Stuka Pilot

3. BAD WEATHER FLYING

At Rehilbitzy the summer months are very hot; the minute we come off duty we lie down on our camp beds in the coolness of our tents. Our skipper is living with us under canvas. We have not much to say to each other, but we have a feeling of mutual understanding. We must be essentially alike in character. In the evenings after ops, he strolls off into the forest or across the steppe, and if I do not accompany him I am pretty sure to be either putting the weight or throwing the discus or taking a long distance run round the airfield. These are the ways in which each of us finds recreation after a hard day’s flying and is fresh for the next day. Afterwards we sit about in our tent. He is not much of a drinker, and does not hold it against me that I do not drink at all. After reading a book for a while he will look up at someone in the circle and remark: “Well, Weinicke, you must be pretty well fagged out?” And before one can deny it: “All right, then, let’s turn in.”

So we always go to bed early, and that suits me. “Live and let live” is his motto. Steen’s previous experiences have been much the same as mine; he has profited by them and is determined to be a better C.O. than those he served under. On operations he exerts a peculiar influence over us. He dislikes heavy flak just as much as the rest of us, but no defense can be so strong as to make him drop his bombs from a greater altitude. He is a grand fellow, an exceptionally good officer and a first rate airman, a combination of virtues which makes him a very rare bird. Steen has the oldest rear-gunner in our formation, W. O. Lehmann. I have the youngest. Corporal Alfred Scharnovski. Alfred is the thirteenth child of a simple East Prussian family; he seldom speaks and perhaps for that reason nothing ruffles him. With him I never have to worry about enemy fighters, for not even Ivan can be as dour as Alfred.

Here at Rehilbitzy we sometimes get storms of terrific violence. Over vast areas Russia has a continental climate, and the blessing of cooler weather has to be paid for by thunderstorms that are thunderstorms. It suddenly gets pitch dark in the middle of the day and the clouds hang almost on the ground; the rain comes down in sheets. Even on the ground visibility is reduced to a few yards. As a rule when in the air we give the storm centers a wide berth. It seems, however, inevitable that one day or another I shall get a close view of all this.

We are giving offensive and defensive support to me army in the Luga sector of the front. Occasionally we are also sent out on operational missions far into the interior. The objective of one of these missions is the railway station at Tschudowo, a very important junction on the Leningrad—Moscow line. We know the enemy’s flak and fighter strength from earlier missions there. The A.A. defense is heavy, but unless fresh fighter formations have recently arrived in this area we do not anticipate any particular surprises. Just before we take off a formation of Russian battle aircraft which we call “Iron Gustavs” attacks our air field. We tumble into the split trenches behind our aircraft. Pit/Off. Stahl is the last to jump in, and lands right in the small of my back. That is more uncomfortable than the Iron Gustavs’ raid. Our flak opens up on them, Gustav jettisons his bombs and makes off at low level. Then we take off, setting a N.W. vector at an attitude of 9,000 feet. Not a cloud in the sky. I am flying as No. 2 behind the skipper. During flight I bring my wing plane level with his and look straight into his cockpit. His face is calm confidence personified.

After a while the deep blue of Lake Ilmen sparkles ahead of us. How many times have we come this way, to Nowgorod at the northern end of the lake or near Starja Rusa to the South! Both are key points, and with a rush memories of the tight comers we have been in come to mind. As we approach our objective a sheer black wall of storm blots out the horizon. Is it just before or beyond our target? I see Flt./Lt. Steen studying his map and now we are flying through a development of dense cloud, the advance guard of the storm front. I cannot make out the target. It must therefore lie below the storm. We should now be very near it by the clock. In this monotonous landscape the tattered clouds increase the difficulty of finding one’s bearing by eye.

For seconds we are in darkness, then it is light again. I close up to an interval of perhaps 3 to 6 feet so as not to lose sight of the wing plane of my skipper’s aircraft in the clouds. If I do I run the risk of a collision. Why does not Steen turn back? Surely we shall not try to attack in this storm. It would not be possible. The flights behind us have already taken positions, evidently with the same idea in mind. Perhaps the skipper is trying to find the enemy’s front line on the map with the intention, maybe, of attacking some target there. He loses a little height, but there are banks of cloud at every level. Steen looks up from his map and suddenly banks round at an angle of 180 degrees. He has presumably given heed to the bad weather situation, but of course does not reckon with the nearness of my wing-plane. My reaction is instantaneous; I bank sharply, and still more sharply, and so avoid a collision. I have turned over so far that I am almost flying upside down. My aircraft is carrying 700 Kg. bombs and now this weight pulls my aircraft at a terrific speed onto her nose, and I disappear in the inky sea of clouds.

