At dawn on May 14, 1944, the American “flying fortress” was suddenly attacked by a mysterious fighter. The only surviving tail gunner, Sven Mehta, testified: “A plane emerged from the twilight. He quickly approached our car and set it on fire with a short burst. When the plane jumped up, I noticed that the engines did not have ordinary propellers, only red-blue flames were escaping from them. At some point, a sharp whistle was heard, and everything fell silent. Having already opened the parachute, I saw that our “fortress” had collapsed, devoured by fire.” This is how the Nazis used their Me-262 Sturmvogel (“Albatross”) jet fighter in battle for the first time. This plane could have appeared at the front much earlier if not for a number of very different and, of course, not accidental circumstances. This story tells about them.