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00:02Massive waves of American bombers descend on the Third Reich.
00:08The Luftwaffe employs a shocking new tactic to turn back the tide,
00:15using their own airplanes to ram American bombers.
00:26Now you're in the cockpit as German pilots crash headlong into the American onslaught.
00:36Experience the battle. Dissect the tactics.
00:43Relive the Luftwaffe's deadliest mission.
00:47Next on Dark Bites.
01:12April 7, 1945. German Bf 109s rise into the skies above their homeland on a top-secret mission.
01:23German martial music is broadcast from the ground, at times interrupted by a woman's voice.
01:38These are the men of a new fighter group, the Sonderkommando Elba.
01:43Theirs is the most astonishing mission ever devised by the Luftwaffe,
01:47to ram their own aircraft into American bombers.
01:56To the west, the vanguard of a massive formation of 1,300 American bombers
02:02of the mighty 8th Air Force thunder into central Germany.
02:10The individual bomb groups that compose the bomber streams reach a predetermined initial point,
02:16or IP, then split off towards their own targets.
02:23As they do that, they're really tightening up their formations,
02:27and they know that they're going to be over the target within the next,
02:30you know, 10 to 15 minutes.
02:34One of these massive formations is led by the 389th bomb group,
02:39the Sky Scorpions, 31 consolidated B-24 liberators,
02:44the most widely produced four-engine heavy bomber of World War II.
02:51Group commander Colonel John Herbo is in the cockpit of the lead plane,
02:56the Palace of Dallas.
02:59No one aboard the gleaming liberator can possibly imagine what is about to happen.
03:067,000 feet above, Sonderkommando Elba pilot Heinrich Rossner
03:11spots the bombers of the 389th.
03:14He's alone.
03:16Poor flight coordination has separated him from his comrades.
03:23His lightly armored BF-109 is ideal for this high altitude surprise attack.
03:31He pushes the stick forward, opens the throttle,
03:35and hurtles towards the trailing B-24's intent on one goal,
03:40a brutal mid-air collision.
03:45It must have been kind of a surprise to see this lone aircraft coming through and get close.
03:53Rossner yanks the stick back and pulls up out of his dive,
03:57but he overshoots his intended victim.
04:04Now, Rossner brazenly pulls into formation with the very liberators he's bent on destroying.
04:10He meanders in and out of the formation, almost like a shark waiting to capture its prey.
04:18The American gunners are stunned.
04:20They can't fire on the German fighter as it wends its way through the valley of gleaming aluminum.
04:29Rossner's mind races.
04:30Somehow, he must complete the mission.
04:37He'll swing outside the formation and position himself to do the unthinkable.
04:42Ram the lead B-24 directly in the cockpit.
04:46Rossner hopes he can knock the American out of the sky while surviving the violent impact.
04:58Rossner jams the stick left.
05:01In the cockpit of the Palace of Dallas,
05:03her both and pilot Bob Dallas sight the 109 as it banks back to the right,
05:09directly towards them.
05:14There pretty much wasn't anything they could do about it,
05:17but take on what they saw was coming at them.
05:21Like a steel battering ram.
05:26Rossner rips into the cockpit of the Palace of Dallas,
05:29then careens into another B-24.
05:43The moving mass of the 109's 6,000-pound airframe
05:48slices through the thin aluminum and steel framework of the bombers.
05:57Somehow, he manages to bail out.
06:00He lands in his parachute and survives the whole ordeal.
06:06But the men on board the bombers are not so lucky.
06:10The pilots struggle desperately with the controls to keep their planes in the air.
06:15It is only the beginning of their ordeal at the hands of the Sonderkommando Elbe.
06:25The Sonderkommando Elbe was born of Germany's near complete devastation brought by the Allied strategic bombing offensive.
06:40By late 1944, the Luftwaffe was a mere shadow of its former greatness, unable to defend the homeland.
06:50The Luftwaffe was going downhill rather quickly toward the end of the war.
06:56One of the problems is they have lost a lot of their command pilots.