It is pitch dark all around me. I hear the whistling and the howling of the wind. Rain pours into the cockpit. From time to time a flash of lightning illumines everything bright as day. Fierce gusts of wind shake and rattle the aircraft, and send violent shudders

through the structure. No earth is visible; there is no horizon by which I can right my aircraft. The needle of the vertical speed indicator has ceased to oscillate. The ball and arrow which indicate the aircraft’s position in relation to its lateral and longitudinal axes and which should be nicely one above the other, are both in one comer of the dial. The vertical speed indicator points to zero. The air speed indicator accelerates with every second. I must do something to bring the instruments back into a normal position and that as quickly as possible, for the altimeter shows that we are racing madly downwards.

The A.S.I. soon registers 375 m.p.h. It is clear that I am in an almost perpendicular dive. I read on the illuminated figures of the altimeter 6900, 6600, 6000, 5400, 5100, 4800, 4500 feet. At this rate it is only a matter of seconds before there will be a crash, and that will be the end. I am in a sweat; water just pours off me. Is it rain or is it sweat? 3900, 3300, 2400, 1800, 1500 on the altimeter. Gradually I succeed in getting the other instruments functioning properly except for an alarming pressure on the joy stick. So I continue to hurdle earthwards.

The vertical speed indicator is still set at maximum. All this time I am completely benighted. Ghostly lightning flashes stab the darkness, making it even more difficult to fly by instruments. I pull on the stick with both hands to bring the aircraft back into a horizontal position. Altitude 1500, 1200 feet! The blood is throbbing in my temples, I gasp for breath. Something inside me urges me to give up this struggle with the unleashed forces of the elements. Why go on? All my efforts are of no avail. Now it also strikes me that the altimeter has stopped at 600 feet; it still oscillates feebly like an exhausted barometer. That means the crash will come at any moment with the altimeter still registering 600 feet. No, carry on, dourly, with might and main. A groaning thump. There now, I am dead… I think. Dead? If I were I should not be able to think. Besides, I can still hear the noise of the engine. It is still as dark all around as it was before. And now the unruffled voice of Scharnovski says serenely: “It looks as if we had bumped into something or other, sir.”

Scharnovski’s imperturbable calm leaves me speechless. But one thing I now know: I am still airborne. And this knowledge helps me to go on concentrating. It is true that even at full throttle I travel no faster, but the instruments show that I am beginning to climb, and that is already enough. The compass points due West; not exactly unlucky. It is to be hoped the thing is still working. I keep my eyes rigidly fixed on my instruments, hypnotizing them with all the power of my will.

Our salvation depends on them! I have to pull my stick for all I am worth. Otherwise the “ball” pops back into the comer. I handle the aircraft gingerly as if she were a living thing. I coax her out loud and suddenly cannot help thinking of Old Shatterhand and his horse Rih. Scharnovski interrupts my thoughts.

“We have two holes in the wings—there are a couple of birch trees sticking out of them—we have also lost a large bit of one aileron and landing flap.”

I look out and perceive that I have climbed out of the lowest bank of cloud and am now flying above it. We are back in daylight! I see that Scharnovski is right. Two great holes in the wings on either side reaching to the main spar with small birch saplings sticking through them. The aileron and the landing flap are in the condition described. Now I begin to understand: the air is caught in the wings which explains the loss of speed; the difficulties in steering are also accounted for. How long will the valiant Ju. 87 be able to carry on? I reckon I must be about thirty miles behind the Russian front. Now, and not till now, do I remember my load of bombs. I jettison them, and this makes flying easier. We usually meet with enemy fighters on every sortie.

Today one of them would not have to shoot me down; a dirty look would be quite sufficient to do the trick. I cannot discover even one. At last I am across the front line and slowly approach our airfield.

I warn Scharnovski to bale out immediately. I give the order in case I find the aircraft no longer controllable. I reconstruct in my mind the recent miracle which has given me an extended lease of life: the storm blew up; after I had got the other instruments back to normal by constantly pulling the stick I must have been close to the ground at the very moment the aircraft recovered a horizontal position. At this speed I must have swept along an avenue of birch trees or between two single birches, and that was where I picked up the broken saplings. It was a stroke of uncanny luck that they tore holes exactly in the centre of the wings and did not catch the propeller, otherwise it would have become unbalanced and flown off in a matter of seconds. Still to maintain stability after such a jar and actually to bring me safely home is a thing no aircraft could possibly do except a Ju. 87.

