October 10th, 1944 - 20,000 feet over Germany
Since the Event and the subsequent battles the Western Allies were licking their wounds and had halted operations to recover their losses. The 8th USAAF, which had been badly beaten in the days following the Event, had been fully resupplied. Many units were completely destroyed and had to be rebuilt from the ground up. The few survivors were the remaining ground staff.
The first fight between jet fighters and piston engined aircraft resulted in nearly complete losses for the piston engine aircraft. Disaster after disaster on land and in the air made everyone hesitant to attack Germany again. Targets in Western Europe were difficult to attack. Even areas without SAM sites were difficult to attack as German flak had significantly improved not to mention the increased effectiveness of DT German fighters.
However, that was the past. As Stalin had lamented, he would get no help, the Western Allies decided to attack German soil directly. The Allies had decided to restart the bombing campaign. Overall morale was low. So many pilots reported as "not feeling well" or "fit to fly". That led to a series of court martials. Despite this enough pilots were available. Operation Ulysses, the restarting of the bombing campaign would begin.
On the morning of October 10th nearly 2,000 US planes took off from various air fields in England. The first two hundred bombers were flown to bombing altitude after which their pilots were to bail from the aircraft. The payload was to be armed before bailout. The aircraft were to be flown to Nurnberg via remote control and would deliberately be crashed into their targets. Even if radio jamming were to be in place the aircraft's inertial guidance systems would still provide controlled flight into target.
The HQ of the 8th USAAF didn't have much hope, that the remote controlled bombers would succeed in their main objective or their secondary objective of being decoy aircraft. They hoped that the German fighters would waste their rockets on the decoys and enable the main bomber force through relatively unscathed.
On the other side of the Channel German RADAR had already alerted the Luftwaffe, that enemy aircraft were inbound. General Galland, commanding officer of the Bundesverteidigung, since the last battle was recovering and building up defences.
The first line of defense were the DT fighters stationed in the Netherlands, Belgium and Northern France. They would be the first wave of interceptors. After that UT jet fighters would engage the Allied bomber formations to sow further chaos. The final hammer blow would come from the DT fighter aircraft stationed in the Bundesrepublik.
Major Walther Nowotny of JG 7 in Schiphol was already sitting with his men (and a woman) in the fighters, ready for take off. His Me 262 Swallow was a prototype armed with 24 R4M rockets and 4 AIM-9Li missiles. There was only one and he was the commanding officer... well, he to finally get his hands on a new toy.
The US had decided to attack again. He and his pilots would make them r decision.
Only 10 minutes after the start he saw the first boxes of B-17 and B-24 bombers. "Indianer, dead ahead! Rabazanella!" He gave the order to attack. "Pauke, Pauke!" he heard the answer, that his pilots acknowledged. They were to ignore the enemy fighters for the time being, as they had too much speed. If needed, they were to use the very same attack the USN pilots did against the Zero in the Pacific, hit and run and avoid dogfights at all costs.
It was a bad idea to attack the bombers frontally, so he led his aircraft into an attack from the rear. When in range he fired his first Sidewinder. A bomber was hit in the wing with most of the wing destroyed. Soon after it crashed on the ground, but that went unseen by the Major, as he was busy with another target.
Another Sidewinder, another hit. Another aircraft without a wing. At that point he was within range to fire his Mk. 213 C cannons. He found it strange, that no defensive fire came from the bombers. Then he fired the fighter's cannons. The machine in front of him exploded violently. He was barely able to avoid the cloud of shrapnel from the explosion. However, another Me 262 pilot was not so lucky. At least he was able to bail out safely.
Nowotny cursed.
"It's a trap! The bombers are full of explosives! Don't close in to cannon range! Use your rockets and aim for the wings!"
Heeding his orders his men switched to rockets. Six more explosions. Six more bombers downed.
Hauptmann Beate Uhse had acknowledged the Major's orders. However, she had an idea and aimed for the bomb bay. A direct hit by two of her rockets fired led to the destruction of the bomber. The blast and shrapnel was able to heavily damage the bombers nearby and managed to trigger the bombs on one of them. This led to a cascade of shrapnel and blast damage taking out the whole box.
Despite the orders to stay at range some fighters still strayed too close and were downed when the bombs onboard exploded. Surviving fighters retreated back to the nearest airfield.
Soon after the Bf 109 K and Fw 190 D fighters of the other wings based in the Netherlands and Belgium attacked. They had been warned of rigged bombers as well, so they used their rockets at first.
