When the ground operations of the Second World War moved firstly in Africa of the North and then in Russia, the Messerschnitt Bf 109 was adapted to the extreme environmental conditions in which it had to act. In Africa, it came endowed with a special anti-sand filter that had to serve to limit its infiltration inside the motor with consequent abbreviation of the operational life. In Russia, in collaboration with the most recent Focke-Wulf FW 190, it became the exterminator of the Soviet airplanes during the offensive in the summer of 1941. It was, however, the winter of that same year hardly to test the resistance of the German aircrafts. “General Winter” that had already defeated Napoleon transformed it elf in a nightmare for the aviators of the Luftwaffe. All hydraulic systems of the Messerschnitt risked the congelation, not only when they were on the ground during the standstills, but even in the first minutes of flight, when the -40° Celsius in the Russian lowlands were unbearable indeed for whatever mechanical part. An enormous research effort was necessary to originate good anti freezing-mixture for the Russian environment. As if the problems given by the climate were not enough, the winter 1941-1942, was characterized by the appearance of a meaningless Russian airplane, the Lavochkin LaGG-3. At least, it was so if reference was made to the only performances. Less fast and less armed than the Messerschnitt and Focke-Wulf, however, it was built almost entirely by wood with exclusion of the mechanical parts. This allowed a lightness and a maneuverability without comparisons besides a facility of construction that the German machines didn't have. The Soviet factories built almost 5000 of it in the winter months, sufficient number for making up the losses of the summer. The fact that the Lavochkin was made out by wood also avoided a danger that the more provident German pilots eluded wearing a double pair of gloves and well-stuffed suits. On the Messerschnitts and on the other airplanes made by metal, the terribly low temperatures caused such a congelation of the streamlining and the cabin that, in some cases, the crystallization of the human skin could be reached to contact with the surface and the tools of the aircraft. The wood, a "warmer" material, eliminated from the mind of the Soviet pilots at least this worry. The increase of production of the Messerschnitts Bf 109 F for the whole autumn-winter 1941-42 period showed the attainment of the structural limits of the mechanics of this model and the lesser armament in comparison to the type E didn't make an impression on the German pilots who knew the resistance of the Lavochkins also after several hits. To improve the project was planned the type G that entered in production and then in service toward the end of 1942. Originally thought as countermove for the oriental front, it was employed more diffusely, instead, in the skies of Germany, to defend the industrial apparatus of the Reich, seriously threatened by the allied air offensive. By now the war was entering in its crucial phase. The last years of war and the twilight From the beginnings of 1943, the allies had separated the assignments of bombardment on Germany. English, more prudent and conscious of the dangers to which went toward, handled the nighttime raids, while the Americans, aware of their own industrial and human strength, continued the diurnal missions, regardless of the remarkable losses of bombardiers. While at night the defense of the cities was entrusted to a mighty antiaircraft system (the famous FLAK) and to the fantastic nighttime fighters Messerschnitts Bf 110 and Heinkel 219 Uhu (Owl) gifted of advanced systems radar, the weight to prevent the complete destruction in the daytime weighed almost entirely on the squadrons of Messerschnitt Bf 109 G. The enemy could line up the maximum expression of its technology, represented by the bombardiers of class Flying Fortress and Liberator, accompanied by the fighters P-47 and P-51, perhaps the best aircrafts of the whole conflict. Since the first raids, it was evident that the last finality of the Messerschnitts was to limit the losses. The armament of the model G, although superior to that of its predecessor, was entirely insufficient to shoot down the American bombardiers. It was looked out upon a difficulty choice for the pilots of the Luftwaffe: increasing the weapons adding a cannon of heavy caliber and the tracing rockets, the ideal to destroy the bombardiers or maintaining unchanged the war load to be able to face the escort fighters. Both things were not possible because the excessive weight of the cannon and the rockets decreased the agility and the speed of the Messerschnitt, unfavouring it towards the models type Pursuit quoted above. The final decision was left in many cases to the conscience of the German pilots, because opting for one or the other of the typologies of armament could involve the choice between their life and death. The last year of war saw an enormous effort of the German war industry that under the direction of Speer knew how to compensate the losses of aircrafts caused by the Americans. However, as already remembered in the occasion of the Battle of England, the most precious and scarce good for the aviation in time of war are surely the pilots. In those awful months of agony of the Third Reich, aviators of younger and younger age were forced to fly on machines of unbelievable power with less and less experience of flight. The few ameliorations brought in the models H and K as an even more powerful motor and the introduction of a canopy with a 360° sight copied from the North American P-51 Mustangs didn't serve to avoid the defeat. The goodness of the project and the constructive technique of the Bf 109 was shown from its postwar use in Switzerland, Spain and Czechoslovakia. Straight in Spain the last samples were withdrawn from the service in 1956 only. In twenty years of flight, the Messerschnitt had fought on all fronts and under all possible climatic conditions never disappointing its own pilots. Its unique, but decisive, adversity was that always to meet airplanes that constituted the apex of the efforts of research of the nations against which Germany fought. Despite this, it would be unfair to affirm that it was inferior to its adversaries, rather the fact that it has faced them all at the same level and in different temporal periods, it would have to testify which and how much the quality of the original project of the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke was. Sources: “Combat Fighters”, Aerospace Publishing Ltd; “German and Allied aircrafts in World War 2”, Watson and Clever Edition. "An unlucky legend" by Raul Larroque http://www.geocities.com/iturks/html/an_unlucky_legend.html[/url:307c5]
