Gloster Meteors...

[TwoDeadDogs]

hi there
About Meteors, in WW II....did they ever engage German fighters in combat? Were they any good as attack aircraft? Were they ever tested against the Me262?
regards
TDD

[phil gollin]

hi there
About Meteors, in WW II....did they ever engage German fighters in combat? Were they any good as attack aircraft? Were they ever tested against the Me262?
regards
TDD

From a poor memory (others please correct)

No record of them (Meteor Is and IIIs) meeting german fighters, but they did shoot down V1s.

Meant to be stable and effective gun platforms , so with 4 x 20mm should have been good in ground attack.

There were post WW2 testing of a Meteor III versus a Tempest where the Meteor was regarded as as good a fighter but faster (obviously with pluses and minuses as regards the particulars of handling)

[ORAC]

Wikipedia:

The first aircraft were delivered to the Royal Air Force on June 1, 1944 to No. 616 Squadron RAF.... No. 616's Meteor Mk. I's saw action for the first time on July 27, 1944 operating against flying bombs, ultimately destroying 14 V-1 flying bombs. The Meteor never saw aerial combat against the Luftwaffe despite flying limited missions over Germany from January 1945, using the Mk. III variant from bases in Belgium.......

RAAF service during the Korean War

The Royal Australian Air Force acquired 113 Meteors between 1946 and 1952. F.8 Meteors saw extensive service during the Korean War with No. 77 Squadron RAAF. The squadron, which had previously flown P-51 Mustangs in Korea, first flew Meteors on July 30, 1951 and had some success in jet-versus-jet combat, against MiG-15 pilots, shooting down five of the newer and generally superior MiGs in the period of September to November. However, four RAAF Meteors were lost on December 1, 1951 in a dogfight between 12 aircraft from 77 Squadron and 40 MiGs. As a result, 77 Squadron was relegated to ground attack duties, a role in which it performed well. While at least 29 Meteors were lost as a direct result of enemy action in Korea, the vast majority of these were shot down by anti-aircraft fire while serving in a ground attack capacity.

Meteor Operations in Korea (http://www.kmike.com/oz/77/MK8OPS.htm)

[shack]

Back in the dark ages when I was on a Meteor Sqdn. we had one member who has been on 616 (the first Meteor Sqdn.) and I was told by him that they were initially forbidden to fly over the mainland in case they were forced to land and the Germans discovered their secrets. As the war progressed they moved to Belgium but then had to keep back from the front line for the same reason, little did they know that the Germans had a far superior aircraft in the 262, except perhaps for the engines.

[JDK]

The Australian Squadron Leader F. A. O. Tony Gaze DFC** had flown Meteor jets with 616 Sqn in the final days of the war. He finished the war with eleven victories and three shared destroyed, including an Me262 and Arado 234 jets: four probables and a V-1 ‘Doodlebug’. He was both the first Australian to destroy an enemy jet in combat, and the first Australian to fly a jet in combat. (But not all at the same time! :D )

[shack]

Interesting JDK, having served with chaps who were on 616 and they never mentioned any German Jet victories, to discover where your information comes from.

[ORAC]

He didin´t get his kills with 616 Sqn, they were when he was still flying spitfires on 610 Sqn

14/2/45 .....Me262's and Ar234's were active during the day in the battle area, and in the afternoon 610 Sqdn had a lucky break. A section of two led by F/Lt Gaze, after several attempts to engage the elusive raiders, succeeded in getting an Me262 which fell to F/Lt Gaze. The Huns were diving through cloud and then getting back again, so leaving his No. 2 below cloud, Tony went up on top with the idea of giving warning when the next lot were coming down. He arrived on the scene to find three Me262's stooging along like country gentlemen, and he obligingly put one to bed. Congratulations to Tony and 610 Sqdn on the first jet to fall to this Wing."

"11/4/45 Good weather enable the Wing to get cracking to an early start and the day yielded quite a good fruit the richest of which was a Ju.52 destroyed by F/Lt Gaze...."

"12/4/45 we got off to a fairly early start on patrols between DELMONHORST and VERDEN. these were kept going all day and armed recces in the ROTENBURG-SOLTAU-CELLE areas were also flown with some success. F/Lt Gaze again obliged, this time with F/Lt Rake when they jointly destroyed an Arado 234"

30/4/45 "What a day! Victory rolls galore, a record month for the Wing and a record month for the Group too........F/Lt Gaze found a Fw190 and shot it down"

Ju 52/3m kil (flying SM823/EB-E), a shared Ar234 (RB143), a shared FW 190D (SM826) and, on 30 April, a solo Fw 190D (SM823/EB-E.)....... Then he moved over to 616 (South Yorkshire) Squadron for the last few days of hostilities flying Meteors.

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

According to Edward Shacklady in his book "Meteor" (published; Macdonalds, 1962), the Meteor to first engage another fighter was the MK 8. This was with 77 Sqn RAAF, stationed at Hunshu in Japan, on 29 AUG 51. It was against Chinese Mig 15s over Korea and wasn't particularly successful.