Finally the German fighters had to retreat, as they were out of ammo. 14 German machines were downed with 9 casualties. On the other hand all of the flying bombs were downed. Soon the first box of the manned planes was attacked and the pilots were able to finally able to use their guns. Still the warning of bombers being rigged with explosives was repeated.
Chuck Bednarik had been the waist gunner of a B-24. He had been at the air battle of Münster and the subsequent defeats. Still, he was doing his duty. He had seen, how suddenly whole squadrons, even wings, were destroyed within minutes. And that without even a single glimpse of the enemy! Now it was happening again. He saw "Billy Joe" exploding in the air. "Vicky" went down belching flames and black smoke. At least some of the crew were able bail out. "Pussy Cat" lost her stern section and was no longer controllable. Thus the crew bailed out. Chuck knew, that this was only the beginning.
Due to the Event, or Zeitensprung as the Germans said, the Germans had "inherited" several UT equipment, mostly of the USAF. Among them were 48 F-16 C/D and 48 MiG-29 G, which were found with Luftwaffe markings. UT Pilots were trained to use these types of fighters as well. Soon after three new wings were formed with the 48 A-10 Warthog wing stationed at the Eastern Front. In combination with 96 Eurofighters they formed the core of the Bundesverteidigung.
Additionally there were about 1,200 DT fighters of the types Bf 109 and FW 190. Both, the FW 190-D and the Bf 109 K, had even better engines than OTL making them the best piston engine fighters in the world. Galland, who admired von Clausewitz, wanted to get a chance to create a decisive battle, in which the enemy to beaten down completely. Now he had his chance.
Major Robert S. Johnson had been sent back to fight the Germans, as too many experienced pilots had been shot down. With 27 kills Johnson was the top ace the USAAF had in Europe. But he had never fought against the UT Germans.
For him a bad surprise to see dozens of US bombers, bombers he was supposed to protect, be downed without the enemy in sight. Eventually he spotted fast approaching enemy fighters on the horizon.
The enemy fighters went past his group in flash. He only able to identify them as delta wing jet fighters. His fellow pilots were flying only P-47s. The pilots in his group were far too inexperienced to be in this fight. This showed as almost every fighter in his group scattered and were soon out of position.
"Pilots, stop it! We need to keep our position!" But his orders were in vain.
The enemy jet fighters were ignoring the P-47 mostly. In one case a young US pilot was able to bring themselves behind a Eurofighter, nearly in a position to shoot. Johnson couldn't believe what he saw, as the jet fired a rocket. That rocket turned and hit the P-47. The pilot had no chance, as the plane exploded. Johnson cursed.
As soon as the attack had started, it was over. The German jets retreated. Of his squadron there had only be one casualty, but the bombers were hit badly. Even worse, the flight order wasn't kept strictly any longer. His fighters were distributed all over the battle zone and it would need time to reform. Time that they didn't have. He had just given the order to regroup, when he saw the next wave of enemy planes. This time these were FW-190s and Bf 109s. Enemies he knew, enemies he had fought before. Unfortunately, the Major didn't know that these aircraft were upgraded and improved from his last encounter. While the original Bf 109 K was as good as the P-51D, in some characteristics better, there had been more time to train the pilots.
On the other side Major Georg-Peter Eder, commander of the newly formed I./JG 29, led his pilots into the fight. He himself was an ace against both bombers and fighters. With 50 kills he had nearly twice as much as Johnson. He and his more experienced pilots would engage the enemy fighters, while the more inexperienced pilots would attack the bombers. Hopefully on this way casualties would be minimised.
"Indianer, 11 o'clock! Pauke, Pauke!" He gave the order to attack. There were only a few fighters in his way. He engaged them immediately.
His fighters were outnumbered with the rest of the enemy fighters engaging the bombers. They fired their rockets from dead ahead, then switched to guns and left the area for another attack run. He was unable to do anything about it as he was in a dogfight. The pilot was good. Also he never saw this particular variant of the Bf 109 before. Twice he barely avoided being hit. The third time not so. He felt the impact of the MGs. The motor started smoking and leaking oil, and all rudder control was lost. Looking out he didn't dare to bail at such a low altitude. So he ditched his plane in a farmer's field.
The crash landing caused his head to hit the instrument panel, knocking him unconscious. When he came to, he saw police officers running towards his plane. Unable to destroy his plane in time, he shrugged and climbed out of the cockpit.
