Stuka Pilot (23 page)

We are given no respite in the air, not only in the area N. of Jassy, but also in the east where the Russians have established their bridgeheads over the Dniester. Three of us are out alone one afternoon in the loop of the Dniester between Koschnitza and Grigoriopol where large numbers of T 34s have penetrated our defenses. Plt./Off. Fickel and a W.O. accompany me with bombers. Our own fighters are supposed to be waiting for us, and as I approach the loop of the river I can already see fighters flying low in the target area. Being an optimist, I jump to the conclusion that they are ours. I fly on towards our objective, searching for tanks when I realize that the fighters are not my escort at all, but are all Ivans. Stupidly we have already broken our formation in quest of individual targets. The other two do not immediately close up and are slow in coming in behind me. Furthermore, as bad luck will have it, these Ivans are up to scratch; that does not happen too often. The W.O.’s aircraft very quickly bursts into flames and becomes a torch vanishing westward. Plt./Off. Fickel calls out that he, too, has been hit and sheers off. A Lag 5 pilot who evidently knows his business is bang on my tail, with several others not quite so close behind him. Whatever I do I cannot shake off the Lag; he has partly lowered his flaps to check his speed. I fly into deep ravines so as to entice him far enough down to make the danger of touching the ground affect his aim. But he stays up and his tracer bullets streak closely past my cockpit. My gunner Gadermann yells excitedly that he will shoot us down. The ravine broadens somewhat S.W. of the river loop, and suddenly I bank round with the Lag still persistently on my tail. Behind me Gadermann’s gun is jammed. The tracers shave the underside of my left wing. Gadermann shouts: “Higher.” I reply: “Can’t. I have the stick in my stomach as it is.” It has been slowly puzzling me how the fellow behind me can follow my banking tactics in his fighter. Once again the sweat is running down my forehead. I pull and pull my stick; the tracers continue to zip under my wing. By turning my head I can look straight into the Ivan’s tensely set face. The other Lags have given up, apparently waiting for their colleague to bring me down. This kind of flying is not their cup of tea: vertical banking at 30-45 feet level. Suddenly on the top of the escarpment, German soldiers. They wave like mad, but have seemingly failed entirely to grasp the situation. Now a loud whoop from Gadermann:

“The Lag is down!”

Did Gadermann shoot her down with his rear M.G. or did she crash because the longerons cracked under the terrific pressure of these high speed turns? I couldn’t care less. In my headphones I hear a mighty yelling from the Russians, a Babel of noise. They have seen what has happened and it appears to be something out of the ordinary. I have lost sight of Plt./Off. Fickel and fly back alone. Below me a burning Ju. 87 lie s in a field. The W.O. and his gunner are both standing safely near it, and German soldiers are coming towards them. So they will be back tomorrow. Shortly before landing I catch up with Plt./Off. Fickel. There will be ample reason for celebrating my Ficke l’s and Gadermann’s birthdays. They, too, insist upon celebrating. The following morning the Flying Control Officer of this sector rings up and tells me how anxiously they watched yesterday’s performance, and congratulates me heartily in the name of his division. A radio message picked up last night revealed that the fighter pilot was a quite famous Soviet ace, several times “Hero of the U.S.S.R.” He was a good airman, that much I must give him.

