History

The Messerschmitt Me-262 is probably one of the most popular modeling subjects because of its historic importance and the incredible tactical misuse of this aircraft during the closing stages of the war. While conceived as an air superiority fighter, Hitler decided that the plane would be most useful as a high speed bomber. It wasn’t until the late stages of the war that the aircraft was finally employed in its proper role at a time when there was no chance of it having any serious impact on the outcome of the war. Volume I covered the technical development of the aircraft, which involved the design problems and flight testing of the various prototypes.

The Book

This volume covers the operational career of the Me-262, a story that has been told and retold many times. However, in this type of book, there is always something new to be added, and it makes interesting reading to go through the various units’ use of the type against ground and later air targets.

It is divided into several chapters, including Production and Experimental Aircraft, Combat Tactics, Me-262 in Combat: Erprobungskommando 262, Einsatzkommando Schenk, Kommando Nowotny, JG7 “Nowotny”, and Messerschmitt Me 262 Camouflage Schemes. Strangely, there is no mention of Galland’s JV.44, another Me-262 unit formed near the end of the war. An extensive account of combat operations is included, along with black and white photos taken of some of the aircraft both during combat operations and after the close of hostilities. Some of these have been published before, but quite a few were photos I hadn’t seen. At the end of the text, an extensive Bibliography and Endnote section is provided. The authors certainly did a lot of research.

The remaining 55 pages provide a very interesting collection of detail and profile drawings in excellent color presentations. The detail drawings cover three basic aircraft, an Me-262A-2a (B3+BH) of 1./KG(J) 54, Me-262B-1a/U1 (W.Nr. 110635) “Red 10” from 10./NJG 11, and “Red 9” of the same type and from the same unit. These drawings had to be computer generated, but they are of outstanding quality and show many of the interior details of the aircraft that have not been published up to this time. Following these are a series of color photos taken of the restored Me-262B-2a (W.Nr. 110 639) “White 55”. They do not indicate where this aircraft is located (actually, the U.S. Naval Air Museum at Pensacola, FL), but the plane has been meticulously restored and the detail photos would be very helpful to anyone wanting to build a model of this historic aircraft. The last few pages provide profile drawings of Me-262A-2a (B3+BH) of 1.KG(J) 54 in 1945, and Me-262B-1a/U1 (W.Nr. 110306) “Red 9” of 10/NJG.11 in 1945.

Recommendations

If you have any interest in the development and career of the Me-262, this book belongs on your bookshelf. It provides a lot of detailed information on the plane’s interior, and is especially helpful on the two-seat “B” version. The only problems are those unfortunately associated with books that are essentially translations into English, and that involves a large number of minor grammatical errors, usually consisting of missing words or incorrect endings. These do not detract from the reading, but as I am a college level technical writing instructor for many years, they jumped out at me to the point that I made notations in the text as I read along. These were things that the computer-generated proofreading and spell-check programs do not catch. However, they were minor errors, and the book is well worth having. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Kagero Publications and Steve Collins of IPMS/USA for the review copy.