Stuka Pilot

2. WAR AGAINST THE SOVIETS

Slowly Operation Crete draws to its conclusion. I am told to fly a damaged aircraft to a repair shop at Kottbus and wait there for further orders. Back again to Germany over Sofia—Belgrade.

I am left at Kottbus without news of the squadron and without any idea as to what they intend to do with me. During the last few days there have been constant rumors of a new campaign, based on the fact that numerous ground crews and flying formations as well have been moved East. Most of those with whom 1 discuss these rumors believe that the Russians are going to allow us to push forward across Russia to the Near East so that we can get near the oilfields, other raw materials and war potential of the allies from this side. But all this is the merest speculation.

At 4 A.M. on the 22nd June I hear on the radio that war with Russia has just been declared. As soon as it is daylight I go into the hangar where the aircraft belonging to the “Immelmann” squadron are under repair and ask if any one of them is serviceable. Shortly before noon I have attained my object, and now nothing holds me back. My squadron is believed to be stationed somewhere on the East Prussian-Polish frontier.

I land first at Insterburg to make enquiries. Here I get the information from a Luftwaffe H.Q. The place I am bound for is called Razd and lies to the S.E. 1 land there half an hour later among a crowd of aircraft which have just returned from a sortie and are about to take off again after being overhauled. The place is crawling with aircraft. It takes me quite a while to find my last squadron which had rather cold shouldered me when we were in Greece, and which I had not seen since. They have not much time for me at squadron H.Q. They have their hands full with operations.

The C.O. tells me via the adjutant to report to the first flight. There I report to the flight commander, a Flying Officer, who has also been in the doldrums and welcomes me if for no other reason than because the squadron has branded me a black sheep. As he is now skeptical of everything told him by his colleagues in the squadron I have the initial advantage that he is not ill disposed towards me. I have to hand over the aircraft I brought with me from Kottbus, but am allowed to join the next sortie flying an ancient aeroplane. From now on I am dominated by only one idea: “I am going to show all of you that I have learnt my job and that your prejudice is unjust.” I fly as No. 2 behind the flight commander, who has detailed me to look after the technical requirements of the flight when not on operations. With the assistance of the Senior Fitter it is my business to see that as many aircraft as possible are serviceable for each sortie and to maintain liaison with the engineer officer of the squadron.

During operations I stick like a burr to the tail of my No. 1’s aircraft so that he becomes nervous of my ramming him from behind until he sees that I have mine thoroughly under control. By the evening of the first day I have been out over the enemy lines four tines in the area between Grodno and Wolkowysk. The Russians have brought up huge masses of tanks together with their supply columns. We mostly observe the types KW I, KW II and T 34. We bomb tanks, flak artillery and ammunition dumps supplying the tanks and infantry. Ditto the following day, taking off at 3 A.M. and coming in from our last landing often at 10 P.M. A good night’s rest goes by the board. Every spare minute we stretch out underneath an aeroplane and instantly fall asleep. Then if a call comes from anywhere we hop to it without even knowing where it is from. We move as though in our dreams.

On my very first sortie I notice the countless fortifications along the frontier. The fieldworks run deep into Russia for many hundreds of miles. They are partly positions still under construction. We fly over half-completed airfields; here a concrete runway is Just being built; there a few aircraft are already standing on an aerodrome. For instance, on the road to Witebsk along which our troops are advancing there is one of these half-finished airfields packed with Martin bombers.

They must be short either of petrol or of crews. Flying in this way over one airfield after another, over one strongpoint after another, one reflects: “It is a good thing we struck”… It looks as if the Soviets meant to build all these preparations up as a base for invasion against us. Whom else in the West could Russia have wanted to attack? If the Russians had completed their preparations there would not have been much hope of halting them anywhere.

We are fighting in front of the spearhead of our armies; that is our task.

We stay for short periods at Ulla, Lepel and Janowici. Our targets are always the same: tanks, motor vehicles, bridges, fieldworks and A.A. sites. On and off our objectives are the enemy’s railway communications or an armored train when the Soviets bring one up to support their artillery. All resistance in front of our spearheads has to be broken so as to increase the speed and impetus of our advance. The defense varies in strength. The ground defense is in the main considerable, ranging from infantry small arms fire to flak, not to mention M.G. fire from the air. The only fighter aircraft the Russians have at this time is the Rata I 16, very much inferior to our Me 109. Wherever the Ratas put in an appearance they are shot down like flies. They are no serious match for our Messerschmitts, but they are easy to maneuver and of course a great deal faster than we Stukas. Consequently we cannot afford entirely to ignore them. The Soviet operational air force, its fighter and bomber units, is remorselessly destroyed both in the air and on the ground. Their fighting power is small; their types, like the Martin bomber and the DB III, mostly obsolete. Very few aircraft of the new type, P II, are to be seen. It is not until later that American deliveries of the twin-engined Boston are noticeable even on this front. We are frequently subjected to raids by small aircraft at night with the object of disturbing our sleep and interrupting our supplies. Their evident successes are generally few. We get a taste of it at Lepel. Some of my colleagues sleeping under canvas in a wood are casualties. Whenever the “wire crates,” as we call the little wire-braced biplanes, observe a light they drop their small shrapnel bombs. They do this everywhere, even in the front line. Often they shut off their engines so as to make it difficult to locate them and go into a glide; then all we can hear is the wind humming through their wires. The tiny bomb drops out of this silence and immediately their engines begin to purr again. It is less a normal method of warfare than an attempt to fray our nerves.

