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| Fatty Messerschmitt and one of the Red Reihers |
Many many years ago there was a small group of little sailplane
models that dwelled near the town of Hamburg . They thought they were toys, tiny models of
large gliders, destined to spend their time in the care of some small
child. Most of them were quite small,
1/200th of their life-size cousins, but one, Fatty Messerschmitt, was
huge, hence his name. He had to put up
with a certain amount of teasing on account of his size. All the others were slim and elegant, but
Fatty was huge and ungainly and unable to fly unaided. He remained the Ashputtel of the group, and
always tried to hide at the back of the shelf, hoping his bulk would appear
smaller in the shadows.
One day a rotund man in a uniform with many glinting buttons
and decorations came to see them. He
looked the little group over, nodded appreciatively when he saw Fafnir, and
seemed generally pleased with them.
“Very nice little models you have here, Herr Gruneberg, very
nice indeed. Just what is needed to get
our young boys interested in flying. But
what we really need is recognition models, and since small one or two seater
gliders aren’t used much for enemy action we don’t need little models of them,
either. Don’t you have anything else?”
Herr Gruneberg slowly took Fatty from the back of the shelf
where he had been hiding, as usual, and offered it to the visitor. “What do you think of this then, Herr
Reichsminster?”
“A Messerschmitt Gigant!
Yes, that is exactly what I was looking for! What about He 111s, you have some of those,
too?”
“Of course I have!
See here on the next shelf I keep the bombers.”
“Simply splendid, Herr Grunewald, I am so pleased I dropped
by your house while visiting the area. I
will send you a few more recognition models of both our own and enemy aircraft,
and then you can start with your training sessions.”
The little group of model gliders did not understand any of
this, except that the visitor had approved of Fatty. Shortly afterwards a few dozen model
airplanes arrived and joined the bombers in the shelf below. There were also a few new gliders, all much
bigger than the rest of them. But none
were as big as Fatty.
After the arrival of all the new aircraft life changed for
the little gliders. Every afternoon a
group of children came into the room, and Herr Grunewald showed them his
collection of toys. In the evenings there
often came a few grown-ups to look at the aircraft. Fatty was always the star at these occasions,
and grew quite conceited because of it. But
the slim gliders were rarely taken off the shelf anymore.
Under normal circumstances gliders are happy-go-lucky
creatures who don’t think overly much and live for the day. This is true for the little models as well as
for the big sailplanes. But the
situation the little gliders found themselves in was very unusual. Instead of being taken off the shelf by a
small child during playtime, they were stuck there all day long with nothing to
do except watch the demonstrations Herr Grunewald gave to his visitors, and
listen to the conversations of the bombers on the shelf below.
Generally speaking gliders have very little time for
airplanes. They pride themselves on
being able to fly without the aid of motors, on gliding through the air
silently on a thermal or a breeze. And
although the little models had only ever ‘flown’ in the hands of a child, they
nevertheless shared the prejudices of their larger brothers. So at first they paid no attention to the
talk of the bomber models.
Meanwhile Fatty was learning a lot from his daily sessions
with the visiting humans, and also he was getting very chummy with the He 111s
who were always shown together wit him.
Whenever he returned to the glider shelf after a demonstration he told
them what he had heard that day. That’s
how they found out why Fatty was so big!
He was not a sports glider, like the rest of them, but meant for real
work. He was a model of the biggest
transport glider in the world, the Me 321,
a glider bigger than the biggest airplane, and so huge
that it was called Messerschmitt Gigant (German for ‘giant’)! It was designed for transporting troops and
equipment into enemy country cheaply and silently. Since the Gigant was too big to fly like a
sports-glider, just by using wind and thermals, three bombers – including He
111s – were used to pull it up into the air and then drag it towards its final destination. A few miles before its landing spot the
bombers would detach the cords they used to pull the Gigant, and the transport
glider would slowly circle downwards and land, hopefully unnoticed by the
enemy.
No wonder Fatty was becoming so self-important! He was the model of a glider that did real
grown-up work, while the rest of the occupants of the glider shelf were just
little models of sports-gliders that were themselves just toys, fun to play
with but essentially useless. While
Fatty grew ever more big-headed, the rest of them became deeply depressed.
But one evening Fatty returned from a session in a very
serious mood, and instead of his usual bragging said quietly, “My friends, we
have to talk.” And then he told them
what the training sessions held by Herr Grunewald were all about, and what role
the toy models played.
