 The next morning , 8 November 1944 , the Generals arrived again at Nowotny 's command post and Keller declared that the aces of the past years had become cowards and that the Luftwaffe had lost its fighting spirit . Shortly after , news reached the command post of a large bomber formation approaching . Two Rotten of Me 262 were prepared for take @-@ off , Erich Büttner and Franz Schall at Hesepe , and Nowotny and Günther Wegmann at Achmer . At first only Schall and Wegmann managed to take off because Büttner had a punctured tire during taxiing and Nowotny 's turbines initially refused to start . With some delay , Nowotny took off and engaged the enemy on his own , Schall and Wegmann having since retired from the action after sustaining battle damage . Nowotny radioed that he had downed a B @-@ 24 Liberator and a P @-@ 51 Mustang before he reported one engine failing and made one final garbled transmission containing the word " burning " . Helmut Lennartz recalled : 
