Free Roaring Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age by Walter J. Boyne

said was true—and Vance believed it was; it was written in very thoughtful terms—the Japanese were far more selective about their pilots and far more demanding in their training. Listening to Tom talk about Pensacola or Harry about Randolph Field, Vance would never have believed it. But now the Japanese pilots, and their planes, seemed incredibly formidable.
    Still speaking aloud, though there was no one in the house, he said, “We have lots of catching up to do. Let’s just hope we do it before something happens to Tom or Harry.”
    As his anger built over the surprise attack, he was awash in emotions. He thought about calling Hap Arnold and asking for a commission and a combat assignment. For a moment his imagination ran away with him and he was in France again, flying his SPAD XIII in his last dogfight, remembering how he had stitched the fabricwith bullet holes, working from the tail right up through the cockpit and into the fuel tank. The enemy Fokker D VII had lurched forward, the pilot dead, the spin intensifying as flames ate away the fabric on the left wings. Then Vance considered the reality: a desk at Wright Field or in the Pentagon, no flying, no combat, no engineering, just endless paperwork. He could do more good by staying out.
    July 18, 1942, Leipheim, Germany
    A cata log of Messerschmitt products carpeted the undulating, hill-bounded flying field outside the plant, with the preposterous Me 321 gliders looming over everything, their enormous 180-foot wings dwarfing their towplanes, the twin-engine Me 110s. More than one hundred had been built in anticipation of invading Great Britain; now they were assigned the more mundane task of supplying the hard-pressed German Army in Russia. A few of the newer Me 323s were also on the line, really just strengthened Me 321 gliders, each equipped with six captured French Gnome-Rhone engines to help it lumber through the air.
    Dotting the field like little black crosses were dozens of the single-engine Bf 108 liaison planes and Bf 109 fighters, parked indiscriminately and surrounded by the usual impedimenta of fire extinguishers, refueling trucks, and toolboxes. As at all airfields, most of the aircraft were sitting idle, some with cowlings off, some on jacks, all awaiting maintenance. A few were being prepared for flight and others had maintenance crews scrambling over them. But for most of the people at the plant, all eyes were fastened on a single airplane, the third prototype of the new jet fighter, the Messerschmitt Me 262 V3. Carrying the factory markings PC + UC and powered by two equally brand-new Junkers jet engines, the aircraft had apugnacious, shark-like look as it sat on its tail wheel, its nose pointed in the air as if it were sniffing the breeze prior to its first flight.
    All across Germany, but nowhere more than in the Luftwaffe and the aviation industry, tension was rife. The effects of the Royal Air Force’s unbelievable one-thousand-plane raid on Cologne on May 30/31 were still being felt. Göring had at first refused to believe the reports, telling Hitler that only seventy planes had bombed and that forty of these had been shot down. But Hitler had called Joseph Grohé, the Nazi Gauleiter of Cologne, and learned the stupefying truth—474 dead, 5,000 injured, 3,300 homes destroyed. Furious, Hitler had called Göring in for a private audience. The Führer’s conversation with Göring was not recorded, but an endless round of stories circulating had it that the Reichsmarschall emerged from Hitler’s office so shaken that he did not acknowledge any salutes, almost ran to his waiting Mercedes, and was whisked off to his country estate, Carin-hall, to recuperate. Some said there were tears in his eyes; others spoke mirthfully of the indignities his enormous behind must have suffered.
    Feelings were running high at the Messerschmitt plant as well. Professor Dr. Wilhelm Emil Messerschmitt’s management style was unusual in authoritarian Germany. He