Importance of Being Willy

In the nomenclature of World War II, few names are more widely known now than Messerschmitt. It stands for lethal speed in the air by Nazi pursuit ships. Willy Messerschmitt,* 41, is a sharp-nosed, sandy-haired citizen of the placid, medieval town of Augsburg, Germany. He started flying when he was 15, designed his first plane in 1916, became chief engineer of Bayerische Flugzengwerke at Augsburg in 1927, specializing in speed. On April 26 this year, one of his ships with a 1,660-h.p. Daimler-Benz motor set up an absolute record of 469,225 m.p.h. The ship was undoubtedly stripped and "souped up" for the test. In combat with U. S.-built Curtiss fighters, which hit a top speed of around 330 m.p.h., Messerschmitts with their long, flat, square-tipped wings have been proved lacking in maneuverability and rate of climb. But Willy Messerschmitt remains an ace name in Naziland. It would be news indeed if he fled his country, as gossip in Europe last week said he had, placing him in The Netherlands.

To this gossip the Berlin radio retorted specifically, invited skeptics to telephone Willy Messerschmitt at his Augsburg home. One reporter who did so was Beach Conger, correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, whom the Nazis squeezed out of Berlin last fortnight because he would not retract a dispatch picturing Adolf Hitler and his High Command at odds about invading The Netherlands. Mr. Conger and a British reporter named Geoffrey Cox telephoned Willy Messerschmitt from Amsterdam. The man who answered insisted he was the famed planemaker. "I haven't been out of Germany since the war started," he said. As to the vulnerability of Messerschmitt planes, he said: "I have heard some rumors like the ones you say, but I have other information on the subject."

When they asked him when Blitzkrieg would start, the man in Augsburg fell silent, abruptly said, "Gute Nacht (good night)," then added: "Heil Hitler!" Retorted Correspondent Cox: "Heil England! Heil Churchill!"

This incident proved nothing positive about War II's air superiority, or even the whereabouts of Willy Messerschmitt. But both those subjects remained key factors in the war, and last week the New York Times's No. 1 war writer, Hanson Weight-man Baldwin, played down a major story by writing quietly:

"At present Germany is probably stepping up her [airplane] production rate faster than Britain, France and the United States combined, so that for the next few months--probably until next spring or early summer--the Reich may well lengthen her lead. . . . After that time the Allies, aided by large purchases from the United States, should gradually overtake the German lead and eventually--perhaps by the fall of 1940 or the spring of 1941--outstrip Germany in quantitative production."

Writer Baldwin, whose data are apparently as good as can be had in the U. S., set present German plane output at 1,500-to-1,800 per month, against about 1,000 for Britain,* plus 300-to-500 for France and 250-to-400 military planes for the U. S. (Even if each side loses ten planes a day, these figures if true mean that the air force of each side is evidently growing at the rate of more than 40 ships a day.) Expert Baldwin quoted official estimates of the potential of Germany's 28 factories and 400,000 workers at 5,000 planes per month by spring, but reckoned this figure a bit high. U. S. output may reach 900 per month in 1940, but the Allies cannot count on buying it all.

Probability is that German production is nowhere near its potential peak right now. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of planes flown in Poland had to be overhauled, taking men off production. And lessons in Poland and the West are doubtless being incorporated in new designs, for which production will wait. Here Designer Willy Messerschmitt comes in, if he hasn't gone out.

Design, performance, endurance are the true criteria of air superiority as between antagonists of nearly equal factory strength. New types, new maneuvers, new arms as developed by one side or the other will determine balance-of-power in the air from time to time, rather than sheer quantitative production. Meantime, with clearing weather and clearer plans last week, the air forces of both sides went at each other in the greatest numbers yet. As usual, claims made by both sides diverged widely.

The Germans scouted clear across France to the Atlantic, sending off raid alarms in cities to which the war had only been headlines and absent men. Allied reconnaissance pushed far and frequently into Germany. German communiques made a point of mentioning that Nazi scouts were accompanied by Messerschmitt fighters.* Nevertheless, they admitted that, in one day, seven observers were lost. Same time the Nazis put the score for the whole war at 52 warplanes lost by Great Britain to 20 by Germany and boasted that Messerschmitts had overcome the French Morane-Saulnier fighters. Britain claimed that 125 Nazi warplanes of all types had been shot down, and had reason to believe that British Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes (capable of 335 m. p. h. and firing eight machine guns from their wings' leading edge) were up to anything Germany could trot out.

As her position necessitated, Germany continued the more aggressive. Last fortnight one of her reconnaissance planes appeared for the first time over Britain's industrial Midlands, flying low and streaking away from anti-aircraft and pursuit after traversing Manchester (textiles), Merseyside (ship-building), and North Wales (coal). Last week more Nazis penetrated Kent and Essex, passing close to London, some of them apparently to divert attention from mine-laying seaplanes at the mouth of the Thames. Repeated reconnaissance in the North culminated with a concentrated bomber flight which descended upon a detachment of the British Home Fleet somewhere near the Shetland Islands in the North Sea. British reports said lots of bombs fell but no ships or men were hurt. Nazi reports claimed square hits on four men-o'-war.

* No kin to George S. Messersmith, U. S. Assistant Secretary of State.

* Britain currently claims 1,400 a month officially.

* Last month, grapevines reported mutinies among German reconnaissance crews, who refused to fly without fighter escorts (TIME, Nov. 13).

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