The return flight takes much too long for my liking, but at last I see Stoltzy ahead of me. The tension relaxes sensibly and I stretch my shoulders again. There are some of our fighters at Stoltzy, and now it will not be long before we are back at our station. “Scharnovski, you are to bale out over the airfield.”

I have no idea what my machine looks like from the ground nor how the holes in the wings will affect its aerodynamic characteristics when landing. There must be no unnecessary damage now.

“I won’t. You’ll make it all right, sir,” he replies in an almost level voice. What can one answer to that?

The airfield is below us. I see it with new eyes; it has a more homelike appearance than usual. There my Ju can have a good rest; there are my comrades, the familiar faces. Somewhere down there hangs my tunic and in one of the pockets the last letter received from home. What was it my mother wrote? A chap ought to read his mother’s letters through more carefully!

The squadron has apparently been paraded for dispersal. Are they perhaps being briefed for another sortie? In that case we must hurry. Now they are all staring up at our aircraft and moving away. I get ready to land and in order to have a safety factor I come in at a pretty fair speed. After taxiing for a considerable distance I am safely back. Some of the chaps have run alongside us for the last hundred yards. I climb out of the aircraft; so does Scharnovski with perfect nonchalance. Now our colleagues cluster round us and pat us on the back. I hurriedly push my way through this welcoming committee and report to the skipper:

“Pilot Officer Rudel returning from ops. Special incident—contact with the ground in the target area—aircraft unserviceable.”

He shakes us by the hand; a smile on his face. Then with a shake of the head he walks away towards the squadron tent.

Of course we have to repeat the whole story to the others. They tell us they had just been paraded to hear the skipper deliver a short obituary speech. “Pilot Officer Rudel and his crew attempted the impossible. They tried to attack the set target by diving through the storm, and death has claimed them.” He was just filling his lungs to start a new sentence when the battered Ju. 87 appeared on the edge of the airfield. Then he turned even paler and quickly dismissed the parade.

Even now in the tent he flatly refuses to believe that I did not purposely dive into the storm instead of being plunged into pitch black darkness because I was flying so close to his aircraft when he suddenly banked round.

“I assure you, sir, it wasn’t intentional.”

“Rubbish! You are exactly that kind of idiot You absolutely determined to attack the railway station.”

“You overestimate me, sir.”

“The future will prove I was right. Incidentally we are going out again presently.”

An hour later I am flying next to him with another aircraft again in the Luga sector. In the evening I work off my inner tension and my physical lassitude in a game.

The following morning our objective is Nowgorod, where the big bridge that spans the Wolchow collapses under our bombs The Soviets are trying to get as many men and as much material as possible across the Wolchow and the Lowat, which flows into Lake Ilmen from the South, before it is too late. Therefore we have to keep on attacking the bridges. Their destruction delays the enemy, but not for long; we very soon realize that Pontoons are quickly constructed in between them and in this way the Soviets perseveringly patch up the damage we have caused.

This constant operational flying without intermission brings on many symptoms of fatigue, sometimes with distressing results. The skipper is very quick at noticing them, too. Operational instructions from the wing, transmitted over the telephone at midnight or even later, must now be listened to and taken down by two of us. On more than one occasion misunderstandings have arisen in the morning for which every one is convinced that the others blame him. The reason is really general exhaustion.

The C.O. and I are detailed to listen jointly to the wings nocturnal briefings. One night the telephone rings in the squadron tent. It is the wing commander on the line.

“Steen, we meet our fighter escort tomorrow morning at 5 A.M. over Batjeskoje.”

The exact point is very important. We hunt for it on the map by the light of a pocket torch, but we find no Batjeskoje. We have no clue as to where to look for it.

Our desperation is as vast as Russia. Finally he says: “I am sorry, sir. I can’t find the place on the map.”

Now the wing commander’s angry voice yaps in his Berlin accent: “What! Call yourself a squadron leader and don’t know where Batjeskoje is!”

“Can you please give me the map reading, sir,” says Steen.

A lengthy silence, endlessly prolonged. I look at him, he looks at me. Then suddenly: “Damned if I know the place either, but I’m putting Pekrun on the line. He knows where it is.”

His adjutant then quietly explains the exact location of the tiny village in the fen lands. A peculiar fellow, our wing commander; when he is angry or when he particularly wishes to be friendly, in either case, he talks like a typical Berliner. Where discipline and system are concerned our wing owes a lot to him.