“I managed to go around him, and just as I did I saw the explosion. It rocked my fighter, and my left wheel came off the ground and I then moved the stick left and applied left rudder to correct the jet’s attitude. I was still not fast enough to take off. I was thinking that perhaps he had been ‘bounced’ by a fighter. I then managed to lift off, and I retracted my landing gear. As I followed Galland, I looked over at Krupinski, who looked at me, and he simply shook his head. I knew that we were not to break radio silence until we saw the bombers, as Galland would tell us when to attack, after he confirmed the vector from the ground control. I knew Steinhoff was dead, because as I banked right to follow Galland, I looked over and saw this great pillar of fire and black smoke, and then an explosion, and then another. I felt sick.”{4}
Hans Grünberg was also in the formation, having just arrived that morning for his first flight with JV-44 after having served in JG-7, and was technically still assigned to that unit. He was the last to take off and he also witnessed the event: “I was the last of eight jets to take off, I had only released the brakes when I saw this fireball. I never saw what caused it. I immediately thought that we were probably under enemy fighter attack, so I looked up and around, but saw nothing, so I kept on going, building up speed. Suddenly, I was almost running into this burning wreckage so I kicked the right rudder and moved to the right, but decided just to keep going until I could get off the ground.
“I looked over to my left and could not even tell whose aircraft it was. The explosions were buffeting me, the heat could be felt a hundred feet away—incredible. I then heard over the radio that it was Oberst Steinhoff. I did not know him well, but I liked him very much. Very sad for him.”{5}
Franz Stigler did not see the crash, but he heard the explosion, as he related to Jeffrey Ethelclass="underline" “I was in the operations shack, I was planning on taking one of the jets up for a test run as we had just mounted a new engine. I ran outside and I saw this figure trying to stand, engulfed in flames, and then he hit the ground, rolling, but he was rolling in the burning jet fuel, and then the cannon ammunition began to explode, throwing shrapnel all over the place. I ran towards him, as did all the ground crew. No one was thinking of themselves, and two of the mechanics received severe burns by grabbing him and dragging him away.
“It was horrible. We did not have an ambulance at our field, and we really did not even have much of a first aid station. We had no medical personnel, so I got on the phone and called the nearby hospital near Munich. It took them over an hour to get there. Steinhoff was moaning, his body still smoking, as he was obviously in great pain. We poured cold water on him, and his skin had just peeled off, and when his flight helmet was removed, all of his hair and scalp was melted to it. His hands were burnt claws. We tried to get his boots off, but we had to cut them off, and his feet peeled, the skin just rolled off exposing the muscles.
“I know that I was not the only one thinking this, but I thought, ‘How much more merciful just to shoot him,’ but then that thought went out of my head. Barkhorn and Lützow ran fast as hell to get there, and Lützow took over and issued immediate orders, never raising his voice, and ordered more cold water brought. He knelt down to speak with him, as did Barkhorn, and I could hear not a word. Then for the first time, I saw Lützow, this most stoic and disciplined man I had ever known, start to cry. No sound, just his eyes teared up. Same with Barkhorn. He held Macky’s shoulder, staying with him.
“Barkhorn had flown as wingman to Macky in JG-52; in fact Krupinski, Gerd Barkhorn, Erich Hartmann, Pauli Rossmann, Günther Rall, and Macky Steinhoff were the most successful fighter pilots in the Luftwaffe and were the top scorers in JG-52, flying together for two or more years in some cases. Then I started to cry. In fact, there was not a dry eye in the whole damned group. The ambulance finally arrived, and they loaded him up. Barkhorn collected his medals, making sure that his wife, Ursula, could get them at some point.
“No sooner had they driven away then the jets came back from the mission, with Galland coming in to land first. He had called over the radio and asked about Macky, and I think it was Bär who told him in flight how bad he was, and then he took off on his own intercept mission with Barkhorn and the others. Galland landed and immediately jumped from the jet, followed by the others as they landed. The most frantic was Krupinski. He had flown with Steinhoff since the early days in Russia with JG-52, and they were the best of friends. Krupinski was devastated. I could see that all the energy was drained from him.
“That night no one celebrated Bär’s two Thunderbolt kills scored on his sortie, not even Bär himself. That night he broke out a bottle of old cognac, bottled before the Great War, that he was saving for when the war was over. He opened it, and we all had a drink, to Macky Steinhoff. No one believed he would survive. Galland took off for the hospital to see him. Krupinski wanted to go, but Galland said no, he could go later.”{6}
The loss of Steinhoff was much more than simply losing a highly qualified pilot and group commander. Losing Steinhoff was also a great blow to morale, as stated by Hohagen: “Steinhoff was like one of those charmed guys—the kind of fellow who you would follow anywhere, because you really felt that he would get you back home OK. I personally liked him very much, and I can say that without him as the unit recruiter, and also the chief transition instructor, from his experience with JG-7, our unit may have taken a lot longer to be readied than when it was. He was a good mentor to the younger pilots, and a real gentleman.”{7}
The Luftwaffe had a bad day on April 18 for several reasons. The losses at Ruzyne had really affected JG-7 and Major Leonard “Kit” Carson of the 357th Yoxford Boys wrote about this mission from his viewpoint:
“I kept my squadron at Ruzyne on the southwest side. We circled the field at 13,000 feet and all hell broke loose. The flak batteries opened up and the sky looked as if it had measles. We fell back a couple of miles to size up the situation and cruised around waiting for the next move. It soon came. Under cover of the flak umbrella the Me 262 pilots cranked up and taxied one by one to the north end of the airdrome for takeoff. The moment of truth had arrived. They were going to try to punch their way through and get to the bombers anyhow. Our opposing strategy was now clear.
“My squadron would go down by flights of four, well spread to dilute the flak concentration on each of us as individual targets. As the first 262 started his takeoff roll we dropped our wing tanks and I started down with Red Flight from 13,000 with easy wingover and about 50 inches of mercury and 2,700 rpm. The Mustang would accelerate like a banshee going downhill. The 262 had his gear up and was going past the field boundary when we plowed through the intense light flak. As I came astern of him and leveled off at 400-plus, I firewalled it to hold my speed and centered the bull’s-eye of the optical sight on the fuselage and hit him with a two-second burst. My timing had been off. If I’d split from 13,000 feet about five seconds earlier I could have had all six fifties up his tail pipes. Even though I scored only a few strikes, it’s an even bet that he was too busy checking for leaks to make it to the bomber column. A solid hit can be just as good as a kill as a deterrent.