07:01The Luftwaffe fighter forces were made up mainly of young enlisted pilots.
07:08Desperate action was needed.
07:12A young colonel named Hajo Hermann delivered an audacious proposal.
07:17Send hundreds of BF-109s skyward.
07:21Not to shoot down American bombers, but to ram them.
07:29It was supposed to be shocking.
07:32The Americans were supposed to be shocked.
07:33They were supposed to have such fear that they would say, no, we are not flying anymore.
07:47Hermann believed that at least some of the Elbe pilots would survive the brutal encounter,
07:52bail out of their destroyed fighter, and return to base ready to undertake more attacks.
07:59The goal was to force the American 8th Air Force to suspend bombings for four to six weeks.
08:05It was hoped that this would buy Germany enough time to amass sufficient numbers of the new ME-262 jet
08:12fighter
08:13to win back control of the skies over the fatherland.
08:22A call for volunteers was sent out on March 7th, 1945.
08:32He asked for volunteers for a special mission with a 10% survival chance.
08:40Now we were young, 19, 20, 21 years old.
08:44We never thought we'd die.
08:46So for us that 10% meant a 90% survival chance.
08:58The consequences of the bombings, especially dead women, dead children, and dead elderly, triggered sharp emotions.
09:06I thought I had to do something.
09:13Two thousand volunteered.
09:16Three hundred were selected and gathered at Stendel Air Base on the Elbe River.
09:22Most were new pilots with little or no combat experience.
09:26From the beginning, their training was limited.
09:32We didn't even have enough fuel to check the technical condition in a test flight before the mission.
09:38We didn't even have enough fuel to check it out.
09:42Nevertheless, permission to proceed is granted by Adolf Hitler.
09:46A date for the first attack is selected.
09:49April 7th, 1945.
09:56Against a force of 1300 American bombers and 800 escort fighters,
10:02a meager 180 fighters are mobilized for the ramming attack.
10:11At this point, the war had already been lost, and there was little chance of turning it around.
10:16It was nothing but sending pilots to the slaughter.
10:19At this point, there was no chance of reaching a end.
10:36Now, Elbe pilot Heinrich Rossi has initiated the effort with staggering success, ramming the lead element of the 389th Bomb
10:45Group.
10:46The palace of Dallas is shattered.
10:49The men in the nose section, including Group CO John Herbo, are dead.
10:55What's going on in these unpressurized B-24s is catastrophic noise and screaming and yelling and metal groaning and breaking
11:08and violence, total violence.
11:15Only three of the 11-man crew managed to escape the doomed airplane.
11:25In the deputy lead plane, pilot Walter Kunkel fights to survive.
11:30Immediately, the plane starts in a dive.
11:33First Lieutenant Kunkel is using rudder, yoke, anything.
11:38Anything he could possibly do to fly the airplane.
11:42The Liberator is unresponsive.
11:45It continues a slow outside loop.
11:48The airplane is nosing over, creating extensive negative Gs.
11:53They are up in their seats.
11:54They are out.
11:55They're reaching down for the yoke.
11:56As the airplane totally noses over, almost fully on its back, pulling negative Gs.
12:04Huge motions now start breaking the airplane apart violently.
12:15Kunkel's plane disintegrates, but miraculously, Kunkel and his co-pilot James Tolleson are thrown clear.
12:30The rest of the group is shocked by what has occurred, but nevertheless continues the run-in from the IP.
12:37When an aircraft is shot down, it is not an orderly sight.
12:41The feeling is, you know, there, but for the grace of God, go I, and it may still happen to
12:47me before this is all over.
12:50The group reforms.
12:52Perry Sessoms, lead of the High Right Squadron, assumes command.
12:56In spite of a loss, the 389th will deliver its bombs on target.
13:11But the Germans have more destruction awaiting American bombers further back in the stream.
13:17The brutal ramming assault by the Sonderkommando Elbe has yet to reach its full fury.
13:31April 7th, 1945.
13:35BF-109 pilot Heinrich Henkel cruises at 32,000 feet.
