The Japanese word “kamikaze” means “divine wind.” In a military history context, the term was first applied to a force of Mother Nature that saved Japan by destroying Kublai Khan’s would-be invading fleet of Mongols twice in the thirteenth century. Fast-forward to World War II, and the label was bestowed upon Imperial Japan’s WWII suicide pilots who embarked en masse on their one-way missions in an ultimately vain attempt to defeat the U.S. Navy as the latter entity closed in for the kill against the Japanese home islands. 

The kamikazes used a combination of warplanes that were initially designed for more “conventional” (i.e., non-suicidal) combat applications such as the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter as well as warbirds designed from the ground up as suicide planes such as the MXY-7 Ohka (“Cherry Blossom”).

But what’s not as well known to most military aviation history buffs is that Imperial Japan’s Axis partner, Nazi Germany, also designed a suicide plane of sorts, at least on paper. The inspiration for this story comes courtesy of a video Found and Explained channel of MSN titled “The Kamikaze Nazi Rocket Plane - Lippisch P13.” The text blurb to the video assesses the plane quite bluntly: “A coal-fueled flying triangle, a product of desperation, and a piece of history that questions the limits of wartime innovation. Explore the madness behind this Nazi rocket plane.”

However, the title of that video is a tad incomplete; the complete alphanumeric designation of the rocket plane in question is the Lippisch P.13a/P.13b/DM-1; the original Lippisch P13—which also never made it past the on-paper design phase—was intended to be a high-speed bomber (a role which instead ended up being filled by the Arado Ar 234 Blitz [“Lightning’]).

Lippisch P.13a Initial Conceptualization

The eponymous designer of the P.13a, aircraft engineer Alexander Martin Lippisch (November 2, 1894-February 11, 1976), had already cemented his place in aviation history by designing the Luftwaffe’s only real-world operational rocket-powered fighter plane (indeed, the world’s first rocket-powered fighter plane, period), the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet (“Comet”). Whilst he was still working on the Komet in 1942, Lippisch conceptualized a sharply-swept, leaf-shaped delta wing which he believed was capable of supersonic flight.

Fast-forward to the autumn of 1944, by which time Lippisch had opened his own development office at the Aviation Research Institute Vienna (LFW) in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. From there, he brainstormed further, coming up with the notion of ramjet-powered delta wing interceptor aircraft; the hollow delta wing would have its interior shaped like a ramjet duct, whilst the power source would produce gas made in-flight from powdered coal. Due to the shortages of conventional fuels at this stage of the war, Herr Lippisch figured that coal would be a more plentiful and less expensive alternative.

The somewhat sensationalistic title of the aforementioned Found and Explained video notwithstanding, the video provides some clarification starting at the 6:19 mark that, unlike its Japanese counterparts, the Luftwaffe pilots of the P.13a/P.13b would’ve been tasked with ramming Allied bombers as opposed to warships, and weren’t actually expected to kill themselves during their ramming missions:

“As you can see, the wings were very thick and the reason behind this is the leading edges of the airframe were reinforced. The P13A would actually ram the Allied bombers at high speed, targeting either the tail or wings, making them uncontrollable, and forcing the crew to abandon them. The pilot would then perform another run if possible, and if the aircraft was too damaged, simply jump out and parachute to the ground. Because with this design, landing wasn’t really an option.”

In other words, a ramjet for ramming.

In terms of the physical manifestation of Lippisch’s design, there was indeed a full-sized glider—with the same general design but with the intake and exhaust faired in—designated the DM-1, which had a 6.7-meter (22 ft 0 in) wingspan. However, Lippisch only took a half-hearted approach to the glider, as he had really set up the project only to keep students of Darmstadt and Munich universities from being drafted into what he knew by then to be a hopeless war effort.

Where Went Wrong?

Well, quite simply, the Soviets happened. Wind tunnel tests of the DM-1 had barely been underway when the Red Army crashed the gates of Vienna, compelling Lippisch and his colleagues to flee. As luck would have it, though it was the Soviets who took the city of Vienna, the DM-1 design ended up in the hands of American forces.

Postscript

In spite of the failure of the P.13a project and Nazi Germany’s defeat in WWII, Lippisch still had a successful career after the war. As was the case with many of his fellow German scientists, he was brought over to the United States under Operation Paperclip. He started his new life working at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, then spent fourteen years working at the Collins Radio Company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, before starting his own company, the Lippisch Research Corporation.

He gained recognition for making essential contributions to the knowledge of tailless aircraft, delta wings, and the ground effect, as exemplified in the Lippisch-Dornier Aerodyne. In 1985 (nine years after his death at the age of eighty-one), Lippisch was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.

About the Author: Christian D. Orr

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ). He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.

Image: Wikipedia via a Creative Commons license.