Tempest shot down a He 162 on 19 April 1945 --> Gun camera film?

[Roger Gaemperle]

Hello,

On 19 April 1945 the RAF pilot F/O Walkington shoot down "a small jet aircraft unlike any previously seen". It was then identified as a He 162. Apparently, there the aircraft was filmed with the gun camera. Does anybody have more information about this claim? Who was the pilot?

Does anybody know if and where gun camera films still exists?

Link: www.hawkertempest.se/action.htm+Tempest+Walkington+19+April&hl=en&start =2

(RH: http://www.hawkertempest.se/action.htm)

Regards,

Roger Gaemperle





During April Hopsten Airfield was occupied by No 122 Wing, which became the first tempest Wing to operate from German soil. Few thought that the war would last much longer and on 19 April No 80 Squadron returned to England. That same day, No 222 Squadron undertook a strafing attack on Husum Airfield. During this mission F/O Walkington chased and shoot down a small jet aircraft unlike any previously seen. Subsequent analysis of combat reports and gun camera film revealed that the aircraft was an He 162, one of the few to fly operationally

After the war Churchill ordered hundreds of hours of RAF gun footage destroyed. Why? Was it too gruesome for him? There was apparently close-up sharp footage of the crew of an Me110 under their large canopy being dissected by Hurricane Brownings that was particularly graphic.

[Jon]

Nonny, What exactly is your point ! Churchill had been involved directly in war and had very probably killed people himself in particular during the Boer war during the famous train attack incident when he was forced to defend himself. As for destroying camera gun footage , i am afraid back then it was a case of "we have so much of the stuff and its all around us lets get rid of it no one will ever be interested in this".....exactly the same principle that saw so many downed and old aircraft chopped up or melted down.........Gold dust now but not then.

[RodM]

Hi Jon,

some "unseen" RAF camera gun footage survives at the IWM in London.

http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/qryFilm.asp

They have an online catalogue of their film holdings but a cursory search using the terms "gun camera" and "camera gun" shows, ironically, that most of the footage appears to be from 1940-44. In addition, the weekly war news segments, shown at theatres, may have included such a clip.

However, I would think that the only way to find out for sure would be to visit and view the footage...

Cheers

Rod

[sveahk]

Hello everybody,

Cross-checking the 19th April 1945 with the He 162 i came up with some interesting and, in part, contradictory material.
Here goes:

In John Foreman's Fighter Command War Diaries, Part 5, 19th April 1945 it says:
"...An unidentified aircraft was claimed shot down by a Tempest pilot at Husum."
So far so good. Further down it says (still 19 April):
"...During the day Feldwebel Kirchner of I./JG 1 made an unconfirmed claim for an RAF aircraft destroyed while flying an He 162 Volksjäger but no further details are known from either side."

Now, in two different "Verlustlisten" concerning JG 1 we find the following stats:
19.04.45 // I./JG 1 // FhjFw // Günther Kirchner // + // Luftkampf P-47, Absturz bei Klintum, 100 % // He 162 A- // ge. 2 +

Which makes it a little more complicated! Now, Klintum is close to Husum (Schleswig-Holstein), a Tempest could be mistaken for a P-47, but I wonder where John Foreman got the information about Kirchner destroying an RAF aircraft?

So, who shot down who? All of course considering the last tumultous days of the war, where keeping statistics up-to-date was the least worry...!!

Anyway, Roger, if you care for some american Gun Camera films, I can recommend the following site:
http://rareaviation.com/guncamo.html
For the moment they have three 1944 P-38, P-47 and P-51 Gun Camera Films, all against Luftwaffe. Also one 1944 Luftwaffe Fw 190 and Me 110 Film.
Quality not bad and the american movies well documented (date, american pilot and so on).

Take care, Hans

I understand that c200 Allied bombers were downed by German jets.

Were any Allied fighters lost to them?