13:41He is a volunteer with Germany's ramming unit, the Sonderkommando Elbe.
13:48Heinrich Henkel is one of the few to survive this extraordinary mission.
13:57Permission was given for a free fight.
13:59Normally, we always attacked in groups.
14:01But now everybody could pick the closest target where he thought he could be successful.
14:05And that's how it was done.
14:07And that's how it was done.
14:09And that's how it was done.
14:1410,000 feet below him, he spots the bomber stream.
14:18They are B-24s of the 467th bomber.
14:27Henkel pushes over into a dive.
14:29The vibrating cockpit and whine of the engine may be the last things he ever feels or hears.
14:36He picks a target, a B-24 Liberator, called Sack Time.
14:44They're nearing the target, a munitions factory at Crummell.
14:48Nose gunner Joe Flynn readies the bomb release.
14:53It was quiet.
14:55It looked like it was going to be a milk run.
14:57And then we turned when we hit the IP initial point to do the bomb run.
15:03That's when all hell broke out.
15:08Henkel is here.
15:09Sack Time is here.
15:13Henkel will streak in from above, relying on the element of surprise.
15:18Then, with total disregard for his own safety, he'll do the unthinkable.
15:24Ram the tail section of the B-24, using his wings and propeller like a cleaver.
15:35If you take off the tail section, the airplane can't fly anymore.
15:39That was the most effective method of destroying the enemy.
15:47Henkel streaks in, making constant adjustments to his attack angle and velocity.
15:58Aboard Sack Time, tail gunner Robert Perkins calls out a bandit at 5 o'clock.
16:11My father said that he heard a change in his voice, and suddenly he began to shout into the interphone,
16:18he won't turn away, he won't turn away.
16:21Heinrich Henkel closes in at over 400 miles per hour, ignoring the .50 caliber rounds hammering his aircraft.
16:29He's fixated on knocking the liberator that looms before him out of the sky with one savage blow.
16:41The radical tactic of ramming had precedent in recent Luftwaffe operations.
16:51In 1944, a unit called the Sturmgruppen had embraced ramming, though only as a last resort.
17:01If they weren't able to shoot the bombers down by cannon fire, machine gun fire, they would ram the tail
17:07of the bomber and bail out.
17:08Their idea wasn't a kamikaze type suicide ramming, it was a ramming so the pilot could get out.
17:17The Sturmgruppen employed specially armed and armored Fock Wolf 190.
17:24But the hundreds of pounds of extra weight rendered them extremely vulnerable to more nimble US fighters.
17:30This figured importantly in Heil Hermann's approach with the Sonderkommando elbow.
17:39Hermann opted for a completely different and much more dangerous tactic.
17:46He selected very lightly armored Messerschmitt Bf 109s.
17:51The stripped down 109s could climb much higher than American fighters,
17:55and then dive on the bomber formations unimpeded.
18:06Weapons and armor plating were removed from the normal planes.
18:09All we had left was one MG 131 with about 50 shots,
18:13so that the airplanes were as light as possible.
18:20The Sonderkommando Elba developed three unique methods of ramming.
18:27Elba pilots were instructed to use the steel propeller of the Bf 109 to destroy the control surfaces on the
18:34tail.
18:36They could also ram the wing near one of the bomber's engine.
18:40The last, most ghastly method was to swing in from the side and ram the cockpit.
18:46The bomber pilots inside would be killed instantly.
18:57When you're closing on an aircraft 150 miles per hour faster than its speed,
19:02the question is whether you're going to hit it where you want to hit it.
19:05You only have split seconds.
19:13It was never intended that the pilot fly home.
19:17The Bf 109 would not survive the impact.
19:22The most an Elba volunteer could hope for was to somehow survive the crash and bail out.
19:30Despite the extreme danger of the tactic, Elba pilots did not view themselves as suicide pilots or kamikazes.
19:40The Japanese pilots had explosives in their airplanes, and with that had to sacrifice themselves.
19:50But we Elba pilots use our airplane as a weapon.
19:53The Bf 109 and its metal propeller that served as a saw.
