The Man Behind the Stuka (and the A-10 Warthog)

Before: A pissed-off American

After: Tons of smoked Japanese

Of all the weapons of the Second World War, the dive bomber is among the most iconic and significant of them. The Japanese used them to great effect in the attack on Pearl Harbor and their subsequent more-or-less simultaneous offensives elsewhere in Asia, and the U.S. Navy used them to even greater effect during the Battle of Midway, where dive bombers sunk four Japanese aircraft carriers and essentially turned the tide of the war in the Pacific. 

On their way to war

However, it was a trio of a certain type of dive bomber that took off in the early morning hours of September 1, 1939 with the mission of severing the wires of explosive charges attached to the Dirschau bridge over the Vistula River that the dive bomber would achieve a singularly unique infamy.

The Red Baron in black-and-white

Manfred Freiherr von Richtofen, who was an actual aristocrat (Freiherr roughly translates into Baron), was the leading air ace of World War 1, with 80 confirmed victories before his death in combat in 1918. Known as the Red Baron because of his habit of painting the aircraft he flew red, his place in military aviation history and readers of "Peanuts" cartoon strips is secure. 

The original red menace

Beginning around 1915, when aircraft became armed with forward-firing machine guns and began to shoot down other aircraft, all of the warring powers, especially Germany, made efforts to popularize the concept of an "ace," a pilot who shot down at least five enemy aircraft, a practice which continues to the present day. By the standards of the time, the Red Baron was the rock star of all rock stars.

Like practically every other major human achievement, everybody remembers Number One, but Number Two goes largely forgotten. In this case, Number Two was a particularly talented pilot named Ernst Udet. 

Udet: Schtud Muffin

Born in 1896 and originally rejected for military service at the start of WW1 because he was too short (about 5'3"), Udet eventually made his way into the fighting by the fact that he possessed a motorcycle. After performing service as a dispatch rider, Udet, determined to become a military pilot, learned to fly at his own expense. He was finally accepted, and his short stature and light weight were advantages at a time when aircraft and engines were primitive and every gram counted. After an inauspicious start as an artillery observer pilot that included being court-martialed for allegedly carelessly crashing an airplane, a superior recognized his talent and ordered him transferred to fighters, where he quickly became a skilled and deadly aviator.

 

The Blue Max

By the time the war ended, Udet had racked up 62 confirmed kills, and was a holder of the Pour le Merite, also known as the Blue Max, Imperial Germany's highest military award. Weathering the tumultuous immediate post-war period when Germany was wracked by communist revolution, political upheaval, and severe economic distress, Udet, like many fliers who survived the war, made his living as a barnstormer and stunt pilot. 

Tough neighborhood: Postwar Germany

A failed venture at being an aircraft manufacturer was followed by much work in film, where he collaborated with the infamous Leni Riefenstahl on several movies. In addition to his astounding flying skills, Udet was a genuine "bon vivant," who was a sucker for having a good time and made friends wherever he went. He was the life of the party, and was known for hilarious and entertaining antics such as juggling, cartoon caricatures, joke-telling, and the like. He was also a hit with the ladies, and was a "player" throughout his life.

Always ready to party: Udet's airborne bar

Although he was never particularly interested in politics, by the early 1930's, Udet began to be increasingly drawn into the Nazi’s web. The Nazis, many of whom were highly-decorated veterans, were always looking for other WW1 heroes to add to their ranks, and Udet, as the top-scoring German ace who survived the war, was a stellar candidate.

Hermann Goering in leaner times

Udet, however, resisted efforts to recruit him, and was content to drink and tell war stories with his old comrades, the most significant of whom was Hermann Goering. Not only was Goering an air ace and Blue Max winner himself with 22 victories, he was the last commander of the famed "Flying Circus," the squadron that the Red Baron commanded until he was killed in action. 

Udet and Fokker D. VII "Lo!" (His old lady)

Goering's final act of the war was to order his squadron to deliberately smash their aircraft, the deadly Fokker D.VII's, in violation of Armistice terms which specifically ordered those aircraft to be turned over to the victorious Allies intact.

A visit to the United States in 1933 proved fateful. Udet, who spoke fluent English and had many American friends, flew a Curtiss Hawk dive bomber developed for the U.S. Navy. Udet thought that any aircraft good enough for the U.S. Navy was certainly good enough for him, and after taking the Hawk through a series of brutal maneuvers, enthusiastically decided that Germany could learn much from this airplane. 

