One morning at half past two Flg./Off. Weisbach, my Int. Ops. officer, wakes me. Field Marshal Schörner wishes to speak to me urgently. For a long time I have had my telephone disconnected during the night as I have to take off early and must have a good night’s rest. So my Int. Ops. officer who has not to fly the next morning receives all night calls, but for the Field Marshal I am always there. He does not beat about the bush—that is not his way.
“Can you take off at once? Forty tanks with motorized infantry have broken through. Our units in the front line have let themselves be overrun and want to close the gap again this evening. But this Russian force has driven a deep wedge into our positions and must be attacked to stop them expanding the break-through area; if they can do that they may cause the greatest damage to our supply lines in the back army zone.” It is the same old story. I have been in Schörner’s sector too often to be surprised. Our brothers-in-arms in the front line lie down and let the tanks walk over them, and expect us to pull the chestnuts out of the fire… They leave us to deal with the enemy forces in their rear, hoping to be able to seal up the gap the same evening or in a couple of days, thus rendering the encircled enemy harmless. Here in Courland this is especially important because any major penetration may lead to the collapse of the whole front.
After a quick consideration I tell the Field Marshaclass="underline" “It is still pitch dark and a sortie now would have no chances of success, for I must have daylight for low level attacks on tanks and lorries. I promise to take off at dawn with my 3 squadron and the anti-tank flight for the map square you have given me. Then I will call you immediately and let you know how things look.” According to what he has told me the Reds have infiltrated westward into a lake district and are at the moment, with their armored spearhead, on a road running between two lakes. In the meantime I instruct Flg./Off. Weisbach to collect met. reports from every possible source by telephone and to have us wakened accordingly so that, taking off in the twilight, we can be over the target at break of day. A brief telephone call to the skippers of the flights and now everything goes automatically. What you have practiced a hundred times you can do in your sleep. The cook knows exactly when to put on the coffee. The senior fitter knows to a second when to parade the ground staff to get the aircraft ready. All that is necessary is the short message to the flights:
“Take off for first sortie 05.30 hours.”
In the early morning a high fog hangs over the airfield at about 150 feet. In view of the urgency of our mission and hoping that, it will be better in the target area we take off. We head S.E. at low level. Fortunately the country is as flat as a board, otherwise flying would be impossible. Visibility is hardly more than about twelve hundred feet, especially as it is not yet fully light. We have flown for something like half an hour when the fog cover drops to about ground level because we are nearing the lake district. Now I give the order to change formation owing to the difficulty of flying at 150-200 feet. For safety we fly abreast in line. I can no longer make out the shapes of my outside aircraft, they are moving in the ground mist and are swallowed up from time to time in the fog bank higher up. There is no possibility of delivering a successful attack in these weather conditions. If we were to drop our bombs it would have to be from so low an altitude that the splinters would damage our aircraft with resultant losses, which could serve no useful purpose, so that is out. Merely to have been in the target area will not help anyone today. I am glad when the last of us has landed safely. I inform the Field Marshal, and he tells me that he has received the same met. reports from the front line.
At last, towards nine o’clock, the layer of fog above the airfield shreds out a little and lifts to 1200 feet. I take off with the anti-tank flight, accompanied by the 7th to deal with bombing targets. On the fringe of the fog bank we head S.E. again, but the further we fly in this direction, the lower the cloud base sinks again. Soon we are down once more to 150 feet, visibility is fantastically bad. There are hardly any landmarks and so I fly by compass. The lake district begins, the weather remains foul. I do not approach the point the Field Marshal has given me as the location of the spearhead directly from the N.E., but making a slight detour westward I fly past it, so that when I turn round to make the attack I shall be heading straight for home, a very necessary precaution in this weather. If the enemy is as strong as he has been described he is likely to have a corresponding A.A. strength. There is no question of coming in warily under cover of hills or trees because my approach is over water, consequently the ground defense must be a consideration in choosing my tactics. To keep out of sight by popping in and out of the clouds is not advisable for a whole formation because of the danger of collision so close to the ground, though it is possible for individual aircraft. Quite apart from this consideration, the pilots would then have to give their whole attention to their flying and would be unable to concentrate sufficiently on their objective.
We fly in low over the water from the south; it is dark and murky; I cannot distinguish anything more than 2000 to 2500 feet ahead. Now I see straight in the line of my flight a black moving mass: the road, tanks, vehicles, Russians. I at once yelclass="underline" “Attack!” Already at almost point blank range the defense looses off a concentrated fire from in front of me, twin and quadruple flak, machine guns, revealing everything with a livid brightness in this foggy light. I am flying at 90 feet and have bumped right into the middle of this hornet’s nest. Shall I get out of it? The others have fanned out on either side of me and are not so much the focus of the defense. I twist and turn in the craziest defensive maneuvers to avoid being hit; I shoot without taking aim, for to balance my aircraft for a second in order to hit a definite target means being shot down for certain. Now I climb a little as I reach the vehicles and tanks and soar over them, I feel I am sitting on eggs and waiting for the smash. This is bound to end badly; my head is as hot as the metal screaming past me. A few seconds later a tell-tale hammering. Gadermann yells: “Engine on fire!” A hit in the engine. I see that the engine is laboring with only a fraction of its capacity. Flames lick the cockpit.
“Ernst, we are bailing out. I’ll gain height a little and fly on for as far as we can to get out of the way of the Russians. I saw some of our own chaps not too far from here.” I try to climb—I have no idea of my altitude. A dark patch of oil has spread over the inside and the outside of the windows, I can no longer see a thing and throw up the hood of the cockpit so as to be able to see, but that is no good either, the flames outside screen my vision.
“Ernst, we must bail out now.”
The engine stutters and rattles, stops, stutters again, stops, stutters…. Our kite will be our crematorium on this meadow. We must bail out!
“We can’t,” yells Gadermann, “we are only flying at 90 feet!” He can see from the back. He, too, has thrown up the hood, it snaps the intercommunication cord in two. Now we can no longer speak to each other. His last words are: “We are over a forest!”—I pull the stick for all I am worth, but the aircraft refuses to climb. I know from Gadermann that we are flying too low to bail out. Can we crash-land the Ju. 87? Perhaps it is still possible, even if I can see nothing. For that the engine must keep running, if only feebly. It may come off provided the terrain is in any way suitable.
I close the throttle slowly. As I feel the aircraft sink I glance out sideways. I see the ground rushing by. We can only be at 20 feet. I brace myself against the shock. Suddenly we touch and I cut the ignition. We crash. The motor stops. It must be the end of us. Then comes a grinding crash and I know no more.