19:57We hoped we'd have the opportunity to get out with a parachute.
20:07Now Heinrich Henkel steals himself for the violent encounter, hoping it will not be the ultimate sacrifice.
20:19My fighter was hit repeatedly, but I wasn't hurt at all.
20:23So I could still ram the enemy's tail section with my wings.
20:33Just before impact, Henkel catches a glimpse of tail gunner Robert Perkins.
20:41He was sitting there and lifted his hands in terror when he realized that I was coming closer.
20:46I probably would have done the same thing.
20:52Henkel makes a final adjustment, aiming his right wing at the vertical stabilizer.
21:10Pilot Bob Winger watches in amazement as the 109 cartwheels outside his window.
21:17Would he close to us?
21:20Extremely close.
21:22The distance between our wings was several feet tall, and he disappeared from my view.
21:29Of course, I was a bit excited.
21:35It just looked like it had a nose, period.
21:38No propeller at all because they were wrapped in.
21:42Navigator Walter Parker is nearly thrown to the floor by the impact.
21:48He saw the German fighter plane cartwheel over the front of the plane,
21:52and he said he was able to see the swastika on the tail of the plane as it cartwheeled over,
21:57and he knew right away that they had been rammed.
22:04And he was able to see it.
22:04Henkel is violently slammed by the collision.
22:09Henkel is still alive.
22:10He's in his airplane.
22:12But he's incapacitated.
22:13The airplane is just tumbling, positive, negative Gs.
22:24He struggles to release his seat harness and manages to throw open the canopy as the 109's wings are ripped
22:31off.
22:31The force ejects Henkel from the cockpit moments before the plane explodes.
22:50It was still the danger that the enemy fighters that protected the bombers would shoot you in your parachute.
22:55That happened in a few cases.
23:03Henkel plays dead, tumbling from 20,000 to under 4,000 feet.
23:09He pulls the ripcord on his parachute.
23:13Incredible, he survived his ramming attack on the American.
23:22When I hit the ground, I suffered a few wounds.
23:24I was pulled through some bushes by the parachute.
23:27When you do these things for the first time, you don't know what you're doing.
23:32But I wasn't really hurt, just a few scratches.
23:39But Sack Time's ordeal has just begun.
23:42As the Liberator shudders on impact, the left wing drops violently.
23:49Winger fights the controls.
23:52Nothing has prepared him to fly an aircraft that's been hit by a 6,000-pound battering ram.
23:58He has only seconds to recover, or Sack Time will be ripped apart.
24:11He has only seconds to recover, or Sack Time will be ripped apart.
24:11April 7, 1945.
24:15The German ramming assault on U.S. bombers has claimed another victim, the B-24 Sack Time.
24:26Now the once graceful bomber is plummeting out of control.
24:32In the nose, Joe Flynn is desperately on the intercom, asking what to do with the bombs.
24:38I called twice that, uh, you want me to drop the bombs, and I didn't get an answer.
24:43Bombs away.
24:45That's it, I didn't get the answer.
24:46Twice I dropped the bombs.
24:48Click the switch, and that's it.
24:49You're gone, baby.
24:52The B-24 lurches as it sheds the weight of 5,000 pounds of high-explosive ordnance.
25:00Pilot Bob Winger strains at the controls as the Liberator teeters on the brink of destruction.
25:07In the fraction of a second that he had to make a decision to prevent that airplane from flipping over
25:12and going completely out of control,
25:14he instinctively made the right moves and was able to stabilize the aircraft almost immediately.
25:22The brutal ramming attack has inflicted grievous damage.
25:25The bomber's right vertical stabilizer is sheared off.
25:32The German's propeller has torn a gaping hole in the right rear fuselage, and the bomb bay doors are jammed
25:39open.
25:40Winger is able to keep the airplane aloft, but the loss of critical control surfaces on the tail forced the
25:47left wing down.
25:51It takes superhuman effort to keep the Liberator from flipping over.
25:56Winger and co-pilot Jeff Nard must both apply full right rudder and aileron to stabilize the wings,
26:04while holding the control yoke in their stomachs to keep the nose up.
