I was recently looking through my old back issues of New Zealand Wings magazine from the 1980’s and 1990’s. I spotted a letter in one issue where the writer says that apparently in the late 1930’s a British aircraft designer was working for the company that made Messerschitt aircraft in Germany. He was on a design team that was drawing up a proposed next-generation aircraft that was planned to supercede the Me109.
When war looked imminent between Germany and Britain he apparently decided to scarpar home to the UK, and stole the drawings, taking them with him. He apparently took them to the War Dept or somewhere in Whitehall, but as they were then producing Spitfires and Hurricanes, etc, they shelved these plans. Then in 1940 when aircraft were desperately needed he says the UK Govt took the design drawings from the shelf and took them to America, asking NA to produce the aircraft.
He says this is why NA designers supposedly managed to go from nothing to a completed protoype in such a short period of time, because all the design work had already been done by this Brit and Willi Messerschmitt.
Sooo… is there any truth in this? Has anyone else heard of this? There was no editorial reply to the letter so i think it had the well-respected Wings staff stumped too.
By: mark_pilkington - 30th August 2005 at 10:31
Fred David, a Jewish German immigrant to Australia worked at Heinkel and later one of the Japanese manufacturers before ending up at CAC in Melbourne and designing the CAC Boomerang, (Heinkel and Japanese influences are hold to spot over the NA parentage, but it is worth noting CAC built the Mustang and the later CA-15 was Mustang like but actually a design evolution from the Boomerang and its CA-14 derivitive.
Perhaps Fred scribbled up the Mustang in his spare time on the boat between Germany and Japan and slipped to Dutch at North American via his boss L J Wackett, in that case its obviously an Australian and not a British designer who is mentioned in this myth (another one claimed for down under!!)
Three days after the attack, Fred David, Chief Engineer at CAC, sketched a drawing of a single seat fighter, using the most powerful engine available in production in Australia, and using as many Wirraway components as possible to allow for rapid production. On 21 December 1941, detailed design began, and by 29 May 1942 the first aircraft had test flown, a staggering period of little of 22 weeks.
Fred David, as a German Jew, had previously worked for Heinkel in Germany, and later a Japanese Aircraft Company before fleeing Japan as a refugee as it established military links with Nazi Germany. As such Fred David was considered officially as an “unfriendly” alien, and was required to report to the police every fortnight.
It is ironic that development of Australia’s “stop gap” fighter was due to the efforts of a man technically treated as the “enemy”.
http://www.aarg.com.au/boomerang.htm
regards
Mark P
By: Macfire - 30th August 2005 at 09:56
Had read the same article and often wondered the truth behind the matter, due to the squared-ff wing-tips and fin.
By: Dave Homewood - 30th August 2005 at 08:00
Cheers Laurent, so another myth busted.
By: LaurentB - 30th August 2005 at 07:24
“The head of the P-51 design team was Raymond Rice but the Chief Designer was Edgar Schmode (? spelling), a Bavarian German who emigrated to America in 1930. Edgar Schmode was an original member of the Willi Messerschmitt design group.”
Hi Dave,
In fact, Edgar Schmued left Germany for Brazil in 1925, then to the USA in 1930. He was never part of Willy Messerschmitt design group.
HTH,
Laurent
By: Dave Homewood - 30th August 2005 at 06:10
Hi John, yes, your comments are very much along the lines that I was thinking.
It does seem very far fetched.
I did not know about similar design concepts between the Harvard and P51D, that’s interesting. I also was not aware that the British were wanting P40’s rather than a new fighter. Also quashes this story a fair bit.
However. I think I’ve just discovered where this rumour probably evolved from.
This issue has been nagging at me since I read the letter in Wings last week, I thought there was something else related that I’d read recently. There was. Since I posted this message this afternoon I recalled a discussion on my own RNZAF forum:
See here http://rnzaf.proboards43.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1119332530&page=1
where I was informed by Hairy that:
“The head of the P-51 design team was Raymond Rice but the Chief Designer was Edgar Schmode (? spelling), a Bavarian German who emigrated to America in 1930. Edgar Schmode was an original member of the Willi Messerschmitt design group.”
By: J Boyle - 30th August 2005 at 04:50
Pure fiction. It sounds like the kind of story dreampt up during the war to boost public morale… with the point of the story being “British designers are the best…they not only made the Spitfire but were working on a superior German plane, then helped out the poor Americans”. It’s like the nonsense of the Hughes H-1 being the “prototype” Zero/Zeke.
Fact, the UK purchasing commission asked North American to build license Kittyhawks, but NA thought it could do a better job.
If you look at the Mustang and Harvard (a design that predates the Mustang), there are a lot of shared design concepts. If you compare the Mustang with the BF109, there are none other than they’re both low wing inline-engine all metal fighters. Also, if the Mustang were originally a BF design, why don’t the proposed Messerschmidt successors to the 109…the 209 and 309…look something like the Mustang?
Finally, do you think that “…in the late 1930’s” Messerschmidtt would have had a British designer working on it’s newest fighter?
By then the writing was on the wall for all but Chamberlain to read…Hitler knew who his enemies would be.
IF there were a foreign engineer in the Bf firm, I’m sure he wouldn’t have been working on what would have been a top secret project.
Sign In
August 30, 2005 at 3:18 am