spurred him now, the Reichsmarschall toured the jet-aircraft
plants in November . At Regensburg, on November , Pro-
fessor Messerschmitt showed him the sixth Me prototype to
be built and a new, top-secret rocket-powered interceptor, the
Me . Over-impressed as usual whenever he saw a new plane,
Göring spoke of attaining supersonic flight, and announced that
Hitler wanted the Me primarily for a bomber role against
the Allied invasion forces.
“But Herr Reichsmarschall!” beamed the professor, eager
to deceive. “We have always provided for two bomb racks in the
plane... One -kilo, or two -kilo bombs!”
Göring believed him, and asked how long it would take to
install the bomb-release gear.
“Two weeks,” answered Messerschmitt without batting an
eyelash.
Visiting Dessau on the fourth, Göring inspected the
Junkers production lines tooling up for the Jumo -B jet en-
gine, and saw the prototype of the near-supersonic swept-wing
Ju jet bomber too. His last stop was at Brandenburg, where
the Arado Company had now assembled five prototypes of
Professor Blume’s Arado jet bomber. It had a top speed of
mph and a range of a thousand miles. There were plans to
manufacture one thousand by mid-.
Thus things would look up for the Reich if the war lasted
long enough, and Göring no doubt emphasized this when he
reported to Hitler on the sixth. Generals Zeitzler and Korten
had just briefed Hitler on their respective “revenge” weapons
the A- rocket and the Fi- flying bomb. The catapult sites
and launching bunkers in France would be completed by mid-
December. Hitler began to talk of delivering what he called a
“New Year’s present” to the British.
At Dessau the Reichsmarschall had advised Junkers to find