The flight has a new skipper, Fit. Lt. Steen. He joined us originally from the same formation in which I received my first instruction in flying a Stuka. He gets accustomed to my sticking close behind him like a shadow on a sortie and keeping only a few yards distance even when diving. His marksmanship is excellent—if he misses the bridge it is a certainty I hit it. The flight aircraft following us can then drop their bombs on the A.A. guns and other targets. He is delighted when the squadron at once give him their opinion of his pet lambs, among which I am included. He makes no bones about it when one day they ask him: “Is Rudel O.K. yet?” When he replies: “He is the best man I have in the flight” there are no more questions. He recognizes my keenness, but on the other hand he gives me only a short lease of life because I am “crazy.” The term is used half in jest; it is the appreciation of one airman by another. He knows that I generally dive to too low a level in order to make sure of hitting the target and not to waste ammunition.

“That is bound to land you in trouble in the long run,” is his opinion. By and large he may be right, if it were not that at this, time I am having a run of luck. But one gains experience with every fresh sortie. I owe a lot to Steen and count myself fortunate to be flying with him.

In these first few weeks, however, it looks very much as if he is likely to be proved right in his predictions.

In low level attacks on a road along which the Russians are advancing, damage by enemy flak compels one of our aircraft to make a forced landing. Our comrade’s aircraft comes down in a little clearing surrounded on three sides by scrub and Russians. The crew take cover behind their machine. I can see the Russian M.G. bursts spattering up the sand. Unless my colleagues are picked up they are lost. But the Reds are right among them. What the heck! I must bring it off. I lower my landing flaps and already I am gliding down to land. I can spot the Ivans’ light grey uniforms among the bushes. Whang! A burst of M.G. fire hits my engine. There seems no sense in landing with a crippled aircraft; if I do we shall not be able to take off again. My comrades are done for. Their waving hands are the last I see of them. The engine conks like mad, but picks up and is running just sufficiently for me to pull out on the other side over a copse. The oil has plastered the window of my cockpit and I expect a piston seizure at any moment. If that happens my engine will stop for good. The Reds are below me; they throw themselves on the ground in front of my kite while some of them shoot at it. The flight has climbed to nearly a thousand feet and is out of range of the tornado of small arms fire. My engine just holds out till I reach our front line; there I land. Then I hurry back to base in an army lorry. Here Officer Cadet Bauer has just arrived. I know him from my time with the reserve flight at Graz. He later distinguishes himself and is to be one of the few of us who survive this campaign. But this day on which he joins us is an unlucky one. I damage the right wing plane of my aircraft because when taxiing in I am blinded by the thick swirl of dust and collide with another aircraft. That means I must change my wing plane, but there is not one on the airfield. They tell me that a damaged aircraft is still standing on our last runway at Ulla, but it still has a sound right wing plane.

Steen is furious with me. “You may fly when your aircraft is serviceable again and not before.” To be grounded is the severest punishment. Anyhow we have flown the last sortie for today, and I fly back at once to Ulla. Two mechanics from another flight have been left behind there; they help me. During the night we take off the wing planes with the assistance of a couple of comrades from the infantry. We are through by three in the morning. All one needs is a break. I report my return with a whole aircraft in time for the first sortie at half past four. My skipper grins and shakes his A few days later I am transferred to the 3rd squadron as engineer officer and have therefore to bid the first flight good-bye. Steen cannot pull any strings to stop my transfer and so I am now engineer officer of the 3rd squadron. I have barely arrived when the squadron commander leaves the unit and a new one takes his place. Who is he? FIt/Lt. Steen! All one needs is a break.

“Your transfer was only half as bad as you thought, you see that now. Yes, it is a mistake to be too eager to play providence!” says Steen as he greets me. When he joins us in the squadron mess tent for the first time at Janowici there is the dickens of a racket going on. An ancient L.A.C. had been trying to fill his lighter from a large petrol tin. He does it by tilting the tin with the result that the petrol spills over the lighter whereupon he keeps flicking it to see if it is already working. There is a terrific bang; the tin explodes in his face and the L.A.C. pulls a face as if the explosion were a breach of military regulations. A sad waste of good petrol; for many old women are only too glad to swap eggs for a little petrol. This is of course forbidden because petrol is meant for other uses than the concoction of spirituous liquor by old women Even one drop of the stuff they manufacture bums our skin. Everything is a question of habit. The chancel of the village church has been converted into a cinema, the nave into a stables. “Different people, different customs,” says Flt./Lt. Steen with a chuckle.

“The great motor road from Smolensk to Moscow is the objective of many of our sorties; it is crowded with immense quantities of Russian material. Lorries and tanks are parked there beside one another at the closest intervals, often in three parallel columns. If this mass of material had poured over us…” I cannot help thinking as I attack this sitting target. Now in a few days’ tine it will all be a vast sea of wreckage. The advance of the army goes forward irresistibly. Soon we are taking off from Duchowtchma, not far from the railway station of Jarzewo the possession of which is later hotly contested.

On one of the following days a Rata dives from above into our formation and rams Bauer; the Rata crashes and Bauer flies home with a severely damaged aircraft. That evening the Moscow radio sings a hymn of praise for the Soviet pilot officer who “rammed and brought down a Stuka swine.” The radio must be right and we since childhood have always enjoyed listening to fairy stories.

About two miles away from us the army is preparing a new major operation. So quite unexpectedly we receive orders to move to another area. Our new station is called Rehilbitzy and lies some ninety miles west of Lake Ilmen. From dawn till dusk we support the army to the East and to the North.