Editing Messerschmitt Me 262 (section)

===Production===
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 141-2738, Unterirdische Produktion von Me 262.jpg|thumb|Underground manufacture of Me 262s]]

About 1,400 aircraft were produced; however, less than a hundred Me 262s were in a combat-ready condition at any one time.{{sfn|Dorr|2013|p=214}} According to sources they destroyed from 300 to 450 enemy aircraft, with the Allies destroying about one hundred Me 262s in the air.{{sfn|Levine|1992|pp=158, 185}} While Germany was bombed intensively, production of the Me 262 was dispersed into low-profile production facilities, sometimes little more than clearings in the forests of Germany and occupied countries. From the end of February to the end of March 1945, approximately sixty Me 262s were destroyed in attacks on [[Obertraubling]] and thirty at [[Leipheim]];{{sfn|Englander|1945}} the [[Neuburg Air Base|Neuburg]] jet plant itself was bombed on 19 March 1945.{{sfn|Blue}}

Large, heavily protected underground factories were constructed – as with the partly-buried [[Weingut I]] complex for Jumo 004 jet engine production – to take up production of the Me 262, safe from bomb attacks. A disused mine complex under the [[Walpersberg]] mountain was adapted for the production of complete aircraft. These were hauled to the flat top of the hill where a runway had been cleared and flown out. Between 20 and 30 Me 262s were built here, the underground factory being overrun by Allied troops before it could reach a meaningful output. Wings were produced in Germany's oldest motorway tunnel at [[Engelberg tunnel|Engelberg]], to the west of [[Stuttgart]]. At ''B8 Bergkristall-Esche II'', a vast network of tunnels was excavated beneath [[Sankt Georgen an der Gusen|St. Georgen/Gusen]], Austria, where slave labourers of [[Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp|concentration camp Gusen II]] produced fully equipped fuselages for the Me 262 at a monthly rate of 450 units on large assembly lines from early 1945.{{sfn|Haunschmied|Mills|Witzany-Durda|2008|p=127}}{{sfn|Dorr|2013|p=48}} Gusen II was known as one of the harshest concentration camps; the typical life expectancy was six months.<ref>{{cite web |title = Gusen |url = https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10006144 |website = www.ushmm.org |publisher = [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] |language = en}}</ref> An estimated 35,000 to 50,000 people died on the forced labour details for the Me 262.<ref>{{cite web |last1 = Pfeffer |first1 = Anshel |title = Dark skies |url = https://m.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Dark-skies |website = The Jerusalem Post |date = 8 February 2007 |access-date = 6 July 2018}}</ref>