Nearly all WW2 fighters had a built in speed limiter depending a lot on wing design.
Most of these fighters were limited by shockwave and compressibility problems at maximum speed.
Once about 0.83 Mach was reached they became unsafe and had major airframe and control surface problems.
There were a LOT of pilots lost due to pushing there airframes beyond their limits.
I think I read once that a third of all fighter pilots lost during WW2 was due to misadventure.
The speed of sound changes with height, air pressure and even weather conditions and once you start pushing the speed of sounds envelope all sorts of weird and strange things happen, airframes would literally tear themselves apart!
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