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The Dark Reason So Many Bf 109 Pilots Died | Unbelievable true stories | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: The Dark Reason So Many Bf 109 Pilots Died
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The Messerschmitt BF 109 was a revolutionary, highly produced World War II fighter aircraft that served as the backbone of German air power, achieving legendary status despite significant design flaws that led to high pilot casualties.
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The Mesosmidt BF109 was the most
produced fighter aircraft in history.
With over 33,000 units built in less
than a decade, it created the highest
scoring aces the world has ever seen
with over 300 confirmed kills. Fast,
heavily armed, and constantly evolving.
It became the face of German air power.
But behind its reputation was a floor so
dangerous that it killed more than 1,700
German pilots, usually before they ever
even faced the enemy. This is the story
of the BF 109, the legendary World War
II fighter.
Let's first set the stage. When it was
introduced in 1937, it was the most
advanced singleseat combat aircraft in
the world. For the first half of World
War II, it would form the backbone of
the Luftwaffer's fighter force. And even
when the Fauler Wolf 190 arrived in
1941, the BF 109 would remain in service
and production until the very last days
of the war. But to really understand the
BF109, we need to go back to a time when
Germany wasn't even allowed to have an
air force. After the First World War,
the Treaty of Versailles imposed strict
limits on Germany's military. Among them
was a total ban on building or operating
combat aircraft. Officially, the German
Air Force didn't exist, but
unofficially, well, that was a different
story. Throughout the 1920s and30s,
Germany quietly kept its aviation
industry alive on paper as civil
aviation, but in practice preparing for
war. By the early30s, the Nazis were in
power, and the masks started to slip.
Germany wanted to leaprog every other
country and create something that could
dominate the skies when the time came.
One of the men at the center of that
ambition was a Bavarian aircraft
designer named Willie Messesmidt. The
aircraft he came up with would become
widely known, especially among allied
pilots, as the ME109, even though the
correct German designation was BF, short
for Berisha Flukeer, the company where
it was first designed. The world got its
first public glimpse of this new
aircraft during the controversial 1936
Olympic Games in Berlin. Germany quietly
rolled out its newest prototype, which
set a new international speed record of
610 kmh.
It was a clear message. Germany was back
in the game. Ironically, at the time,
Germany's engine manufacturers were
still catching up, so the BF 109 was
initially fitted with a British-made
Rolls-Royce Kestrel. Later, Germanbuilt
Dame Leben's engines would take over,
unlocking the aircraft's true potential.
As for firepower, the early BF 109s were
armed with just two MG17 machine guns
with 500 rounds each mounted above the
engine. They were synchronized to fire
through the propeller arc without
hitting the blades, which was a common
solution at the time. But when German
intelligence learned that the British
Spitfire was entering service with eight
wing-mounted machine guns, they
immediately scrambled to improve
firepower. So the 109's armament was
increased to two MG17 machine guns, now
each with 1,000 rounds, plus two 20 mm
cannons, one in each wing. The cannons
had a 60 round drum magazine and could
fire about 750 rounds per minute, giving
it just under 15 seconds of total firing
time. Still, those cannons packed a much
more serious punch than machine guns,
especially once the Germans began using
minos, high explosive shells designed to
explode on impact. Compared to the
machine guns, the cannons were much more
devastating and a single hit could be
fatal to the enemy aircraft. In later
variants, the Germans installed a third
cannon directly behind the engine,
mounted to fire through the hollow
propeller shaft and through the center
of the spinning propeller. The cannon
barrel was carefully aligned inside to
avoid touching the shaft, and the result
was a perfectly centered gun, making it
extremely accurate. However, the
vibration from the engine combined with
the recoil of the gun made the system
prone to jamming. Some pilots didn't
like it, but these were just early
versions, and the 109 would evolve
significantly as the war progressed. The
main floor that was killing its pilots
almost more than the enemy, however,
stayed with it. You'll hear about that
in a moment. At the time, the 109 was
quite ahead of most fighters in the
world. It had an all- metal frame, a
closed cockpit, and landing gear that
folded into the fuselage. That might
seem basic now, but back then, when most
countries were still flying wood and
canvas biplanes, it was revolutionary.
Then the civil war broke out in Spain
and Germany saw a chance to test their
new fighter in real combat. Against old
Soviet planes and early monoplane
designs, the 109 was just unmatched.
German pilots gained valuable experience
and engineers used that feedback to
improve the design. By the time Germany
invaded Poland in 1939, the 109 was
already the Luftwaffer's main fighter.
And yet again, Polish aircraft were
mostly outdated and the Luftvafer
quickly took control of the skies. After
invading the rest of Western Europe soon
after, the 109 was everywhere, escorting
bombers, attacking targets, and soon
began fighting British hurricanes and a
couple of early Spitfires during the
retreat at Dunkirk. However, all of this
was just a warm-up for what was about to
come, the Battle of Britain. By the
summer of 1940, Germany had conquered
most of Europe and now shifted its
attention across the channel. The plan
was to bomb Britain into submission
through a sustained air campaign. The
Luftvafer launched waves of bombers and
the BF 109s were tasked with escorting
them. However, a big problem immediately
emerged. The 109 was a short range
interceptor, not a long range escort.
