Messerschmitt Me-109

In the fall of 1944, a series of boosted DB 605 engines gave the Me-109 another new lease on life. The DB 605D featured a GM1 nitrous oxide injection system, while the DB 605ASM, ASB, ASC, DB and DC variants had MW 50 methanol injection systems that briefly boosted its power from 1,550 to 2,000 hp. The engines were installed in the Me-109G-6AS, G-10 and G-14. The Me-106G-10, which also eliminated the Beule by covering the machine-gun breechlocks under a more carefully streamlined cowling, was the fastest of the Gustavs, with a speed of 428 mph at 25,000 feet.

Late-model Me-109G-6s, G-10s and G-14s featured a new, taller, unbalanced wooden tail and rudder assembly, as well as a modified canopy offering better pilot visibility, known as the Galland hood. Training versions of the Me-109 were considered as early as 1940, but serious work on such an airplane did not begin until 1942, resulting in the Me-109G-12, essentially a lengthened, two-seat conversion from Me-109G-1, G-5 and G-6 fighters. A twin of a different and more literal sort was the Me-109Z Zwilling, a pair of Me-109Fs joined by a central wing and tail plane extension, with the right cockpit faired over to carry extra fuel. A production version, based on the Me-109G, would have carried five 30mm MG 108 cannons or up to 1,102 pounds of bombs. The Me-109Z prototype was completed in 1943 but was damaged in an Allied air attack before it could be flight tested. The project was dropped in 1944, before the prototype could be repaired, but by a curious coincidence, the Zwilling concept was successfully applied by the Americans to their North American P-51, leading to the development of the P-82 Twin Mustang in April 1945.

A small number of Me-109H-0 and Me-109H-1 high-altitude interceptors, featuring an enlarged wingspan of 39 feet 1 1/4 inches and a DB 601E-1 engine with GM 1 power boost, were tested in the spring of 1944. The H model could reach an altitude of 47,000 feet but displayed serious flutter in dives, and development was canceled in favor of the Focke Wulf Ta-152. There was no Me-109I, and the Me-109J was a proposed Spanish version to be licensed out to Hispano-Suiza. The experimental Me-109L was to use a 1,750-hp Junkers Jumo 201E engine. The Me-109S would have featured blown flaps to improve its low-speed handling characteristics. The Me-109TL project envisioned jet power, but so many modifications were necessary that it was dropped in favor of the Me-262A.

The final production wartime variant was the Me-109K, powered by a 1,550-hp DB 605 ASCM/DCM engine with MW 50 methanol injection. Standard armament consisted of one engine-mounted 30mm MK 103 or MK 108 cannon and two 15mm MG 151 cannons in the cowling. Its maximum speed reached 452 mph at 19,685 feet. The Me-109K-2 and Me-109K-4 made their combat debuts during Operation Bodenplatte, a last desperate mass Jabo strike against British and American air bases in France on January 1, 1945. By then, they were too few and too late to have any more effect on the war’s outcome than the more advanced fighters that had been developed by a desperate Nazi war machine.

May 8, 1945, marked the end of Hitler’s Reich but, curiously, not the end of the Me-109 story. Between 1939 and 1945, 45 Bf-109Bs, 15 Me-109Es, 10 Me-109Fs and 25 Me-109Gs were delivered to Spain. After the war, Hispano Aviación installed 1,300-hp Hispano Suiza 12-Z-89 engines in the Me-109G airframes, the first of which, designated the HA-1109JIL, debuted on March 2, 1945. The company subsequently produced its own version of the Messerschmitt, powered by a Hispano-Suiza 122-17 engine. The HA-1109-KIL first flew in March 1951, and 200 were eventually built. A two-seat trainer version, the HA-1110-KIL, was added in October 1953, and the HA-1112-KIL had a combination of two wing-mounted cannons and underwing rockets. A final version, the HA-1112-MIL Buchon (‘Pigeon’), used a 1,400-hp Rolls-Royce Merlin 500/45 engine driving a Rotol four-bladed propeller. Ironically, the Spanish-built Me-109, which used the same engine as its old enemy, the Spitfire, represented its German forebear in the 1969 film The Battle of Britain.

The story of the Czechoslovakian-built version of the Messerschmitt involves yet another twist of fate. The Avia factory at Prague-Cakovice was to have built the Me-109G-14 under license but had not begun production before the fall of the Reich. With the resurrection of the Czechoslovakian Republic, Avia proceeded with production of that same design, calling it the C-10, along with a two-seat trainer, the C-110, which were respectively designated S-99 and CS-99 by the Czechoslovakian air force.

