August 15th, 1939. A group of German Junkers-87 from the 76th Dive-Bomber Wing
were approaching the military training area at Neuhammer. That day, the planes carried
practice bombs with smoke charges that they were going to drop on the training targets.
The bombing run was supposed to be nothing more than just a spectacular demonstration
to impress the high-ranking Luftwaffe officers who impatiently waited on the ground to finally
see the Ju-87 in action. The group commander Hauptmann Walter Sigel checked his map once
again to make sure they reached the training area, then ordered his group to follow him and turned
his plane into a steep dive. But in less than a minute, the demonstration, which was supposed to
showcase the unique capabilities of the new German bomber, turned into a huge disaster,
becoming the largest one-time loss of Ju-87s in its entire history.
When it comes to the military aviation of World War Two, it is hard to find an aircraft that
was so controversial yet famous at the same time as the German Junkers-87. The deadly terrifying
effectiveness of this bomber, demonstrated during the German offensive in Poland, France,
and Russia quickly turned this aircraft into a true war legend, making the Ju-87 one of the most
recognizable symbols of the German Blitzkrieg. But what is interesting is that the Ju-87,
being feared and hated by its enemies for its amazing combat performance within the
German Luftwaffe for quite a long time was the subject of intense debates and controversies.
At the time, Junkers-87 represented a new class of bombardment aviation the dive bombers, the
future of which in the 1930s was still uncertain. It was, in particular, because of this uncertainty
that the Luftwaffe commanding officers gathered at the Neuhammer training field on August 15th, 1939,
just two weeks before the outbreak of World War Two. The generals were to watch a demonstration
of the ability of Junkers aircrafts to drop bombs with unmatched precision due to a new technique
called dive-bombing . But to better understand the reasons for the German commanders doubts
regarding the Junkers -87, let s do a quick dive into the history of this matter first.
Although during World War One all the belligerent [???????????] countries had eventually created
their own heavy bomber units, due to poor bombing accuracy, the actions of the heavy
bombers inflicted more of a morale damage to the enemy. But to be fair, it wasn't given that much
importance at the time. The Italian military theorist Giulio Douhet, in his famous work
"The Command of the Air", which later had a huge influence on the post-war development of aviation,
wrote: "Aerial bombardment can certainly never hope to attain the accuracy of artillery fire,
but this is an unimportant point because such accuracy is unnecessary".
It was only later after the end of World War One that the accuracy of bombing began to be
taken more seriously. One of the first who started working on this problem were the United States,
whose geopolitical position dictated the need to combat large water surface targets
when protecting their coastline. And although the efficacy of their tests in the 1920s on
sinking the ships with aerial bombs remains in debate to this day it has, nevertheless,
forced the US Navy to look more closely at the potential capabilities of naval aviation and
created the need for searching for special bombing techniques to destroy small and maneuvering
targets. Such as ships, for example. One of such techniques was dive-bombing . The
thing is that a bomb dropped from an airplane flying horizontally at a high altitude,
is affected by multiple forces during its fall, which are sometimes simply
impossible to calculate. Therefore, at best the accuracy of the bombing at the time ranged
in hundreds of meters, if not worse. The dive-bombing was different. Unlike
the aircraft dropping bombs while flying high and horizontally, the dive-bomber would approach the
target in a steep dive and release the bomb at low altitude. As a result, the bomb after being
released, would continue to fall along a given trajectory of the dive and would hit the target
with unmatched precision, measured by dozens of meters instead of hundreds. This bombing
technique was quite complex to execute and has its troubles but the Americans, nevertheless,
in one form or another continued their bombing experiments. Watching the dive-bombers in action
was a breathtaking view, so it even became the element of some aerobatic shows at the time.
And it was one such dive-bombing demonstration that was accidentally witnessed by a German pilot,
whose name is now inextricably linked with the creation of the dive-bombers
most famous representative Junkers-87. But here I d like to stop for a moment and
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this video and let's get back to the Junkers-87 story.
In 1933 Germany adopted the so-called "urgent program" of aviation development,
which in particular, included the development of a new dive bomber. It is worth saying that from
a technological standpoint, the development of a dive bomber was a much more difficult
task than it might seem. To achieve the needed accuracy of bombing, such a bomber would dive to
the ground at an angle close to 80 degrees, which, in turn, required the solution of
many technological problems. For instance, the bomb dropped from a standard holder during the
steep dive would go through the propeller area completely destroying it. So, one of the first
tasks was the development of a special bomb holder - the so-called swing bomb rack. Also,
the aircraft must be able to dive at slower speeds and exit the dive at a low altitude,
which would require complex wing mechanization. In addition to this, when pulling out of the dive,
the aircraft incurs a force close to 5G, which means the bomber had to be durable and robust.
