The Messerschmitt Bf 110, often (erroneously) called Me 110,Because it was built before Bayerische Flugzeugwerke became Messerschmitt AG in July 1938, the Bf 110 was never officially given the designation Me 110. was a twin-engine heavy fighter (Zerstörer – German for "Destroyer" – a concept that in German service involved a long-ranged, powerful fighter able to range about friendly or even enemy territory destroying enemy bombers and even fighters when located) in the service of the Luftwaffe during the Second World War. Hermann Göring was a proponent of the Bf 110, and nicknamed it his Eisenseiten ("Ironsides").Bungay 2000, p. 257. Development work on an improved type to replace the Bf 110, the Messerschmitt Me 210 began before the war started, but its teething troubles resulted in the Bf 110 soldiering on until the end of the war in various roles, alongside its replacements, the Me 210 and the Me 410.
The Bf 110 served with success in the early campaigns in Poland, Norway and France. The Bf 110's lack of agility in the air was its primary weakness. This flaw was exposed during the Battle of Britain, when some Bf 110-equipped units were withdrawn from the battle after very heavy losses and redeployed as night fighters, a role to which the aircraft was well suited. The Bf 110 enjoyed a successful period following the Battle of Britain as an air superiority fighter and strike aircraft in other theatres. During the Balkans Campaign, North African Campaign and on the Eastern Front, it rendered valuable ground support to the German Army as a potent fighter-bomber (Jagdbomber-Jabo). Later in the war, it was developed into a formidable night fighter, becoming the major night-fighting aircraft of the Luftwaffe. Most of the German night fighter aces flew the Bf 110 at some point during their combat careers, and the top night fighter ace of all time, Major Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer, flew it exclusively and claimed 121 victories in 164 combat missions.Aces of the Luftwaffe - Major Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer
Polish Campaign At the start of the Polish Campaign, the Luftwaffe mounted a mass attack on the aerodromes used by the Polish Air Force; the Bf 110s were used to escort these bombers and engage any Polish fighters encountered. Hermann Göring reportedly ordered the Zerstörerwaffe to make all the Luftwaffes Bf 110s available for operations. According to the Luftwaffe Order of Battle, a total of 102 Bf 110s were used in the September Campaign with a loss of about 10 aircraft. Polish pilots were unfamiliar with the type often identifying them as bombers. Future ace, commander of Nachtjagdgeschwader 1 and Jagdfliegerführer Rumänien Wolfgang Falck scored his first kills over Poland, as did future night fighter ace Helmut Lent and Gordon Gollob, future General der Jagdflieger. Falck's unit, I./ZG 76, claimed 31 kills during the campaign, of which 19 were confirmed. I(Z)./LG 1 also contributed; escorting German bomber formations on attacks against Warsaw, the unit claimed 30 kills on the first day. Polish fighter units reported a 17% loss rate on this day. This rose to 72% in five days. JGr 2 also claimed 28 aerial and 50 ground victories.
The Phoney War and the "Battle of German Bight"
Most of the units protecting western Germany from aerial attack were equipped with the Messerschmitt Bf 109. One of the Bf 110 units assigned to air defence in this sector was Lehrgeschwader 1. On 23 November 1939, the Bf 110 claimed its first Allied victim when LG 1 Bf 110s engaged and shot down a Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 of the Armée de l'Air over Verdun. Just three weeks later, on 18 December 1939, the Bf 110 participated in the first German victory over British arms in the Second World War RAF Bomber Command sent 22 Vickers Wellington bombers to attack the German naval base at Wilhelmshaven. Despite help from Bf 109 units, it was the Bf 110 which excelled in the bomber destroyer role. By the end of the fighting, the Germans had claimed 38 RAF bombers. Actual losses were 11 Wellingtons and six damaged to varying degrees. Some sources claim a 12th Wellington was destroyed. The raid convinced RAF Bomber Command to consider abandoning the daylight bombing of Germany in favour of night actions.
Invasions of Denmark and Norway
The Bf 110 Zerstörerwaffe (Destroyer Force) saw considerable action during operation Operation Weserübung, the invasion of Denmark and Norway. Two Zerstörergeschwader, (1 and 76), were committed, with 64 aircraft. The Bf 110s destroyed 25 Danish military aircraft stationed on the Værløse airbase on 9 April through ground strafing. One Danish Fokker C.V did manage to get airborne but was immediately shot down. During this campaign, Victor Mölders, brother of the famous Werner Mölders, took the official surrender of the town of Aalborg after landing at the local airfield. Dressed in flying gear, he was given a lift into the town centre by a milkman to find suitable quarters for I./Zerstörergeschwader 1's (ZG 1) Bf 110 crews.
In Norway, the Bf 110s helped secure the Oslo-Fornebu airport, escorting Junkers Ju 52 transports loaded with paratroops (Fallschirmjäger). The Germans were engaged by several Gloster Gladiators and machine guns manned by troops on the ground; in the ensuing battle, both sides lost two aircraft. The Messerschmitt pilots did not know that many earlier waves of transports had turned back and that the airport was unsecured. Landing their cargoes, many transports were destroyed. The remaining Bf 110s strafed the airfield and helped the ground troops take it; the air support provided by the Zerstörer was instrumental, and it was to perform well as a fighter-bomber in the coming campaigns. During these battles, a future 110-kill Luftwaffe ace, Helmut Lent, scored his fifth and sixth victories against Norwegian opposition.
