As the air war over Europe increased in its scale with the American 8th Airforce coming in full force into Britain, bringing along with them thousands of B-17's. The Luftwaffe found itself in a horribly desperate situation, with the eastern Front collapsing and Allied armies approaching almost as fast in the west a special squadron was formed to at least stem the tide in the air. The period during which it was formed was known in the Luftwaffe as "The Defense of the Reich" where it was almost solely concentrated on bomber interception over Germany. Sonderkommando (Special Command) Elbe (Named after the German River) was formed from 2000 volunteers and 300 true fighter pilots and activated on April 7th 1945 (Keep in mind the war ended on May 7th and the battle of Berlin was literally a week away), they flew a late model G Me-109 that was stripped of all of its unnecessary components such as its cannon armament and was left with one single MG 131 machine gun (A weapon that really had no chance of damaging a bomber, especially a B-17). They were activated on April 7th and flew one single mission on that same day with a sortie of 180 ME-109's. What made Sonderkommando Elbe special and why they flew those special stripped Me-109 G's was that they were expected to ram and kill allied bombers, aiming for sensitive or important areas on them such as the tail and cockpit. However they were not kamikaze in the Japanese sense, infact the Germans expected there pilots to bail out at the last second and fully intended them to survive, of course they accepted that the risk of these missions was insane. On that one mission they flew on April 7th 1945, they managed to destroy 8 of 15 bombers they attacked, a mere scratch on the massive potential of American and British air raids. One famous act of ramming against American air raids was when a ME-109 smashed into the cockpit of a B-24 and then careened off of its cockpit into another B-24 destroying both. Sonderkommando Elbe is just another example of the kind of desperation seen in the way the Germans fought there last days,months and weeks of World War 2. These ramming attacks were not just limited to Elbe but many others tried and participated in them, Elbe was just a concentrated and special effort. These attacks really didn't have any strategic impact at all on the air war, they certainly did show the length and bravery that the Germans were willing to go to however. Thanks for reading and as always if you like this stuff feel free to follow me! Picture- Me-109 G with a drop tank below it, the variant Elbe would have been using.