One of Udet's Hawks

Struggling with the Great Depression, the Americans were eager to make the sale and had no objections, but Goering slapped one condition on Udet: Join the Nazi party, and we'll buy you the planes. Although the only parties Udet was interested in joining were the one that had ladies and liquor, desperately wanting the planes, Udet finally caved.

Although the Nazis continued to pressure Udet into doing more work for them, he was finally made an offer he couldn't refuse. He was told by Goering that as a civilian, he could never have any influence on Germany's aviation policies, but if he were to become a Luftwaffe officer, he would be in charge of research and development for the Luftwaffe's aircraft. Udet finally accepted, and in 1935 was sworn in, the same year that the Luftwaffe (literally "Air Weapon," figuratively "Air Force") was revealed to the world, despite the Versailles Treaty specifically forbidding Germany to have such an organization.

Early Stuka in Spain with the Condor Legion

It was in his new capacity that Udet was behind the development of one of the icons of Nazi Germany and World War 2; the Junkers Ju 87 dive bomber, also known as the Stuka. Although the Germans applied the term to all dive bombers much like they call all submarines “U-boats” (Stuka is a contraction for Sturzkampfflugzeug, literally "plunge battle aircraft," but figuratively, "dive bombing aircraft"), the Ju 87 was the most notorious expression of it.

Later Stuka in Spain with the same gang

Beating out several competing designs, including the Heinkel He 118, a sleek monoplane that almost killed Udet when it disintegrated while he was flying it into a power dive, the Ju 87 went on to be used in the Spanish Civil War, where it proved to be very effective against point and lineal targets like bridges. As if that wasn't enough, Udet devised a potent form of psychological warfare in the form of air-driven sirens, which were activated when the Stuka was diving over its targets prior to releasing its bombs. The combination proved to be both lethal and effective, and the Stuka made its name during the campaigns of 1939 and 1940.

The Battle of Britain, the Desert War, and the invasion of the USSR proved to be the demise of both the Stuka and Udet himself. While the Stuka was terrifyingly effective as a dive bomber, it was slow and proved to be highly vulnerable to fighter planes; great numbers of them were shot down over Britain and the Western Desert. Although it served throughout the war, the Stuka had to be escorted by fighters in most of the areas it operated, eventually being replaced in most squadrons by ground-attack versions of the Focke-Wulf FW190 fighter.

Last model of the Stuka and inspiration for the Warthog: the JU87G with twin 37mm cannons

Udet, being the champion of the dive bomber that he was, issued a requirement that all bombers destined for the Luftwaffe, regardless of their size, were to have dive bombing capabilities. Several aircraft that were in advanced stages of development, chiefly the Junkers JU88 medium and Heinkel HE177 heavy bombers, had to be substantially redesigned, causing significant delays. These aircraft gained much empty weight as a result, which in turn significantly reduced their performance. Almost needless to say, the Nazi brass was not pleased. The first nails in Udet’s coffin were being put in place.   

Udet, who was an inept administrator and had little experience running large bureaucracies, was increasingly under pressure and criticized by Goering and other Nazi bigwigs for rendering the Luftwaffe unprepared for the long war on multiple fronts that Germany now faced. Although Udet had no effective control over the German aircraft industry, he was nevertheless blamed for many of its failures. Udet was also somewhat alienated by having a distinctly non-Nazi disposition; of the regular German armed forces, the Luftwaffe was considered the most Nazified, second only to the Waffen-SS. On November 17, 1941, after calling up his mistress, Udet shot himself in the head while still on the phone with her.

Auf wiedersehen! Udet's state funeral

Udet's legacy will live on for a long time; in addition to his flying and contributions to aviation, motion picture foley artists, especially those working on James Bond films, invariably use the sound of Udet's Stuka sirens when airplanes, and even helicopters, are in the act of diving. Hans-Ulrich Rudel, probably Nazi Germany’s most decorated pilot if not its most decorated service member from the entire war, was a fanatical and unrepentant Nazi until he died in 1982; however, the reading of his book Stuka Pilot was required by engineers assigned to the project that resulted in the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, also known as the Warthog.