The old stagers already know my views and maxims. When the new-comers are being initiated they hide a smile and think: “He may be right at that.” The fact that they have practically no losses due to enemy fighter interception corroborates my theory. The novices must of course have some proficiency by the time they reach the front, otherwise they are a danger to their colleagues.
A few days later, for instance, we are out in the same operational area and are again attacking under strong enemy fighter interference. As the recently joined Plt./Off. Rehm follows the aircraft in front of him into a dive he cuts off the other’s tail and rudder with his propeller. Luckily the wind carries their parachutes into our own lines. We spiral round them until they reach the ground because the Soviet fighters make a regular practice of opening fire on our crews when they have bailed out. After a few months with the squadron Plt./Off. Rehm has become a first-rate airman who is soon able to lead a section and often acts as flight leader. I have a fellow-feeling for those who are slow to learn.
Plt./Off. Schwirblat is not so lucky. He has already 700 operational sorties to his credit and has been decorated with the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. He has to make a forced landing after being hit in the target area just behind the front line and loses his left leg, as well as some fingers. We are to be together again in action in the final phase of the war.
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.