| Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 584
| I only read about it a coupla days ago.....
''On 1st May, 1945, Sqn.Ldr Warren ['Smokey'] Schrader of 486 [NZ] Sqn., landed back at Fassberg in his Tempest after destroying a Bf-109 during a morning sortie. He was summoned to the CO's office, to be informed he had just been promoted to Wing Cmdr. and was immediately to go and take over RAF 616 Sqn., flying Meteors, stationed at Luneberg....
By that afternoon, he was ferried there, and having never even seen a Meteor before, quickly became familiarised, completing 6 op flights by the end of the 2nd May, unfortunately putting the port wing & engine through a tree, landing in heavy rain...
Apparently, RAF Brass wanted a Meteor to shoot down a Me-262 before the War finished...
On 4th May there was time for only one last op. flight before the message to cease all ops was received, but 616 had just heard of two 262's that had landed at Fassberg, their pilots being anxious to avoid capture by the Russians. Schrader & collegue whipped over there and found them to be in mint condition, and with an interpreter went to a POW camp nearby and intereviewed a group of Luftwaffe pilots. They received assistance from an Oberst who not only had commanded a 262 unit, but also spoke good English, and he was able to give them an impromptu ground conversion.
The following day he began their final briefing, but pointed-out the airfield runway was insufficent for a take-off run, but the airfield commander got his troops to remove a section of fence between the airfield and a large adjoining field. Schrader started his take-off run, but it didn't look as if it was going to lift, until it hit a little ridge where the fence had been and was thrown in the air, bounced once on the grass field but stayed airborne... The other 262 got off OK as well, so they headed for Lubeck cruising at 450 km/h. Noticing from the cockpit that he had two very large engines and two very small wings, Schrader decided to up his recommended approach speed by 20 km/h, ''for Mum and the kids''....
His No.2 landed OK, which encouraged him to entertain the troops with a 'beat-up or two' and after a few enjoyable minutes of low flying and high-speed passes, decided to land.... On landing gear selected 'Down', only two green lights, no nose-wheel, and after several retrys etc., and with no radio link to the tower, there was only one option left but to land and hope.....
It was possible to hold the nose up for a time after touchdown, but then it sank until those two underslung engines made contact with the concrete. In spite of the throttles and fuel control levers being closed, as the nacelles wore through both engines started to burn. - After a 50-yd dash, he paused to watch the arrival of the Fire-truck, closely followed by Grp.Capt. Johnny Johnson, in his magnificent Mercedes-Benz tourer, grinning at Schrader's obvious discomfort....''Bloody marvellous!'' he said, ''You beat the place up, get us all out to watch, then start a lovely fire - Bloody marvellous !!!''
It transpired that the nose-wheel jack had been damaged in the short landing and heavy braking when first arriving at Fassberg, and once up it was never going to come down again. Although the fire was put out quickly, repairing the aircraft was beyond their immediate capabilities. The other 262 was sent on to UK for evaluation, and not long ago, Schrader learned that his 262 was actually repaired, also flown to England and is now on display at Cosford...
Shortly after all this, an order forbidding flying of enemy aircraft was promulgated in the wake of several fatal accidents.....
So, 616 Squadron DID destroy a 262, although just on the Final Whistle, and not by ''conventional methods''......
But it was great that it turned out to be repairable, as the photo [a pretty rough one,] taken at the time, shows it looking really munted.....
On the 262 vein, the latest ''Classic Wings'' magazine out down here has an article on ''Tango Tango 262'', rolled out of the paint shop on 12th May, the second of the ''Me-262 Projects'' flyable reproductions, wk. nr. 501244 is fast approaching it's taxi trials. Theres actually four of them so far, 'White One' has completed it's FAA flight test program in Everett, WA, now ready for delivery to it's owner in Arizona.......Bloody amazing what they are doing out there now, but surely they must be using a more reliable type of engine in these...??? [anyone know??...]
Gemhorse |
To those in that club. 
Linear Mode
