Did the Luftwaffe ever experiment with JATO?

[RodM]

Hi Ed,

thanks for the additional comments.

From the limited reading I've done, conventional literature all seems to suggest that most of the missiles developed by the Germans were never deployed operationally, but then, as you say, a lot still remains to be uncovered.

At night, from the descriptions of various phenomena, there would appear to have been a range of ground- and air-fired projectiles fired in the vincinity of bomber streams.

There were some recorded descriptions of small, winged projectiles, and on a reasonable number of occasions many projectiles exploded on their own accord. There is also the instance from the night of 20-21 March, when a Mosquito chased an aircraft, thought to be a jet (but later classified as a "He219 with a single jet") that fired projectiles in the direction of the bomber stream. the mystery aircraft was shot down; the combat was captured on cine film.

Besides the instances of lights seen climbing rapidly from 'lit-up airfields', and lights that were able to chase aircraft, another commonly reported occurrance were lights seen climbing rapidly from the ground that would either explode at height or curve back down to earth. I do think that some of these were probably signals munitions; the Germans tested a system of visual signals to indicate the position and course of a bomber stream for night fighters, to be used to negate the radio jamming. It had been hoped that the system would be fully operational by May 1945.

Cheers

Rod