As supplies of DB 605 engines dried up, Avia was compelled to use another German engine that it was already producing, the 1,350-hp Junkers Jumo 211F, thus reverting to the Me-109’s original power plant. Unfortunately, the Jumo 211F was heavier, yet less powerful, than the DB 605. Using a broad, paddle-bladed propeller, the C-210 displayed mediocre performance in the air, but its takeoff and landing characteristics were positively vicious. Pressed into military service as the S-199 fighter and CS-199 trainer, the Jumo-engine Avia became known as the Mezec (’mule’) to its unhappy pilots, although it served with the Czech National Security Guard until as late as 1957.

In 1948, with the Jews of Palestine about to declare statehood in the face of their hostile Arab neighbors, the Czechoslovakians found an outlet for their unloved Mezecs. Ignoring the United Nations-mandated embargo on arms to the Middle East, Czechoslovakia made a deal in early April to sell 10 S-199s to the Jews at the exorbitant rate of $44,600 per fighter, plus $6,890 for equipment, $120,229 for ammunition and a $10,000 ferrying charge. By the time Israel’s statehood was declared on May 14, a mixed bag of foreign volunteers and indigenous Jews, the latter including Mordechai ‘Modi’ Allon and Ezer Weizmann, were hastily striving to master the new fighter.

The Israelis dubbed their first fighter the Sakin (’knife’), but most of the pilots regarded its unofficial Czech sobriquet as more appropriate. Lou Lenart, a former U.S. Marine Vought F4U Corsair veteran of the Pacific War, described the S-199 as ‘probably the worst airplane that I have ever had the misfortune to fly…you had that monstrous propeller and you had a torque and no rudder trim.’

Nevertheless, the Sakins were rushed to Tel-Nof Air Base near Tel Aviv, and on May 29, Lenart led Allon, Weizmann and South African volunteer Edward Cohen on a bombing and strafing attack against some 10,000 Egyptian troops advancing on Tel Aviv. The Sakins inflicted some damage, but Eddie Cohen was shot down.

When two converted Douglas C-47s of the Royal Egyptian Air Force (REAF) tried to bomb Israeli headquarters at Ramat-Gan outside Tel Aviv on June 3, Allon scrambled up to intercept and shot down both. Ironically, the first recorded aerial victories for the Chel Ha’Avir (Israel Defense Force/Air Force, or IDF/AF) were scored in a postwar variation of a German fighter design. A total of seven victories were claimed in S-199s, including one of the Me-109’s traditional adversaries, a Spitfire, by Allon on July 18. The last ace to fly a Messerschmitt variant was Rudolf Augarten, a Jewish American who had scored his first two victories–both Me-109s–in World War II while flying P-47Ds with the 406th Fighter Squadron. Augarten was flying S-199 serial No. D-121 when he downed an REAF Spitfire on October 16, on the same day that Modi Allon, the most successful Sakin pilot, fatally crashed near Hertzeliya. Rudy Augarten later downed three more Egyptian aircraft while flying Spitfires and P-51Ds.

A total of 25 S-199s served in the IDF/AF, of which three were destroyed by groundfire and eight wrecked or damaged in crashes. By May 1949, Israel had acquired enough Spitfires to render the Sakins unnecessary, and by the end of the year all but one of them had been relegated to the scrap heap. The survivor served as a ‘gate guardian’ at Hatzerim Air Base until April 1988, when it was rescued for restoration and given the status it deserved as an historical relic of the IDF/AF’s desperate formative years.

The Me-109’s long operational career ended where it had begun–in Spain. The last HA-1112-MIL emerged from Hispano’s Seville plant in late 1956, and the Spanish Messerschmitts soldiered on into the 1960s.

Although Allied bombing made it difficult to calculate an exact figure, it has been estimated that as many as 33,000 Me-109s of all models were built, making it second only to the Soviet Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik as the most mass-produced warplane in history. Moreover, the ubiquitous Me-109 was credited with shooting down more enemy aircraft and producing more aces than any single fighter in the annals of aerial warfare. Although not the most aesthetically pleasing airplane ever built, the Messerschmitt earned its place among the aviation classics–and, if not affection, at least respect.

This article was written by Jon Guttman and originally published in the May 1999 issue of Aviation History. For more great articles subscribe to Aviation History magazine today!