And one Nazi wartime innovation that altered the course of military technological history was the jet-powered aircraft. Entering service late in the war, the Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe—German ...

The Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a Schwalbe, meaning Swallow, held in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum was captured in 1945 by a special U.S. Army Air Force team led by Col. Harold Watson.

In summer 1944, the Nazis debuted one of the many advanced weapons they devised during World War II: the Messerschmitt Me 262. The Me 262 was the first operational fighter jet in history, and ...

Nicknamed Schwalbe (Swallow), the Messerschmitt Me 262 surpassed the performance of every other World War II fighter. Faster than the North American P-51 Mustang by 190 kilometers (120 miles) per hour ...

With the Me 262, for instance, Messerschmitt had built the first ever turbojet plane. But there are several reasons why the Me 262 failed to have the impact on the war that it could have.

The Me 262 – the World’s First Operational Jet-Powered Fighter – Design work on the Messerschmitt Me 262 began before the outbreak of the Second World War, but due to problems with the ...