“As Weissenberger told us after landing, he had immediately looked in the direction where he imagined Ehrler to be, but apart from an Me 262 going down pouring smoke, he saw no signs of any explosions or of a bomber displaying the kind of damage that would be inflicted by a midair collision. Whether Ehrler actually did ram, or whether his machine was shot down before he could do so by the tail gunner of the B-17 he was aiming at, will remain just one of the many unexplained mysteries of the war.”{12}
Upon his injuries after this engagement, Major Wolfgang Späte took command in his absence, but he was not to be in command long: “I was informed that I would take over after Rudi Sinner was wounded, but I was at that time still working with JG-400 and the Komet program. I did manage to get to III./JG-7 and fly a few missions, but then I received a note from Galland, and a phone call from Steinhoff, or perhaps it was the other way around. Anyway, I was asked to join JV-44, with the main unit stationed at Munich-Riem, with another gruppe located at Rusin/Prague. This seemed to be a gathering point for jets. It was also the graveyard for the JG-7 jets when the war ended.
“I read his report, and I was very disturbed to know that the Mustang pilots tried to strafe him when he bailed out, and he was lucky that they missed when he laid on the ground. He was beaten up pretty good, since his parachute only opened up in the last few seconds, and he hit the ground very hard, and had been burned and dragged through a barbed wire fence. He was in pretty bad shape all the way around. Even after many years after the war, he was never at his full potential.”{13}
JG-7 suffered other losses on April 4, such as Major Heinrich Ehrler and Oberfeldwebel Gerhard Heinhold of Stab/JG-7, Ehrler being claimed shot down and killed by a Mustang near Schaarlippe and Reinhold suffering the same fate at Neu-Chemnitz. Oberleutnant Franz Schall of 10/JG-7 was shot down and bailed out uninjured near Parchim. II./JG-7 suffered the following losses: Leutnant Alfred Lehner was shot down by a Mustang near Leipzig and killed, with the same fate befalling Unteroffizier Hubert Heckmann. JG-7 lost seven other jets, those pilots’ names unknown for the record, but none of these pilots were reported to have any injuries, although the jets were lost.{14}
April 8 was not that eventful where enemy contact was concerned, although Hermann Buchner had a memorable mission. His small group of four jets made two attacks against a formation of B-17s, getting hits, but nothing great, as the bombers’ defensive fire and large numbers of Mustangs did not allow them to linger. Upon landing his jet: “Then, just before I set down, something blazed from my right wing, and I could also make out hits on the ground in front of me. As I landed the enemy fighter made out hits on the ground in front of me. As I landed the enemy fighter made further shots at the engine mounts.
“My machine began to burn. The Mustang or the fighter had surprisingly appeared from nowhere. He was too fast, or he had only seen me at the last moment, so he had no more time to take good aim. In spite of the flames on both sides, I was able to bring the machine to a standstill at the end of the runway. Now it was time to leave the cockpit—the flames were already joining together above the cockpit canopy. In my haste, I forgot to undo the harness. I forced myself to be calm, then undid the harness and left the cockpit. I went over the wings onto the grass and away from the burning machine. In my haste I still had my parachute on and it hit the backs of my knees hard. After about fifty meters I came to the end of my strength and collapsed, unconscious.”{15}
CHAPTER 18
The Last Death Throes of JG-7
Flying with JG-7 was the highlight of my career, but also the most painful.
April 10, 1945, was a busy day for I./JG-7: Oberleutnant Walter Schuck confirmed four B-17s destroyed; Oberleutnant Grünberg shot down two B-17s; Oberleutnant Stehle, Oberleutnant Bohatsch, Flieger Reiher, and Oberfähnrich Neuhaus each shot down a B-17. III./JG-7 also had a busy day when Feldwebel Pritzl shot down a P-47, with one P-51 each falling to Oberfeldwebel Lennartz, Leutnant Rademacher, and Leutnant Hagenah. Fähnrich Pfeiffer shot down a B-17. I./KG-54 claimed nine destroyed and three “probables.”
The only other kill within two days was a P-47 that Reiher shot down on April 12. The greatest loss was Franz Schall, who had just been invited by Galland to join JV-44 and was planning to arrive within the week. Buchner wrote about the last flight of Schalclass="underline" “On his return Oberleutnant Schall could not land on the airfield and, having too little fuel, was forced to land outside. He tried to do a belly landing outside the airfield, but was killed when his machine rolled, crashed and burned…. Leutnant Gustav Sturm took his Knight’s Cross from the gravediggers and, in spite of his imprisonment by Czechs and later by the Poles, brought it back to Oberleutnant Schall’s family.”{1}
Schuck recalled the event: “As there were more than enough targets to handle, I decided that I would ‘surf-ride’ along the length of the bomber stream: dive on the enemy from a height of a thousand meters above, select a bomber flying out on one of the flanks, put a short burst of fire into an inboard engine, pull up and away while still at least two hundred meters above the bomber in order to ensure safe recovery, climb back to a thousand meters and repeat the process. Even though a ‘ride’ of this kind above the bombers took up several kilometers, such was the length of the average stream that it was usually possible to achieve multiple successes in the course of the roller coaster pass.”{2}
The B-17 crews had it rough; the jet pilots had found them, and they were in strength, with some of Germany’s best pilots in the cockpits. Parachutes filled the sky as aircraft, often in large burning pieces fell to earth. One B-17 in particular was identified by Schuck:
“The thirty-millimeter shells gnawed greedily through the giant tail unit of a B-17. It broke away from the fuselage as if severed by a chainsaw and fell away earthwards. I pulled up the nose of my machine, gaining height before swooping back down on the bombers. I hit the next B-17 between the two starboard engines. As it tiredly lifted one wing prior to going down, I thought I caught a glimpse of a name written on the exposed nose section: Henn’s Revenge. With the mortally wounded bomber already practically filling my windscreen, I had to break upwards to avoid colliding with it.
“Then I spotted a lone B-17 that had sheered out of formation and was heading north dragging a long banner of smoke behind it. At first I intended to give it the coup de grace, but as I drew closer I could see that a shell had ripped the starboard side of the fuselage open from the cockpit to behind the wing. As the bomber’s fate was already sealed, I flew a wide circle around it, not wanting to shoot at defenseless crew-members: the co-pilot was slumped forward in his seat harness and the rest of the crew had gathered in the fuselage clearly preparing to bail out as none of the guns were manned. As I turned back toward the bomber stream I saw the crew leaving the stricken bomber—nine parachutes blossomed in the sky behind me.”