Very shortly after this I have to report on two separate occasions to the Reichsmarschall. The first time I land at Nuremberg and proceed to his ancestral castle. As I enter the courtyard I am greatly surprised to see Goering with his personal medical attendant rigged out in a medieval German hunting costume and shooting with a bow and arrow at a gaily colored target. At first he pays no attention to me until he has shot off all his arrows. I am amazed that not one of them misses its mark. I only hope that he is not seized with the ambition to show off his sporting prowess by making me compete with him; in that case he is bound to see that with my shoulder I cannot hold the bow, let alone draw it. The fact that I am reporting to him in fur boots anyhow gives some indication of my physical infirmities. He tells me that he occupies much of his leisure at this sport; it is his way of keeping fit and the doctor, willy-nilly, has to join him in this pastime. After a simple lunch in the family circle, at which General Lörzer is the only other guest, I learn the reason for my summons. He invests me with the Golden Pilot’s Medal with Diamonds and asks me to form a squadron equipped with the new Messerschmitt 410 armed with 5 cm. cannon, and assume command of it. He hopes with this type to achieve a decisive ascendancy over the four-engined aircraft used by the enemy. I draw my own conclusions: namely, that as I have recently been decorated with the Diamonds his object is to turn me into a fighter pilot. I feel sure that he is thinking back to the First World War in which airmen who had the “Pour le Morite” were regularly fighter pilots like himself. He has had a predilection for this branch of the Luftwaffe and for those who belong to it ever since, and would like to include me in this category. I tell him how much I would have liked to be come a fighter pilot earlier on, and what accidents prevented it. But since those days I have gained valuable experience as a dive bomber pilot and am dead against a change. I therefore beg him to abandon the idea. He then tells me that he has the Führer’s approval for this commission, though he admits he was not particularly pleased at the idea of my giving up dive bombing. Nevertheless the Führer agreed with him in wishing that I should on no account make another landing behind the Russian front to rescue crews. This was an order. If crews had to be picked up, then in future it should be done by someone else. This worries me. It is part of our code that “any one brought down will be picked up.”—I am of the opinion that it is better that I do it because with my greater experience it must be easier for me than for any one else. If it has to be done at all, then I am the one who should do it. But to raise any objections now would be a waste of breath. At the critical moment one will act as necessity dictates. Two days later I am back again on operations at Husi.

During a lull of several days I decide to make a short trip to Berlin for a long deferred conference. On the return journey I land at Görlitz, stop off at my home and continue eastward via Voslau near Vienna. Early in the morning I am rung up at the house of my friends: somebody has been ringing me up all night. A telephone message from the Reichsmarschall’s H.Q. having been put through to Husi, they have been trying to contact me all along my itinerary, but have failed to reach me anywhere. I immediately put through a call, and Goering’s adjutant tells me to proceed at once to Berchtesgaden. As I guess that this is another unwelcome attempt to have me seconded for staff or special duties, I ask him: “Is this good or bad from my point of view?” He knows me. “Certainly not bad.”

Not altogether without misgivings I first fly low along the Danube. The weather is the worst imaginable. 120 feet cloud ceiling; no take-off or landing allowed at almost every aerodrome. The Vienna woods are continuously wreathed in the densest clouds. I fly up the valley from St. Polten to Amstetten heading for Salzburg where I land. Here I am already expected and am driven to the Reichsmarschall’s country house not far from the Berghof on the Obersalzberg. He is absent in conference with the Führer and we are at table when he returns. His daughter Edda is already a big and well brought-up girl; she is allowed to sit down with us. After a short constitutional in the garden the conversation takes an official turn, and I am all agog to know what is in the wind this time. House and garden are in really good taste; nothing vulgar or ostentatious. The family leads a simple life. Now I am officially given audience in his bright and manywindowed study, with a glorious panorama of the mountains glittering in the late spring sunshine. He evidently has a certain foible for old customs and costumes. I am really at a loss to describe the garment he is wearing: it is a kind of robe or toga such as the ancient Romans wore, of a russet color and held together with a gold brooch. I cannot precisely describe it. For me at all events it is a novel rig out. He is smoking a long pipe reaching to the floor with a prettily painted porcelain bowl. I can remember my father having possessed a similar instrument; in those days the pipe was taller than I. After eyeing me in silence for a while he begins to speak. I am here again for another decoration. He pins on my chest the Golden Front Service Medal with Diamonds in recognition of my recently completed two thousand sorties. It is an absolutely new kind of medal, never before awarded to anyone, for no one but I had flown so many sorties. It is made of solid gold with, in the centre, a platinum wreath with crossed swords, beneath which is the number 2000 in tiny diamonds. I am glad that there are no unpleasant strings attached to this errand on which I have come.