26:10We were doing everything we could to just maintain this 30-degree angle there.
26:21Two P-51s, long-range fighter escorts nicknamed Little Friends by the bomber crews, join up with the struggling sack
26:31time.
26:33The P-51s escort sack time towards the safety of Belgium.
26:38It's an excruciating journey for Winger and his co-pilot.
26:43If they let up for a second, sack time will roll over and break apart.
26:52With nothing but brute strength, the men hold the 20-ton behemoth in the sky for an agonizing 45 minutes.
27:02Confident that the B-24 is safe from enemy fighters, the P-51s break off.
27:10The fighter on the left peels away.
27:15But the Mustang on the right pulls in front and rocks his wings in salute.
27:22But as he throttles away, the bomber is suddenly hammered by a mini tornado of prop wash.
27:31The Little Friends gesture is not well received on board sack time.
27:37It's everything Winger and the co-pilot can do to keep the bomber airborne and to keep it flying.
27:43To have gone this far in this whole mission, in this whole catastrophe,
27:48and to be knocked out of the sky by prop wash from one of your own escort airplanes,
27:53it was almost ridiculous to try to even fathom the whole thing.
28:00Winger and Nard make one last heroic rally, their aching muscles fed by pure adrenaline.
28:11Again, they manage to pull the Liberator out of a terminal dive.
28:15After walking a tightrope for what seems like an eternity,
28:19sack time finally arrives over an emergency airstrip in Belgium.
28:24Bob Winger knows the aircraft cannot land.
28:27He orders his men to bail out.
28:32Walter Parker and Joe Flynn jump out the nose wheel door.
28:38Package him first.
28:39I gave him the choice.
28:42He was bigger than me.
28:44So if he could fit out under the wheel, then I knew I could fit out under the wheel.
28:48I wasn't being brave.
28:51The last crewmen left in the plane are pilot Bob Winger and co-pilot Jeff Nard.
28:57Now it's time for the co-pilot.
28:59Winger orders his co-pilot back aft and out the bomb bay doors.
29:04Winger grips the controls with all his waning strength to give Nard time to bail out.
29:11After several seconds of holding the B-24 upright,
29:14he releases the controls and scrambles for the bomb bay door.
29:20Winger reaches the bomb bay doors.
29:22The co-pilot is still back there sitting on the edge.
29:24He can't see the ground and for one reason or another,
29:27that inhibits him from jumping.
29:30He was waiting there.
29:33I just want to bail out when there was no ground.
29:35And I pushed him down.
29:39Winger quickly follows Nard out the bomb bay doors.
29:47Sack time staggers skywards.
29:51Then the G-forces wrench off its battered tail section.
29:57Walter Parker watches in amazement as the tailless bomb plugs.
30:04It began to spiral down within the same area that the crew had just bailed out into.
30:10And my father said that it passed probably within 50 to 100 yards of him and Joe Flynn, the nose
30:16gunner.
30:19Propellers still churning, what's left of sack time hits the ground and explodes.
30:29In eerie silence, the crew drifts down towards the countryside.
30:37Incredibly, all nine crewmen survive the savage ramming attack delivered by the Sonderkommando elbow.
30:48The massive German ramming campaign continues over central Germany.
30:53B-17 flying fortresses of the 3rd Air Division drone deeper into hostile skies,
30:59unaware of the brutal welcome in store for them.
31:08At 1 p.m., a squadron of Boeing B-17s close in on their target, an ME-262 fighter base
31:17at Parkham.
31:1920-year-old pilot Bud Wentz flies in the lead squadron.
31:23The weather was beautiful when we were.
31:26Our group, the 487th, was the lead group of the 4th Combat Wing.
31:34Elbe pilot Klaus Hahn is heading out to intercept the Boeings.
31:39His thoughts are overwhelmed by the grim reality of his fate.
31:47The feeling was simply that you are most likely flying your last flight today, and that you wouldn't return from
31:52it.
31:52You will probably be dead.
