[morse1001]

The Last Flight of the Luftwaffe - The Suicide Attack on the Eighth Air Force, 7 April 1945 By Adrian Weir

This covers a very interesting episode in the Luftwaffe history. the idea behind the attack was a plan for a massive blow against the daylight bombers in order to deter them for a while. This would allow the build up of Jet units which would be able to out run and out gun both the bombers and the bomber escorts.

On the day, a combination of events derived the assembled luftwaffe units from massing in any great number and those that took off, were snet in penny packets to attack the bombers. The plan did involve jets, whose job was to fly at the bomber fleets and entice the escorts away. Bit in many cases the escort stayed near to the bombers and could still pounce on the incoming suicide planes.

Funnily enough, many of the luftwaffe pilots baled out at different points and so survived, this included several of those who actually rammed aircraft.