Schallmoser had been hit with a solid stream of .50-caliber fire that shot out both engines and shattered his canopy. He lost control and hit the B-17. The gunner who shot him down was Technical Sergeant Murdock K. List of the 305th Bomb Group. He had shot Schallmoser up, and when he lost control he flew past List’s bomber and crashed into the next one in the box formation. The crew and its pilot, 1st Lt. Brainard H. Harris, all perished. No one managed to bail out, as confirmed by Steinhoff.
Schallmoser was pinned in the wreckage, the force of the impact and g forces holding him in as it spun out of control, minus the right wing, and he kept pushing until he was sucked out into the subzero cold. As he left the aircraft his head struck the side of the fuselage, rendering him unconscious. Falling until he became conscious, he then pulled the ripcord, and landed in a field not far from a road, where he flagged down a car and was given a ride to a police station.
Hans “Specker” Grünberg, who ended the war with the Knight’s Cross and eighty-two enemy aircraft in 550 missions, with five victories in the jet, was also on this mission, and provided his own perspective: “I saw Schallmoser streak toward the bombers. He always did that, we all did, but we always fired, pulled away and then considered another attack. The ‘Rammer’ was not of this mindset. I think that he simply became tunnel visioned, too focused, wanting the kill at all costs. He probably believed his own propaganda, where he used to say, ‘I can’t be killed; I am too pretty.’
“We would always laugh at him. But when I saw this plane break apart after the collision, I also, like everyone else, knew he was dead. How he survived that crash, and all the others, still puzzles me. They say that God protects drunks and fools. The Rammer was both, so I guess he had a good insurance policy.”{20}
Neumann describes the reappearance of Schallmoser: “He showed up, with a bandage on his head, and his arm in a sling. He had dislocated his left shoulder. Someone said that his new nickname was ‘The Ghost’ because he came back from the dead. Oberst Lützow said, ‘No, he is the Rammer,’ and the name stuck with him. You know that he flew the next day? Incredible.”{21}
CHAPTER 20
The Loss of Steinhoff
There was not a dry eye in the entire squadron when Steinhoff crashed. We loved him like a brother.
Some of Germany’s greatest aces, who had finally fulfilled their wish to end the war on their own terms, flying the fastest and most heavily armed fighter in the world, would never survive the war. The war started to take a heavy toll on “Galland’s Circus,” and April 18, 1945, was the turning point that would lower morale and begin an attrition of the unit’s best aces. Perhaps one of the luckiest to survive the war was Steinhoff himself, who was the first of the greats to be lost as a casualty, as related by Galland:
“We were taking off in a flight, with several of us trying to catch a B-17 formation on April 18. Steinhoff hit a hole in the stony airstrip, and his jet jumped into the air, then crashed and burst into flames. When he had crashed, Barkhorn, Schallmoser, Fährmann, Klaus Neumann, Krupinski, and I were taking off on a mission shortly after our base had been attacked, and Steinhoff’s 262 hit a crater made from a bomb. His jet lifted into the air but without sufficient takeoff speed, then he nosed in and exploded. The fire exploded the rockets and ammunition, as the kerosene-based fuel engulfed him. He managed to stagger out, a human torch. I cried, because I knew he was a dead man, even though my gear was already up, I could look back and see the smoke.
“We returned to base after the mission to find him being carried to the hospital more dead than alive. The fact that he even survived is the most incredible thing, and I am glad he did, for he is one of my closest friends today. That crash was April 18, and soon after Lützow failed to return from a mission, which was April 24, if memory serves. For years after the war I hoped that he would turn up, perhaps long held by the Allies, or wounded, and recovering in anonymity. Very sad.”{1}
Johannes Steinhoff gave his own personal account during his interview of the crash that should have killed him: “Many writers have covered that, but hardly anyone ever asked me about it, except for Raymond Toliver, so here is the true story. I was taking off in formation on April 18, 1945, for my nine-hundredth mission. Galland was leading the flight, which included Gerhard Barkhorn, [Klaus] Neumann, [Eduard] Schallmoser, [Ernst] Fährmann, and myself. The next flight to take off was to be Bär, Lützow, Barkhorn, Wübke, and some others.
“We were to fly formation and engage an American bomber formation. Our airfield had suffered some damage over the last several days due to Allied bombing and strafing attacks, and as my jet was picking up speed, the left undercarriage struck a poorly patched crater. I lost the wheel, and the plane jumped perhaps a meter into the air, so I tried to raise the remaining right wheel. I was too low to abort takeoff, and my speed had not increased enough to facilitate takeoff. I knew as I came toward the end of the runway that I was going to crash.
“The 262 hit with a great thump, then a fire broke out in the cockpit as it skidded to a stop. I tried to unfasten my belts when an explosion rocked the plane, and I felt an intense heat. My twenty-four R4M rockets had exploded, and the fuel was burning me alive. I remember popping the canopy and jumping out, flames all around me, and I fell down and began to roll. The explosions continued, and the concussion was deafening, knocking me down as I tried to get up and run away. I cannot describe the pain.”{2}
Walter Krupinski was in the takeoff position just to the left and behind Steinhoff, and he gave his account of the crash as he witnessed it from his cockpit: “I had enough airspeed to pull back on the stick and I lifted up, just clearing his jet and avoiding the collision, even though his jet bounced up into the air, almost hitting me and again banged against the ground, ripping the undercarriage away, which I did not see. Once I was up and began raising my landing gear I looked back as I banked slightly, and I saw then the crunch of the impact and the explosion. The shock wave was felt even as I climbed away. I just knew Macky was dead. There was no way in my mind that he could have survived, and I was feeling very bad at that point.
“When Steinhoff’s jet crashed and exploded, he was trapped inside the burning wreckage, with the burning fuel exploding the rockets and thirty-millimeter ammunition around him. There was Macky Steinhoff, trapped in this wreckage, but he managed to crawl out, on fire, rolling on the ground. They got him to the hospital and he somehow survived. I did not see that part after the crash as it happened, but everyone heard it. We were informed of his condition when we returned from the mission. He was the best friend any of us had, and a true patriot and leader.”{3}
Klaus Neumann was behind and to the right of Steinhoff, at five o’clock, and he gave his perception of the crash, seeing it from a different angle: “I have to admit that I was not really paying much attention to him. I was always looking up and behind me, in case we were being jumped by enemy fighters while taking off, as that was a real concern. I started rolling about ten seconds after Steinhoff, parallel to Krupinski, as we took off in the kette formation, Steinhoff in the lead. Suddenly, out of nowhere, when I had reached about one hundred kilometers [per hour] I saw his jet in the air, and then hit the ground, and bounce again, then crash. I hit the right rudder with everything I had.