With experience fighting in Norway, efforts were made to extend the combat range of the Bf 110C; these became the Bf 110D Long Range (Langstrecken) Zerstörer. Several different external fuel tanks, originally a 1,200 L (320 US gal) centerline ventral fuel tank (nicknamed Dackelbauch (dachshund's belly), later 300 L or 900 L (240 US gal) underwing-mounted tanks, resulted in no less than four versions of the Bf 110D. The enormous Dackelbauch ventral tank, owing to cold weather and limited knowledge of fuel vapours, sometimes exploded, leading to unexplained losses during the North Sea patrols. As a result, the aircrews came to dislike this version. The handling characteristics were also affected; the Bf 110 was not manoeuvrable to begin with and the added weight made it worse.
The Zerstörerwaffe performed well when it encountered mostly British bombers. On 13 June 1940, a squadron of Skua dive bombers was intercepted trying to reach and bomb the German battleship Scharnhorst. A squadron of Bf 109s and another of Bf 110s shot down eight in as many minutes with the Bf 110s claiming four kills; among the victors was Herbert Schob, who survived the conflict as one of the most successful Bf 110 pilots. Total losses during this campaign amounted to little more than 20. During July, the RAF made several raids on Norway. On 9 July 1940, seven out of a force of 12 Bristol Blenheims bombing Stavanger were shot down by a mixed force of Bf 110s and Bf 109s from ZG 76 and JG 77 respectively.
Western Campaign, 1940
In the spring of 1940, Walter Horten, Jagdgeschwader 26 technical officer, was invited to participate in a "mock combat" with a Bf 109E. The Bf 109 bested the Bf 110 time and again. Afterward, Horten said, Gentlemen, be very careful if you should ever come up against the English. Their fighters are all single-engined. And once they get to know the Bf 110's weaknesses, you could be in for a very nasty surprise. During the Phoney War, a number of French aircraft were shot down by Bf 110s. ZG 1 Gruppenkommander Hauptmann Hannes Gentzen became the highest-scoring fighter pilot in the Luftwaffe on 2 April, when he shot down a Curtiss Hawk over Argonne. For the attack on the Netherlands, 145 Bf 110s were committed under Oberst Kurt-Bertram von Döring's Jagdfliegerführer 2. During the campaign, the Bf 110 demonstrated its capabilities as a strike aircraft. On 10 May, ZG 1 claimed 26 Dutch aircraft destroyed on the ground on Haamstede airfield. Between 11 and 13 May, most of the 82 aerial claims over Belgium were made by the Bf 110 equipped ZG 26. However, this was tempered by the loss of nine Bf 110s against the RAF on 15 May. By this date, Oberstleutnant Friedrich Vollbracht's ZG 2 had claimed 66 Allied aircraft.
The Bf 110 force also encountered the Swiss Air Force during this period, as several German raids violated Swiss airspace. About five Bf 110s were shot down by Swiss Bf 109s. The Bf 110s participation in Fall Rot'''s Operation Paula, an offensive to destroy the remaining elements of the French Air Force in central France, was to lead to 101 losses for the Luftwaffe, of which just four were Bf 110s. No further losses of the type occurred for the remainder of the campaign.
The campaign in the west that followed in 1940 demonstrated that the Bf 110 was vulnerable in hostile skies. It performed well against the Belgian, Dutch and French Air Forces, suffering relatively light losses, but was quickly outclassed by increasing numbers of Hurricanes and Spitfires, especially when forced into a tactical role it was never intended for – close range bomber escort – where it was unable to take advantage of its superior altitude performance and speed, and was forced to wait for the enemy to attack rather than roaming about finding and destroying enemy aircraft, as the original Zerstörer concept had intended. In the Western Campaign, 60 were lost. This represented 32 percent of the Zerstörerwaffes initial strength.
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain revealed the Bf 110's fatal weaknesses as a daylight fighter against single-engine aircraft. A relatively large aircraft, it lacked the agility of the Hurricane and Spitfire and was easily seen. Furthermore, although it had a higher top speed than contemporary Royal Air Force (RAF) Hurricanes, it had poor acceleration. However, it was better suited as a long-range bomber escort than most other aircraft of the time, and did not have the problems of restricted range that hampered the Bf 109E. The design excelled at "high escort" where Bf-110 squadrons were sent well ahead of the bombers to clear the skies of enemy aircraft, using their speed and firepower advantages in diving attacks to counter the enemy's maneuverability, then breaking contact and climbing away,Deighton 1996, . what the Americans would later call "Boom-and-Zoom." But the Bf-110 suffered greatly in "close escort," where they were forced to lumber alongside the slow bombers, taking away their tactical edge and forcing them to always respond to the attacking fighters, which were never taken by surprise and could easily avoid the attacks of the Zerstörer, and even turn the tables. This limitation of tactical flexibility greatly hampered the ability of the Bf 110 to counter enemy single-engine fighters on a level of parity.
Hermann Göring's nephew, Hans-Joachim Göring, was a pilot with III./Zerstörergeschwader 76, flying the Messerschmitt Bf 110. He was killed in action on 11 July 1940, when his Bf 110 was shot down by Hurricanes of No. 87 Squadron RAF. His aircraft crashed into Portland Harbour.
The worst day of the battle for the Bf 110 was 15 August 1940, when nearly 30 Bf 110s were shot down, the equivalent of an entire Gruppe. Between 16 and 17 August, 23 more were lost.
The last day of August proved to be a rare success for the Bf 110. ZG 26 claimed 13 RAF fighters shot down, which "was not far off the mark", for three losses and five damaged. However, on 4 and 27 September, 15 Bf 110s were lost on each day. The Luftwaffe had embarked on the battle with 237 serviceable Bf 110s. 223 were lost in the course of it.