Flying from French airfields by the time
they crossed the channel, German
fighters had fuel for just about 15
minutes of flight over British
territory. Any longer and they wouldn't
have enough fuel for the trip back.
German bomber formations flew slower
with much lower cruise speed than the
109s, which absolutely did not suit the
fighters. Time and again, Luftvafer
fighters had to break off engagements or
leave bombers exposed so they could make
it back to France, and many didn't.
Dozens of pilots were lost crashing in
the channel because they ran out of
fuel. Now in the air, the BF 109 and the
newly deployed Spitfire were well
matched, but with very different flight
characteristics. The Spitfire could
outturn and outmaneuver the BF, but the
109 could outclimb and outdive the
Spitfire. The main advantage of the 109
was its fuel injection system. The Dame
Leben's engine injected fuel directly
into the combustion chamber. You see,
the British Spitfire used a carburetor
system, which would flood or cut out
under negative G's. This made the engine
stall at the worst possible moment,
letting the 109 dive away during a dog
fight. Spitfire pilots eventually
learned to roll first, then dive, which
kept positive G's on the carburetor. The
issue was later resolved with a simple
device that prevented this from
happening. By the end of the Battle of
Britain, the Luftwaffer had suffered
heavy losses. Over 600 BF 109s were
destroyed and the invasion of Britain
was cancelled, but the end was still far
ahead as the war moved south. Now,
before going into upgraded
aces with multiund air kills, let's
explain why so many pilots got killed in
109s with enemy action having nothing to
do with it. One persistent issue
continued to haunt this fighter. Its
narrow undercarriage. The landing gear
was mounted directly to the fuselage
rather than the wings, which gave the
aircraft a clean aerodynamic profile,
but made ground handling extremely
unstable. On takeoff and landing, even
small mistakes or slightly uneven
terrain could result in violent tipovers
or crashes, and they did quite often.
During training alone, around 1,750
Luftwaffer pilots were killed in
non-combat accidents, and 10% of 109s
were destroyed. It was a deadly flaw
that would never fully be resolved. With
the campaign shifting to North Africa,
the 109 had to adapt again. Dust, heat,
and long-distance operations meant new
challenges. In response, a tropical
version of the fighter was developed,
equipped with sand filters, drop tanks
for better range, and additional
modifications for desert operations. In
June of 1941, Operation Barbarasa began
Germany's massive invasion of the Soviet
Union, and once again, the 109 led the
way. Drawing on experience from both the
Battle of Britain and the Desert
Campaign, the Fvariant was introduced
with several key changes. The
wing-mounted cannons were removed in
favor of concentrating all firepower in
the nose. It now carried two
synchronized MG17 machine guns above the
engine and a single 20 mm motor cannon
firing through the propeller shaft. This
layout improved weight distribution,
reduced drag, and made aiming more
precise. This was the variant that would
carry many of Germany's highest scoring
aces to their records, including Eric
Hartman, who would go on to claim 352
confirmed kills, making him the highest
scoring ace in aviation history. After
him was Ghard Barkhorn, credited with
301 victories. But there was a quite
dark reason the numbers reached such
extremes. Unlike Allied pilots who were
routinely rotated out for rest, training
or reassignment, German pilots remained
at the front indefinitely as they were
always in short supply. If you survived,
you kept flying, usually until you were
killed. As a result, a handful of elite
pilots accumulated hundreds of missions
and hundreds of kills, but just a
handful of them actually survived the
war. As the war dragged on, the BF 109
continued to evolve. The Gustav or G
variant became the most widely produced
model. It featured a more powerful
Dameler Benz engine, improved cockpit
protection with bullet resistant glass,
and on some versions, even a pressurized
cockpit for high altitude interception.
But the biggest changes came in
armorament. The G variant was now fitted
with two 13 mm heavy machine guns
mounted above the engine. These replaced
the earlier MG17 guns and provided far
greater stopping power. But that's not
all. A 20 mm motor cannon firing through
the propeller shaft was upgraded with a
30 mm cannon, now much more capable of
destroying heavy Allied bombers.
Optional underwing gondelas could carry
two additional 20 mm cannons. Some G
models were armed with unguided rockets
that were originally intended to attack
bomber formations or ground targets, but
their accuracy was poor and they added
significant drag. Under the fuselage, it
could now carry a 500 kg bomb or four
110 kg bombs and even two 300 L drop
tanks. Now, this dramatically increased
firepower, but at the terrible cost of
speed and agility, making 109s extremely
vulnerable to Allied fighters like the
P-47 Thunderbolt, P-51 Mustang, and
later Marks of the Spitfire. Later
attempts to improve on the G model were
the models H and K, intended for high
altitude combat, but none truly
surpassed the G in numbers or influence.
By then, it was too late. The Allied
bombing campaign had devastated German
industry and production was constantly
interrupted. Fuel shortages,
inexperienced replacement pilots, and
the sheer scale of the enemy overwhelmed
what remained of the Luftvafer. As the
Reich collapsed, BF 109s were pulled
back into desperate defensive roles.
They tried to intercept American bomber
streams and fought over the skies of
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