31:54That thought was a part of it, and you had to accept it, and you had to deal with it.
31:58That thought was a part of it.
32:00That thought was a part of it.
32:00That thought was a part of it.
32:01That thought was a part of it.
32:06Though they've not spotted each other yet, the German and the Americans are on a collision course.
32:22April 7, 1945.
32:27Sonderkommando Elbe pilot Klaus Hahn searches the skies for a sign of American bombers.
32:34His mission seems suicidal.
32:37Use his own airplane as a battle axe to be thrown against the thin skin of the bomber.
32:43He has been separated by his comrades by engine trouble.
32:52Suddenly, four fighters were approaching him.
32:54I assumed that they were German Messerschmitts.
33:01But they aren't Messerschmitts.
33:04Four American P-51 Mustangs are closing head-on with Klaus Hahn.
33:11As part of Germany's ramming unit, Hahn's BF-109 has been stripped of its protective armor and primary weapons.
33:21We only had one machine gun with 60 shots.
33:25All other weapons had been removed, so we definitely weren't fit for a dogfight.
33:30The 60 shots were a joke.
33:36The P-51s fan out.
33:41They'll approach the single BF-109 from four different angles.
33:46Hahn is a sitting duck.
33:51It wasn't a dogfight, it was a barrage.
33:59The Mustangs open fire.
34:0350-caliber rounds pound the 109.
34:10A bullet shatters Hahn's left arm.
34:17I was wondering why I couldn't use the throttle anymore, and then I realized I had no feeling in my
34:23arm or hand.
34:26The bone had been shot right underneath the shoulder joint.
34:29I wasn't in pain.
34:30I didn't even notice it because of all the excitement.
34:33I was wondering why I could use the whole explosion.
34:39Hahn tumbles out of the sky, trailing thick black smoke.
34:43But he is not dead yet.
34:45He grips the stick with his good arm and struggles to recover from the spin.
34:51As he does, a stroke of luck.
34:54An American bomb group is directly below him.
34:59I can't say why I still rammed.
35:02Perhaps desperation.
35:03I won't say that it was courage.
35:05It was desperation.
35:07I've already made it this far.
35:08I can also get through a ramming.
35:178,000 feet below Hahn, B-17 flying fortresses of the 487th Bomb Group are unaware that they've been targeted.
35:2720-year-old pilot Bud Wentz is among them.
35:32We were the lead squadron in the lead group.
35:36So there's nothing in front of us like open air.
35:39And the planes were on each side of us.
35:41And when the formation was tight, they were about 10 to 12, 14 feet apart.
35:49Bud Wentz is here, in the middle of the bomber box.
35:53Klaus Hahn is here, diving at over 450 miles per hour on his target.
36:00Ignoring the blood and pain from his mangled arm, Klaus Hahn pulls out of his dive behind the formation.
36:09He adjusts slightly, fixated on completing his mission, flying his airplane into the tail section of the B-17.
36:23They instructed us to hit the bomber in the weakest part of the fuselage.
36:32A bomber's airframe was weakest at a point behind the wings, but forward of the ball turret.
36:38If rammed in this section, the aircraft would almost certainly break in half.
36:47Klaus Hahn unhooks his harness and rolls the ME-109 inverted.
36:51He hopes to fall out of the 109 before impact.
36:55He suppresses the urge to turn away.
37:01The canopy was still on.
37:03I don't know how it came off.
37:05It's beyond my knowledge.
37:06It all happened more or less subconsciously.
37:18The 109's steel propeller blades demolish the B-17's tail.
37:28The mid-air collision throws Klaus Hahn from the cockpit like a rag doll.
37:43The wrecked fighter tumbles, its left wing gone, still lodged in the tail section of the B-17.
37:53On impact, Bud Wentz's fortress shudders.
37:58There was a great big wump and the plane rattled.
38:02And I immediately grabbed hold of the wheel real tight.
38:07Han tumbles through the sky out of control.
38:14He's lost so much blood, he's on the verge of blacking out.
38:20The B-17 pilot and the German who rammed him are both seconds from certain death.
