BOMBS AWAY

I must dispute Arno Keks’ assertion (Letters, Jan. 22) that the Messerschmidt Bf109 was “designed to shoot at bombers only and never at the ground.” The E-4/B variant of the Bf109 had a bomb rack mounted under the fuselage that could carry either a 110-pound or 550-pound bomb, hardly a useful weapon in air-to air combat.

Also, since the guns fired in the direction that the pilot was aiming his plane, there is no reason why they could not be aimed at ground targets. So perhaps Kenneth Turan was not so far off course, after all, with that “off bombing civilians” statement in his Jan. 8 article “Reflections of the Third Reich.”

LARS HELSTROM

Westlake Village