IN THE AIR: Importance of Being Willy

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In the nomenclature of World War II, few names are more widely known now than Messerschmitt. It stands for lethal speed in the air by Nazi pursuit ships. Willy Messerschmitt,* 41, is a sharp-nosed, sandy-haired citizen of the placid, medieval town of Augsburg, Germany. He started flying when he was 15, designed his first plane in 1916, became chief engineer of Bayerische Flugzengwerke at Augsburg in 1927, specializing in speed. On April 26 this year, one of his ships with a 1,660-h.p. Daimler-Benz motor set up an absolute record of 469,225 m.p.h. The ship was undoubtedly stripped and "souped up" for the test. In combat with U. S.-built Curtiss fighters, which hit a top speed of around 330 m.p.h., Messerschmitts with their long, flat, square-tipped wings have been proved lacking in maneuverability and rate of climb. But Willy Messerschmitt remains an ace name in Naziland. It would be news indeed if he fled his country, as gossip in Europe last week said he had, placing him in The Netherlands.

To this gossip the Berlin radio retorted specifically, invited skeptics to telephone Willy Messerschmitt at his Augsburg home. One reporter who did so was Beach Conger, correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, whom the Nazis squeezed out of Berlin last fortnight because he would not retract a dispatch picturing Adolf Hitler and his High Command at odds about invading The Netherlands. Mr. Conger and a British reporter named Geoffrey Cox telephoned Willy Messerschmitt from Amsterdam. The man who answered insisted he was the famed planemaker. "I haven't been out of Germany since the war started," he said. As to the vulnerability of Messerschmitt planes, he said: "I have heard some rumors like the ones you say, but I have other information on the subject."

When they asked him when Blitzkrieg would start, the man in Augsburg fell silent, abruptly said, "Gute Nacht (good night)," then added: "Heil Hitler!" Retorted Correspondent Cox: "Heil England! Heil Churchill!"

This incident proved nothing positive about War II's air superiority, or even the whereabouts of Willy Messerschmitt. But both those subjects remained key factors in the war, and last week the New York Times's No. 1 war writer, Hanson Weight-man Baldwin, played down a major story by writing quietly:

"At present Germany is probably stepping up her [airplane] production rate faster than Britain, France and the United States combined, so that for the next few months—probably until next spring or early summer—the Reich may well lengthen her lead. . . . After that time the Allies, aided by large purchases from the United States, should gradually overtake the German lead and eventually—perhaps by the fall of 1940 or the spring of 1941—outstrip Germany in quantitative production."