38:34April 7, 1945.
38:41As part of the top secret Sonderkommando Elba, Klaus Hahn has rammed an American B-17.
38:51The collision has thrown him from his doomed fighter.
38:57Han gasps for breath in the thin air, struggling to find the ripcord of his parachute with his one good
39:03arm.
39:07I was in freefall until there was more oxygen.
39:11I pulled the ripcord at about 3,000 feet.
39:19Though severely wounded, Han has survived the carnage of his ramming attack.
39:24He parachutes to safety.
39:30I was thinking, I did it.
39:32I am alive despite the slim chances of survival.
39:36I rammed a bomber.
39:37I am fired.
39:39I am fired.
39:40I am fired.
39:41I am fired.
39:41That's all.
39:44But Wentz's B-17 is reeling from the mid-air collision.
39:49His tail section is wrecked.
39:51He fights the controls with all his might.
39:56By holding on the controls real tight as soon as I sensed it, thinking of the airplanes around me, it
40:02prevented the airplane from making some radical move.
40:09Incredibly, he manages to stabilize the wounded fortress.
40:14Over the intercom, he shouts for a damage assessment.
40:19They looked out the back from the top and side turret and said pieces were flying off the tail of
40:24the airplane.
40:27The rudder and elevators are destroyed.
40:29In the cockpit, the rudder pedals and pitch controls are useless.
40:35I was afraid if I used the air rods on the main wings that if I had too much of
40:41that, the plane could flip over because there were no stabilizers and I didn't want to be upside down in
40:46a B-17.
40:48Wentz throttles his engines up and begins pulling out ahead of the formation.
40:53If he does go down, he won't take another fortress with him.
41:00We were inside Germany at the time and I didn't want to land in Germany if I could, so I
41:06figured I'll keep the airplane off as long as I can and head west.
41:12With such extreme damage to the tail, he must find other means of maneuvering the bomber.
41:19If you want to make a left turn, you'd pull the throttle down on the outermost engine.
41:24When that engine goes dead, the plane tends to turn that way, so you make a skidding turn.
41:29They're not very sharp.
41:31You don't bank.
41:32They were awfully big turns.
41:39By carefully adjusting the throttles, Wentz manages to turn his wounded bomber westward, tail sections still shedding debris.
41:48So we went for perhaps 20 minutes and one of them said, there's a single runway with trees all around
41:55it and I don't see any airplanes on it, but I'm sure it's a runway.
42:02Displaying remarkable airmanship, Bud Wentz manages to nurse his wounded B-17 into final approach and lands at the airfield.
42:12And then a couple of soldiers came running out of one of the buildings and thank God they were American
42:17soldiers.
42:18And it so happened, infantry people came up and captured this little airfield.
42:27April 7, 1945 was the only combat mission flown by the Sonderkommando Elbe.
42:35Results were disappointing.
42:38Of the 180 Elbe pilots that went into combat that day, 60 returned to base with mechanical problems and an
42:46estimated 47 were shot down by American fighters.
42:53Only a handful succeeded in ramming bombers.
43:01The Air Force really played this down and never wanted to admit that these were purposeful things.
43:15The 8th Air Force did not publish detailed reports of ramming incidents and attributed them to inexperienced or dead German
43:23pilots.
43:31According to our records, about 22 to 24 successful ramming incidents occurred.
43:40No matter the actual number, Sonderkommando Elbe's objective of regaining control of German skies was not achieved.
43:54How successful could we have been?
43:56How successful could we have been?
43:57What success could we be against such superior numbers?
44:01That's not a question at all.
44:03A success.
44:04It was not a success.
44:07Yes, we scratched a little bit at the number of bombers of the 8th Air Force.
44:10But the strategic goal Colonel Hermann wanted to achieve.
44:15In my opinion today, an illusion.
44:18In my opinion, an illusion.
44:22There simply was no stopping the Allied bomber offensive.
44:25The desperate ramming campaign exacted a terrible human toll.
44:29But could not even momentarily stave off the Third Reich's inevitable defeat.
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