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Re: Me 163 at night?
Hi Nick,
I believe that you've 'hit the nail on the head' - once crews knew of the existence of the advanced enemy types, sightings became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I know that Bomber Command had a difficult time entirely discounting the use of Me163s at night because crews would detail how they 'clearly saw the aircraft in the cone of a searchlight' etc, etc. What I didn't mention above is that during the November 1944 investigation, British A.I. chimed in and stated that they had no evidence (i.e. from sigint, and presumably also ULTRA and P/W reports) of deployment of jet/rocket-propelled aircraft at night. I think that A.I. may've got wind of Welter's late 1944 experiments at night with the Me262 (I haven't seen direct evidence in the form of an ULTRA decrypt or P/W report, but it was inferred in a general A.I. report that the Germans were known to be experimenting with the Me262 at night; the source of this intelligence was not disclosed), and the first solid intelligence from ULTRA about jet aircraft at night wasn't obtained until February 1945.
Cheers
Rod
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