"Good morning officers." he said. "I had some problems with my plane. Do you know a garage nearby to fix it?"
Eder had just claimed his 51st victory. His opponent was tough. That pilot knew how to fly. He didn't know that he had just shot down the best USAAF fighter pilot in Europe. As there were no fighters in range he joined his men in attacking the box in front of him. That box consisted of B-17 bombers. He attacked dead ahead, fired his rockets, then his guns. He shot down another four bombers. As he was low on ammo and fuel, he gave the order to retreat.
Bednarik shook his head. They wouldn't get to Nuremberg, if the situation were to continue as is. Half of his box was shot down. He got one FW 190 but that didn't help much. His plane had also received some damage. The tail gunner had been shot dead and the bomb bay was non-operational. It became increasingly likely that they had to bail out. Suddenly several dozen of bombers were shot down. He prepared to fight again, but this time no enemy would come as ground SAM sites had opened fire on the bombers.
20 minutes Bednarik waited for an enemy. When he finally thought, that it was over, another dozen bombers went down. Then he saw the enemy jets attacking them from the North and South. In the north the enemy jets had two engines, the southern ones only one. Regardless, they were still deadly. He saw "Frankie" exploding after a one engined fighter poured a stream of bullets into her. A rocket hit "Lady Luck". At least the crew was lucky as he could see eleven parachutes. After the next attack only 10 planes were in his box. He saw one P-51 being in position to fire upon a two-engined jet. The jet suddenly ascended and rapidly lost speed, taking the P-51 by surprise forcing him to fly past. That jet had stopped and like a cobra it was now attacking the P-51 from above and behind. Chuck could see the jet firing. The P-51 exploded.
"Fucking hell, retreat." he heard out of the radio. As his commander had been shot down a while ago, as well as several other commanders and deputies, he didn't know, who said this, but soon after the whole bomber fleet was dropping their bombs on some fields near Frankfurt to retreat as fast as possible.
At that moment the bomber stream lost its coherence. They were now fair game for German fighters. Many of their own escort fighters were retreating without thinking to protect the bombers. A Fw 190 with a very long nose attacked his plane. He also fired but missed unlike the German who hit. The radio operator and bombardiers were killed. Two motors were hit. No one bailed out as the pilot still felt that they would be able to make it to the Channel.
Leutnant Franz Hofer was a newly trained pilot, born in a small village near Garmisch-Patenkirchen. This was his first combat sortie. He had been excited and eager to fight. He saw the enemy bombers and became nervous. He had seen these bombers before but not so near and in a combat situation. Oberst Günther Lützow, the commander of his wing, had taught them to not to rely on emotions but to cope with them. So Franz who was anxious after a few deep breaths calmed down.
He saw the enemy dropping the bombs. For a moment he thought that they were too late but then a fellow pilot pointed out that they were dropping bombs over empty field. The enemy had decided to retreat. They would still pay to decide on attacking in the first place.
He was taught to fire single rockets and only to fire salvos if ordered to do so. He made the mistake of firing off a whole salvo. The spread of rockets managed to hit not one, but four bombers. Three of them were clear kills, the fourth had his port engines burning. He finished it off with his cannons.
He was then ordered to attack the next box, as this one was completely annihilated. While his comrades used rockets, he could only watch as he had fired all of them at the previous box. Again he fired his guns. This time the bomber was engulfed in a ball of flame, as he had hit the main tank. After another bomber was hit, he reported that he was nearly out of ammo and thus was ordered to fly home. He was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class for downing five enemy planes on the first sortie.
Chuck Bednarik was glad to see the German fighters retreat. Now they were over the Ruhr region the German flak fired. His plane was hit and was further damaged. Since the German shells had new fuses, they had become more deadly. More bombers were shot down. He saw a B-24 receiving a direct hit. The bomber broke in half and went down as two. Another bomber, a B-17, seemingly unscathed, suddenly nosed down and dived to the ground. He didn't see any parachutes. Bednarik's plane was hit again. They had to bail out- over a small village. The plane crashed just behind the last house causing no further damage. Bednarik had more bad luck and he came down directly in the market square. Two police officers were already there waiting for him. One was a young Turkish looking woman, the other a tall blonde man named Schneider. Soon after, he was on the way into captivity.
Of the about 2,000 aircraft the US had started Operation Ulysses with less then 400 came back. That night British air crews refused to sortie. The offensive had failed the very first day. A pilot's revolt was highly likely at this point with mutiny possibly breaking out if orders to sortie were to be sent out.
