Much time was spent in physical education and pistol shooting,
but little attention was paid to establishing a sound flight training program. The
Luftwaffe Lieutenant, one of the original volunteers and who had been the
spark plug behind the whole idea, found himself helpless because of his low
rank. Although he tried repeatedly to make improvements, he could do nothing but
take orders.
Again the woman flyer was called upon to use her influence to try and revive the
rapidly failing program. This time she went to Himmler, in hopes that he might be
able to do some good for the cause of the suicide volunteers. Himmler was not much
help. He was not opposed to the suicide idea, but he was of the opinion that the
membership of the corps should be made up of criminals and the incurably diseased. He
offered to take over the program if one of his officers was permitted to assume the
leadership of the entire plan. It was evident that under Himmler the plan would not
receive any better treatment than it was getting under its present supervision, so
his offer was turned down.
D-DAY ARRIVES
About this time, the Allies took a hand in things by staging their invasion in
Normandy. Neither the suicide weapon, nor adequately trained suicide pilots were
available, greatly because of the mishandling the whole program had received from
its selfish or uninterested directors. The disappointment of the volunteer group
was profound. Within 6 or 7 days after D-day, they realized that the
invasion was a success, and that the moment for which they had been preparing had
passed.
But, several days after the invasion had started, and all other efforts to halt it
had failed, Herman Goering suddenly remembered that somewhere in his Luftwaffe
there was a group of pilots who had volunteered for a suicide mission. In due
course, Goering reached the commander of the bomber wing under whom the volunteers
had originally been placed. The commander, a colonel, immediately declared that the
group was ready for action. The volunteers were astounded. They knew that no planes
or "buzz bombs" were available, and that only a few of the men had any more than the
briefest of preflight training. Nonetheless, the commander and his technical
assistants, without consulting the volunteers, set to work on plans to use a
Focke Wulf 190, carrying a 4,000-pound bomb, to crash into
selected targets. Now no one in the German Air Force had ever flown this plane
with such a large bomb load, and it was highly doubtful that the plane would be
able to get off the ground without crashing. Consequently, regular test pilots
declined the honor of testing this experimental makeshift. Undaunted, the commander
announced that his suicide pilots—none of whom had ever flown an FW 190, if
any other plane—would within the next few days conduct the test flights
themselves. If they were killed, he said, their names and loyal sacrifice would be
recorded in German history with the same honor they would have received if they had
crashed their plane onto the deck of an enemy ship. Any enthusiasm that had remained
among the volunteers disappeared completely at this point.
Fortunately for these men, Hitler heard about the plans for using the
FW 190, and ordered the project abandoned. The bomber commander was removed,
eventually, and his successor set about trying to salvage some of the finer ideas
of the original project. But by then it was too late. The Allies were established
in force on the continent, the hour to strike had passed, and so the group of suicide
volunteers was disbanded.
"And so," to quote the woman flyer, "did an idea that was born of fervent and holy
idealism, only to be misused and mismanaged at every turn by people who never
understood how men could offer their lives simply for an idea in which they believed."
CONCLUSION
Were it not for the grievous damage done to our fleet units a year later by the
Japanese Kamikaze corps, this German project might be passed off as just
another unconventional tactical venture which the German leaders were smart enough
to recognize as nothing but foolishness. But in the light of our later experience
with the Japanese, it is possible to draw the conclusion that the Nazi command failed
to realize they were being offered an impressive counterweapon to seaborne invasion. It
is useless, in retrospect, to attempt a reconstruction of what might have happened
off Normandy on D-day, if the Nazi command had recognized the
potentialities of these volunteers and their piloted bomb. Although it is
unlikely that the suicidists could have thus defeated the invasion, the introduction
of such an unconventional tactic, if exploited on the scale later used by the
Japanese, would certainly have offered another serious threat to an already
difficult amphibious operation.