Then we discuss the situation, and he thinks I ought to lose no time in returning to my base. I intended to do so in any case. He tells me that a large scale offensive is in preparation in my sector and that the balloon will go up in the next few days. He has just returned from a conference in which the whole situation has been discussed in minutest detail with the Führer. He expresses surprise that I have not noticed these preparations on the spot, as approximately three hundred tanks are to be employed in this operation. Now I prick my ears. The number three hundred flabbergasts me. This is an everyday occurrence on the Russian side, but on ours it is no longer credible. I reply that I find some difficulty in believing it. I ask if he is at liberty to divulge the names of the divisions with the number of tanks they each have at their disposal, because I am exactly in formed about most units in my sector and their complement of serviceable tanks. On the eve of my departure from the front I had spoken with General Unrein, commanding the 14th armored division. That was a fortnight ago, and he had complained bitterly to me that he had only one tank left, and even that was actually
hors de combat
because he had built into it all the flying control apparatus, and this was essentially more valuable to him than a serviceable tank, for with good intercommunications we Stukas were able to neutralize for him many objectives which his tanks could not put out of action. I therefore know the strength of the 14th armored division exactly. The Reichsmarschall can hardly believe me as he thinks he has heard a different figure for this division. He says to me, half in earnest, half in jest: “If I didn’t know you, for two pins I would have you put under arrest for saying such a thing. But we will soon find out.” He goes to the telephone and is connected with the Chief of the General Staff.

“You have just given the Führer the figure of three hundred tanks for Operation X.” The telephone is loud; I can overhear every word.

“Yes, I did.”

“I want to know the names of the divisions concerned with their present strength in tanks. I have somebody with me who is well acquainted with the position.”

“Who is he?” asks the Chief of the General Staff.

“He is one of my men who must know.” Now the Chief of the General Staff has the bad luck to begin with the 14th armored division. He says it has sixty tanks. Goering can hardly contain himself.

“My man reports that the 14th has one!” A lengthy silence at the other end of the line.

“When did he leave the front?”

“Four days ago.” Again silence. Then:

“Forty tanks are still on their way to the front. The rest are in repair shops on the line of communications, but will certainly reach their units by zero day, so that the figures are correct.”

He has the same answer for the other divisions. The Reichsmarschall slams down the receiver in a rage. “That’s how it is! The Führer is given a totally false picture based on incorrect data and is surprised when operations do not have the success expected. Today, thanks to you, it is accidentally explained, but how often we may have built our hopes on such Utopias. The Southeastern zone with its network of communications is being incessantly blanketed by the enemy’s bomber formations. Who knows how many of those forty tanks, for example, will ever reach the front or when? Who can say if the repair shops will get their spare parts in time and if they will be able to complete their repairs within the specified time? I shall at once report the matter to the Führer.” He speaks angrily, then falls silent.

As I fly back to the front my mind is much concerned with what I have just heard. What is the purpose of these misleading and false reports? Is it due to slovenliness or is it intentional? In either case it helps the enemy. Who and what circles are committing these enormities?

I break my journey at Belgrade, and as I come in to land at Semlin, U.S. four-engined bomber formations appear heading towards the airfield. As I taxi in I see the whole personnel of the aerodrome running away. There are some hills to the west of the runway in which tunnels have apparently been cut to serve as shelters.

I see the formation straight ahead of me a short distance from the airfield. This does not look any too good. I sprint after the stream of people as fast as I can in my fur boots. I just enter the tunnel as the first stick of bombs explodes on the aerodrome, raising a gigantic mushroom of smoke. I cannot believe it possible that anything can remain intact. After a few minutes the smoke cloud thins a little and I walk back to the airfield. Almost everything is destroyed; beside the wreckage stands my faithful Ju. 87, riddled with splinters, but the engine is undamaged and so is the undercarriage. The essential parts of the control system still function. I look for a strip of ground off the actual runway suitable for take off, and am glad when I am airborne again. Loyally and gallantly my wounded kite carries me over the S.E. zone back to my wing at Husi.

During my absence a Rumanian Ju. 87 flight has been attached to us. The crews consist mainly of officers; some of them have a certain flying experience, but we soon discover that it is better if they only fly as a flight with us in close formation. Otherwise the number of casualties on every sortie is always high. The enemy fighters bother them especially, and it takes them some little time to realize through experience that with a slow aircraft in formation it is not absolutely necessary to be shot down. The Wing staff has gone over to Focke-Wulf 190s. Our 1 Squadron has been temporarily withdraw from operations for an eight weeks rest to an airfield in the rear at Sächsisch Regen. Here old stager Ju. 87 pilots go back to school on the one-seater type. In the long run all our units may have to do the same, as the last production series of Ju. 87s has still to be completed after which no more aircraft of this type are to be built. Therefore while at Husi I personally practice flying between sorties in one of the Wing staff’s new F.W. 190s so that there shall be no reason for my being withdrawn from operations. I finish up my self-training by going out straight away on one or two sorties in the frontal area with the new type and feel quite safe in it.