This is a great story - does anyone know of a reliable source for it?

[DavidIsby]

This is a great story. Does anyone know of any reputable source for it?

“In a meeting with Willy Messerschmitt, the head of the Technical Office of the Luftwaffe pointed out that while the speed of the Me 109 was perfectly within requirements, that the Luftwaffe needed was a fighter ‘with the same speed plus greater range and a better rate of climb’.

Willy Messerschmitt, it has been reliably reported, reacted with a flash of temper. ‘What do you want?’ he is said to have shouted, ‘A fast fighter or a barn door’?

… Two years later, these same individuals were forced to run for shelter in Augsburg, which had come under attack by a swarm of Thunderbolt Fighters of the Eigth Fighter Command. At the sight of the powerful fighters strafing deep within enemy terriroty, the official of the Technical Office turned to Willy Messerschmitt with this acid reply:



'Well, there are your barn doors!”

Source: Martin Caidin, Me 109: Willy Messerschmitt’s Peerless Fighter, (New York: Ballantine, 196, pp. 113-14

[Maximowitz]

Seeing as it came from Caidin I doubt it ever happened.

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

I'm with you Max, I'd tend to take it with a grain of salt.

[Maximowitz]

Here's one that is actually a true contemporary comment made by Luftwaffe pilots:



“When an FW-190 crashes, they take the wreckage to Kurt Tank and he strengthens the parts that failed. When a Bf-109 crashes, they take the wreckage to Willi Messerschmitt and he lightens the parts that stayed together”.

As found on the TOCH forum

[DavidIsby]

I believe I state the obvious in saying that this author does NOT constitute a reliable source.

However, having said that, I reread his 109 book recently after going through more recent English and German language sources on this airplane, and it does check out.

However, Caidin's weakness was he liked to tell great stories. So I am looking for something that would confirm this one. Help!

[vikingBerserker]

It is a funny story though

[Maximowitz]

However, Caidin's weakness was he liked to tell great stories. So I am looking for something that would confirm this one. Help!

I think you'll be waiting a long, long time....