[John Vasco]

Jim,
Hardly any offered their thoughts on the actual best use of the 110. At the time they were young men, flying modern aircraft, drawn into a war, and just got into it. the odd one did give some additional views. Marchfelder said he flatly refused to go to a fighter-bomber unit, ashe was quite happy to fight in air-to-air combat, but not randomly drop bombs that would kill civilians. Schenck, who I mention from time to time, was a different kind of person altogether. He had served time at Rechlin, and got an insight into what was going on there in terms of all the experimental trials. He was what one would term a 'thinker', and so in all of my discussions with him (and there were several long ones) it was obvious that there was more to him than the usual pilot (that's not to denigrate pilots in any way - Schenck did head up 'Kommando Schenck' in 1944 trialling the 262 as a bomber, and become Inspector of Jet Fighters, so he must have had something going for him in terms of knowledge and ability). He felt the 110 could have acquitted itself better in the BoB had the pilots been allowed to fly it to its full capabilities. In other words, once across the English coast flying at full tilt, 'through the gate', to get on and stuck into the RAF fighters on favourable terms rather than at a disadvantage, as was most times the case.

As to some losses, well Hübner & Franke of 5./ZG 6 were given a reserve machine of 6./ZG 26 to fy one day, and once in the air they knew why it was a reserve. Clapped out. Easy meat for shooting down. And Wilhelm Schaefer of the Geschwaderstab of ZG 2, who had not flown since being fished out of the Channel on 11th August, was given his Geschwaderkommodore's Bf 110 to fly on 4th September. Very generous gesture by Vollbracht, until he and his Bordfunker were airborne and Schaefer realised both engines were knackered. Duty meant he stayed with his unit in the air, but once the RAF was encountered and the fighting began, his 110 was a disaster waiting to happen, and the best thing that happened was after taking many hits he was able to put down safely for both to become PoWs. So a couple of examples of why some losses occurred. I'm sure that is representative across all of the flying services of the nations involved at the time.

And there will be no more 110 writings from me. I have exhausted all of my research material. Everything I had is now in the books. Get the books and you have as much as I have ever had. The only writing I have left to do is to complete the story of my lunatic time with the early 1970s rock band I was in in Liverpool, and then parcel up two copies for my grandchildren for when they are old enough to read it.