Thus, the required aircraft would have to be close to fighters in its agility and durability,
and close to a medium bomber payload wise. But the main problem was the controversial
concept of a dive-bomber itself. Which within Luftwaffe had its supporters and opponents as well.
In 1935 the idea of dive-bombers received a strong proponent
represented in Luftwaffe by the newly appointed inspector of fighters and dive-bombers Colonel Ernst Udet.
Not long ago a national hero of the German Empire for being the second best fighter ace after the all-famous Red Baron Manfred Richthofen.
It is believed, that while in the United States
Ernst Udet was amazed by the air performance of the Curtiss Hawks
which in particular demonstrated the dive-bombing technique.
Udet was delighted with the American plane
and even purchased two of them
which were then delivered to Germany.
He also shared with Herman Goering
the newly appointed minister of aviation
his thought that if you release bombs at the altitude of half as much as the Americans do
you could hit targets more precisely.
But the dive-bomber concept also had powerful opponents
and one of the main was
Luftwaffe's Chief of the Technical Office Wolfram Richthofen, the cousin of the famous Red Baron,
who strongly believed that the idea of? dive-bombing was absurd. In his opinion,
the slow flying bomber while attacking the target at low altitudes would be an easy target for enemy
anti-aircraft guns and fighters, leaving the bombers little chance to hit the target and
survive. Moreover, Richtohen being a pilot himself in the past, was perfectly aware of the g-force
level the pilot would experience when exiting the dive, hence he feared that the high-level
skills required for dive-bombing could not be expected of "average pilots" in the Luftwaffe.
It's worth mentioning that the history of the trials and adoption of the Junkers-87
dive-bomber into service was full of intrigues and definitely deserves its own video, meanwhile,
we will jump straight ahead to the final stage of the German dive-bomber competition. On June 9th,
1936, Wolfram Richtofen issued a recommendation to cancel all further Ju-87 development because he
considered the aircraft to be worthless. But the very next day, on June 10th, 1936, Richthofen was
removed from his position and the new Chief of Technical Office became Ernst Udet, who
immediately rejected Richthofen's order regarding the Ju-87. Ernst Udet's appointment accelerated
the development of a new German dive bomber and eventually led to the adoption of the Junkers
Ju-87, which Udet was believed to have favored from the very beginning of the competition.
Ironically, Wolfram Richthofen's new assignment was to take a field command
in the Condor Legion - a Luftwaffe unit sent to support Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War.
And it was to the Condor legion that the very first models of the Ju-87 were soon sent to
test their capabilities in real combat conditions. To be fair, Richtofen, while in Spain, should be
given credit for thinking outside the box. At first, his initiatives found little understanding
in the minds of the Luftwaffe's high command, who were hypnotized by Douhet's doctrine and believed
that all bombers should operate primarily far beyond the front line. On the contrary,
Richthofen most often used his Ju-87s closer to the front line as direct support for ground
forces', where the Ju-87's incredible bombing accuracy became extremely useful. The aircraft
s ability to hit small targets even earned the new bomber the nickname "flying artillery".
Being capable of providing close support to the rapidly advancing troops, the Ju-87 eventually
became a vital part of the Blitzkrieg concept and one might say that the German offensive in
Europe in the initial period of World War Two might have developed quite differently
if the Junkers-87 opponents, who tried every opportunity to cancel the plane, had succeeded
in their efforts. And it was just 2 weeks before the outbreak of the war when one tragic accident
seemed to create yet another doubt regarding the capabilities of the Ju-87 dive-bomber.
In August 1939, Germany was on the final stretch in its preparation for the war.
As a part of the process, the Germans decided to hold a demonstration exercise for the Luftwaffe,
the conclusion of which would be a spectacular attack performed by dive bombers.
The Ju-87s from the Dive-Bomber Wing 76 were to hit the training targets at the Neuhammer
training area in front of the Luftwaffe commanding officers. By the way, Wolfram Richthofen was
also among those officers on the ground. The demonstration of the dive bombers' impressive
capabilities was supposed to instill confidence in the hearts of the generals regarding the
latest dive-bomber that was to provide support to German troops in the war soon to come.
The choice of the flight unit for the demonstration was not accidental:
the Sturzkampfgeschwader 76 was the first Luftwaffe unit that received new dive bombers.
