Part 2 – Fatty
Messerschmitt
When I started my series about the Tiny Visitors I had
intended to review them in order of arrival, first the Red Reihers, then the
others that have taken their abode in the mobile, comprising Waltraud Weihe,
Mechthild Meise, Fafnir, Mini Moa, and Rex Rhoenadler. After that I was going to move on to
Willibald Waco, who is the model of an American transport glider, and Heini Heinkel,
who is not a glider at all but a bomber sometimes used to pull gliders up into
the air. Then, just before Christmas, I
was surprised by the arrival of Fatty Messerschmitt!
Well let me tell you, I was absolutely flabbergasted when I
discovered his bulk on my windowsill!
How on earth did he get there? I
thought he had been lost sixty years ago in the South of France?
The great thing about Fatty is that he has such a loud
booming voice, so I had no trouble at all making out what he had to tell me,
once he had lost his initial cautious taciturnity. Apparently Rudolf Reiher had found out that
he was living in the Creativity Workshop of the Old Glidermaster in Murat le
Quaire, and send word to him from Paris that most of his old buddies from The
Great Escape where hanging out in Oxfordshire!
Rudolf’s message – conveyed via sparrow/pigeon/crow/stork area messenger
& long distance telegraph post – had come at just the right time, because
Fatty was terribly agitated about the sudden disappearance of the Old
Glidermaster and sorely in need of help.
But that is another story, and I can’t tell it until I know
all the details, and anyway Fatty is worried it might endanger the Old Glidermaster
if details leak out, as if thousands of people were reading my blog, hah!
Anyway, as I was saying, I had intended to do the mobile
crowd first, but since I haven’t yet found a way to photograph them properly
and there is great clamouring out there for more Tiny Visitor information I
decided to feature Fatty in this post.
He photographs quite well, bless him.
Fatty is a Messerschmitt Gigant, Me 321/3 for short. They were huge cargo gliders (Lastensegler)
and used during WW II to transport large amounts of equipment to the
front. They were the size of a jumbo jet
and able to carry 130 people, or a tank with all the trimmings (attendant
troops and all). It was not called
Gigant – giant – for nothing!
Originally designed by Willy Messerschmitt for the invasion
of England in just two weeks, they were intended to be one-way gliders, used
only once and then abandoned, so were made of cheap materials like steel tubing
and canvas. Apparently it was a
nightmare to travel in them! It was also
a nightmare to fly them – Hanna Reitsch tested one of them and found it very
difficult to work the controls, being a small person with limited
strength. The first Gigants were
produced early in 1941, and for a few years they did much of the heavy lifting
of the Luftwaffe.
A major headache was getting them up into the air! The only airplane large enough to pull one up
by itself (just about!) was the four engined Ju 90, and they were needed for
other jobs. One experiment was using the
Troikaschlepp (triple-tow) were three airplanes were attached with ropes to the
Gigant and took off in unison, pulling the Gigant after them and into the
air. This often didn’t go smoothly, on
one occasion the whole formation went up in flames killing everyone on board
all four planes. Eventually the problem
was overcome by adding rockets and motors to the Gigant, transforming it into
the Me 323.
This lead to a philosophical headache: Was the Messerschmitt Gigant still a
glider? Gliders don’t have take-off
rockets and motors, obviously. On the
other hand, many of the Me323s were simply the original Gigant gliders
converted by the addition of the rockets and motors – no re-design/re-building
took place. Personally I consider them
gliders, probably mainly because the thought of a glider the size of a jumbo
jet is just to cool to abandon.
Anyway, as you can see from the photos, Fatty has motors,
three on each wing. He says he was
converted, but that may refer to his religious beliefs rather than his physical
appearance, he seemed to think it a rude question so I did not press the
point. On some of the photos Rolf Reiher
obliged me by perching on one of Fatty’s wings, so you get an idea of the
difference in size. Fatty flies in
formation with Heini, because they are used to it, Heini having pulled up Fatty
any number of times in the past before he got his motors. Heini is a bomber, quite a large plane
himself, but you can see how he is dwarfed by Fatty.
There is much more that could be said about the
Messerschmitt Gigant, and perhaps I will one day say it – I have read several
books on the subject! – but for now I shall close by telling you that not a
single one of them survived the war.
They all perished in the line of duty, and cannot be found in any
museum, so it is perhaps not surprising that so few people remember them. But to me they are a great marvel, and I am a
fan, despite their ugly appearance – I mean, a glider the size of a jumbo
jet! Awesome, just awesome.
I paste a few links below to knowledgeable websites and old
movie reels of the Messerschmitt Gigant, if you want to deepen your acquaintance
with them!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtlkdfbn8I4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_323
