Heinkel He 219 Units – Martin Streetly

Among those airborne were Feldwebel Morlock (who obtained a radar contact but nothing more) and Unteroffizier Willi Beyer and his bordfunker, Obergefreiter Horst Walter. The Beyer/Walter crew (from 2./NJG 1) were in He 219A-0 Wk-Nr 190180 G9+FK, which crashed near Leersum, in the Netherlands. Beyer and Walter were killed, which was particularly ironic as both had successfully ejected from He 219 Wk-Nr 190123 on 5–6 June.

The night of 16–17 June 1944 saw the RAF ‘oil campaign’ continue with a strike on the Ruhrchemie synthetic oil plant at Sterkrade-Holten. A total of 14 I./NJG 1 He 219s were scrambled for Himmelbett GCI (four aircraft), guided Zahme Sau (three) and freelance Zahme Sau (seven) duties. Kills were claimed by 1./NJG 1’s Unteroffizier Hugo Oppermann, Feldwebel Morlock, Hauptmann Strüning, Oberleutnant Baake, Oberleutnant Nabrich, Major Gert Schäfer-Suren, Hauptmann Förster and 6./NJG 1’s Oberleutnant Johannes Hager.

In time order, Oppermann shot down No 434 Sqn Halifax B III LW433 at 0053 hrs, followed nine minutes later by Morlock’s destruction of No 431 Sqn Halifax B III MZ520. At 0107 hrs, Strüning brought down No 550 Sqn Lancaster B I LM134, which was followed by No 77 Sqn Halifax B III MZ698, which fell to the guns of Oberleutnant Baake at 0110 hrs.

Next, Nabrich downed No 431 Sqn Halifax B III NA514 at 0112 hrs, with Strüning claiming a Halifax (not confirmed by the RLM) at 0113 hrs. The carnage continued with Morlock destroying an unidentified Halifax at 0114 hrs (the kill was confirmed by the RLM) and 6./NJG 1’s Oberleutnant Hager adding No 77 Sqn Halifax B III to the growing kill list at 0120 hrs.

Hager claimed a second victory (No 576 Sqn Lancaster B I ME810) at 0143 hrs.

evelopment of Germany’s only purpose-built nightfighter can be traced back to an April 1940 proposal from Heinkel for a high-speed reconnaissance aircraft that bore the in-house designation P.1055. As such, this proposal envisaged an 11.4-tonne aeroplane with a 42 m2 wing area, a range of 400 km and a maximum speed of 750 km/h. Power was to be provided by an internally mounted, 3500 hp Daimler-Benz DB 613 coupled engine.

By October 1940, the P.1055 was being considered for the fast bomber and Zerstörer (heavy fighter) roles, as well as for reconnaissance. Here, the Zerstörer version was to have had a wing area of 37 m2, a maximum speed of 720 km/h at an altitude of 9000 m, a range of 2000 km and an armament of two forward-firing 20 mm MG 151/20 cannon and single examples of the 7.92 mm MG 81Z and 13 mm MG 131Z machine guns for defence.

While development of the P.1055 continued, by November 1940 Heinkel saw ‘little hope’ for a Zerstörer variant. Inspection of a P.1055 mock-up took place late that same month, and with the type’s configuration now being generally approved, it was added by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (German Air Ministry – RLM) to its development planning process. A heavily re-touched photograph that gives an excellent impression of the He 219 V1’s original configuration. Points to note are the aircraft’s bulged cockpit canopy, four- bladed propellers, ventral and dorsal fuselage ‘steps’, small fins and rudders and short rear sections to its engine nacelles (EN Archive) 7 Generaloberst Erhard Milch, who replaced Generaloberst Ernst Udet as Generalluftzeugmeister u.

Chef des Planungamt d. Lw/RLM after the latter’s suicide, made continuous efforts to halt He 219 production in favour of a nightfighter based on either the Ju 88 or Ju 188 throughout the Heinkel’s career (Chris Goss Collection) During the next three months, work was undertaken to refine the various proposals, and by December 1940 the RLM considered the project to have reached a state of maturity such as to warrant the allocation of an official type designation.

Thus, the He 219 was born. By late February 1941, the original P.1055 concept had been replaced by a ‘new’ He 219, the mock-up for which was inspected on 26 March 1941.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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