Why the Luftwaffe Couldn't Explain How the Hawker Tempest Killed 638 Flying Bombs

Hawker Tempest — the fastest single-engine fighter at low altitude in World War Two, and the aircraft the Luftwaffe could not explain, counter, or outrun below ten thousand feet. In the summer of 1944, Hitler's V-1 flying bombs were striking London at 340 mph. Most RAF fighters could not catch them. The Tempest could. Flying from a grass airfield at Newchurch under Operation Diver, the Tempests of No. 150 Wing destroyed 638 V-1 flying bombs — more doodlebugs than any other aircraft type, ahead of the Mosquito, the Spitfire XIV and the Mustang. Squadron Leader Joseph Berry alone downed nearly sixty before he was killed by flak over the Netherlands in October 1944. He was twenty-four years old. Only 801 Tempest Mk Vs were built during the war, all by Hawker Aircraft at their factory in Langley, Buckinghamshire — a fraction of the Spitfires and Mustangs produced. Yet those 801 aircraft achieved something no other fighter could. Powered by the 2,180-horsepower Napier Sabre engine and designed around a thin laminar-flow wing by Sir Sydney Camm, the Tempest dominated low-level air combat from the skies over Kent to the airfields of northern Germany, where it hunted Me 262 jets during their vulnerable takeoff and landing runs. This is the story of the fighter that killed the flying bomb, chased the jet, and left the Luftwaffe without an answer. Subscribe for more untold stories from World War Two. #WW2 #HawkerTempest