According to the task, the 1st Group of the Unit, consisted of 27 bombers, was to take off from the
Cottbus airfield, fly to the Neuhammer training area, and drop their bombs on the given targets
right in front of the generals' gaze. On any other day, such a task would hardly have caused
any difficulties for Group commander Hauptman Siegel, but on that day right before the take-off,
he was informed that there was cloudiness right over the training area with the upper edge at an
altitude of 2000 meters and the lower one at 900 meters. Normally the maximum safe altitude for
the Ju-87 to pull out of the dive was around 500 m, so the commanders thought that having
the cloudiness over the field was even better. Unsuspecting generals would look up at the sky,
from which all of a sudden, the German bombers would swiftly fall out, magnificently hitting the
targets with their bombs, and then swiftly disappearing into the clouds. Isn't that
a great-looking show you wouldn t forget? Hauptman Walter Siegel personally led his unit
in that flight. To his left and right were the bombers piloted by his adjutant and the group's
chief tech officer, while behind him in close formation flew all three squadrons of his Group.
As in all previous training flights, after having reached the destination point,
the commander put his Ju-87 into a deep dive quickly disappearing in the cloud. The rest
of the unit, one after the other, followed the commander roaring through the clouds.
Later, Walter Siegel recalled that he sensed something was wrong when the clouds did not
end for quite a long time, and then the whiteness in front of him, instead of dissipating, all of a
sudden began to darken. As a highly experienced pilot, he immediately understood that he was
seeing the ground and Siegel pulled the stick abruptly, trying to get his plane out of a fatal
dive. At the same time, he screamed into his radio to his wingmen: Abort! Pull up! Pull up! .
According to eyewitnesses, Siegel managed to pull his Ju-87 out of the dive right over the ground
flying at barely 1 or 2 meters high. Meanwhile, the pilots following him did not have enough time
to react to this command. First, both Siegel's wingmen crashed into the ground almost vertically,
followed then by all nine Ju-87s from the 2nd squadron. The pilots of the 3rd
squadron were a bit more fortunate, only two planes crashed into the forest trees,
meanwhile, the rest of the squadron managed to pull their planes out of the dive
just above the ground. The 1st squadron, which flew the last in the order, had heard Siegel's
command and had enough time to cease the dive. Meanwhile on the ground, it was hard to describe
the experience of the German generals who witnessed the raining Junkers. The stricken
spectators silently watched 13 fires and black puffs of smoke over the forest.
The show indeed became an unforgettable one. An investigation of the accident conducted on the
same day found that the cause of the disaster was a sudden heavy fog, which arose just about an hour
before the appearance of the Siegel s group over the training field. Touching the lower
part of the clouds, the fog actually lowered the bottom edge of the cover to a bare 100 meters.
The personnel on the training field did not have direct communication with the airfield,
so there was no way for them to report the sudden changes in weather conditions.
According to the results of the investigation, the commander of the group, Hauptmann Siegel,
was officially found not guilty of the tragedy. Unfortunately for other European countries,
the disaster that occurred did not crack the Luftwaffe's confidence in Junkers-87,
and soon the bomber would make its bloody contribution into the horrors of World War II,
taking part in the German campaigns in Poland, Norway, France, and the USSR. But to be fair,
starting with the Battle of Britain, it became clear that the high performance of the Ju-87
was only possible when total superiority in the sky is provided. Otherwise, the Ju-87 bombers
encountering enemy fighters suffered significant losses. But even in this case, during the whole
period of war there were just a few days when Ju-87 encountered the loss of 15 or more planes in
a single day. And even in those cases, the losses of the bombers were spread out in hours throughout
the day. Meanwhile on August 15th, 1939, without encountering enemy forces, the Luftwaffe lost 13
Ju-87s and 26 pilots in less than one minute. Making the accident at Neuhammer the worst
one-time loss in the entire Ju-87 history. Another interesting detail about that accident is
that the leader of the first squadron was Dietrich Peltz who would soon become the youngest general
of the Wehrmacht and one of the German bombardment aviation commanders, whose task during the war,
in particular, was overseeing the strategic development of the German bomber arm.
And who knows how the history of the Luftwaffe would have turned out if, on August 15th, 1939,
Dietrich would have been among the first pilots to follow Siegel's dive into the fog.
As for Siegel himself, despite feeling guilty for the tragedy, it did not stop him from successfully
fighting during World War Two. As a commander of the quickly reinforced Dive-Bomber Wing 76 Walter
Siegel was among the very first pilots to drop the bombs on Poland on September 1st,
1939. He later took part in the French campaign, then in the Battle of Britain, he flew over
Greece and Crete, and fought in North Africa as well, until his appointment as a Commander
of the German Air Force in Norway. On May 8th, 1944, Walter Siegel went on an inspection flight
to check the camouflage of the battleship Tirpitz in the Trondheim Fjord. Right before the take-off,
a thick fog suddenly appeared over the fjord, as a result of which Siegel's aircraft accidentally
caught the power line wires and the plane crashed. Walter Siegel was killed in the accident. The
deadly fog, which he miraculously escaped in 1939 at the Neuhammer, eventually overtook him too.
And that's the story! If you like aviation and stories like this,
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