The first town we arrived at after leaving Luckenwalde was Juterbug. It was a nice little town with some fine apartment complexes. I went with about ten Russian soldiers into one of the apartments. It was furnished real nice, and the Russians were making a big fuss about it. After a bit, one of them cleared us all from the room, went to its center, and let loose with his machine gun, destroying everything in sight while laughing his head off. I thought it weird but said nothing.
After leaving Juterbug we headed north toward Wittenberg on the Elbe. We were preceded by Stromovick fighter planes doing close air support for the advancing Russian force. There were some fierce battles and a couple minor skirmishes we were involved in. Hundreds of dead German soldiers were lying where they fell on both sides of our column. The death and destruction in ground warfare was a real revelation to this “flyboy.”
The German civilians were terrified of the Russians, and as soon as they discovered there were Americans in the group, they sought us out. They wanted us to sleep with their daughters, stay in their homes, or let them stay with us. A middle-aged lady came up to me with her two beautiful daughters and begged me to stay with them. I said no, but I did stay at their house, and that protected them from rape and pillage for that night anyway. The Germans kept asking us why we were fighting with the Russians—didn’t we know that we would be fighting them next?
At one point during the journey, we stopped at a German farm. The Russians had slaughtered a cow, some poultry, and a pig and were in the process of preparing a great feast. That evening we sat at a huge improvised banquet table seating a couple dozen people. We ate raw hamburger, steak, duck, pork, etc., with lots of wine and vodka. There were continuous toasts before, during, and after the meal. I had never consumed that much alcohol in my life, nor have I since. There were Russian dances and singing and a real rough-house affair that was enjoyed by all.
The next day one of the Russian officers talked me into “giving” him my watch as a token of friendship. I noted he had been admiring it for a couple of days. I noticed that most of their rolling stock was in ill repair. Gears stripped in the transmissions, and trucks only able to run in low was common. One day we came across a Russian soldier sitting alongside the road with his busted bike. We stopped and I took a look at it. I was an expert in bike repair as a youth. It was a simple problem with the sprocket, and I fixed it in about a half hour. He thanked me profusely with kisses and hugs, and we went on our way.
By the time we got to Wittenberg, the fighting was over. We were in open country by a bridge over the river Elbe when an American Infantry Patrol came across the river. They came over to make contact with the Russians, and when they saw me they insisted that the Russians let me return with them, which they were reluctant to do. Anyway, I returned with the patrol to their headquarters at Halle, Germany.
They were doing mop-up operations in the area, and I accompanied them on a couple of patrols. We would go into a village and have the people bring all their weapons to the town square where they would pile them up. It was at this time I picked up quite a few souvenirs, including a couple of Lugars, P-38 pistols, and a military honor sword. The army guys were able to swindle me out of my guns in short order while playing poker accompanied by a lot of booze. In a few days I took off on my own.
After walking about five miles I came across a C-47 parked in an open grass field. The crew was picking up some ex-prisoners of the Germans. The prisoners were in white and black striped uniform and were emaciated—barely able to stand. They were going to Paris, and I thought, “What’s better than that?” The pilots said come on along. When we arrived in Paris I was stamped, deloused, and put under control. My few wandering days on my own were over. I was home by June 1945 and married my beloved Josephine; however, I was not yet twenty-one years old, so I had to get my mother’s permission.
In April 1998, fifty-three years after my last World War II combat mission, bailout, and capture, out of the blue I receive a letter from Burg, Germany. It was from a Werner Dietrich, who wrote that on 10 April 1945 he was a thirteen-year-old boy hiding in a ditch and watching the air battles going on above him. He saw a P-51 heading in a westerly direction and then saw an Fw 190 attack the P-51 firing its guns and rockets. Then he saw the pilot bail out and get captured, and he saw where the P-51 crashed.
Burg is in East Germany, and after reunification Werner had told the story to a local television network and asked them to help him locate and excavate the P-51 he saw go down. At first, the TV producer was a little reluctant; they had just reunified with the west and they were not certain as to how the authorities would take it. Eventually they agreed to do it as part of a documentary, and after considerable red tape they were able to start locating the aircraft with massive metal detectors. They brought in the backhoes and started excavating. At first the results were disappointing; however, they decided to go deeper and they hit pay dirt.
Parts started to appear, the prop, the guns, the engine, and many other bits and pieces. During the entire process, the TV cameras were rolling for a documentary. Using the serial number of the P-51, Werner started the long and arduous task of trying to learn who the pilot was. He wrote to the Air Force, the war archives, and every other place imaginable with no luck. He had been searching and corresponding for over nineteen months and was about to chuck it when he got one possible lead. He was told that the 20th Fighter Group lost several aircraft that day in that area and that he should contact the 20th Fighter Group Association’s president Jack Ilfrey.
Upon receiving Werner’s letter, Jack immediately wrote back: “Hell yes, I know the pilot. It’s Joe Peterburs living in Colorado Springs, Colorado.” With my name and address in hand, Werner wrote me the letter asking if I indeed was the pilot of the P-51 he saw when he was a boy. I responded yes, and nineteen months after Werner’s project began, he was able to locate the pilot. The problem with the official records was that they had my name spelled wrong, Peterburg instead of Peterburs, and did not correlate the two.
After being able to identify me, he went back to the TV producer. The producer was overjoyed and wanted to arrange for me to come to Germany and visit the site and make a follow-up documentary. My wife, Josephine, had a stroke in 1997, and I could not and would not leave her side. The TV producer then made arrangements for Werner and the TV crew to visit me in Colorado Springs, bringing along parts of my aircraft and a beautiful bouquet of roses for Josephine. We had a nice visit, showed off all of my World War II memorabilia, and visited the Air Force Academy and Pikes Peak.
Of course, what Werner had seen as a boy was only part of my story. I told him of our raid on Oranienburg, my engagement with an Me 262, my strafing of the airfield, and the subsequent damage to my aircraft, trying to make it back to the lines and eventually bailing out—where Werner came into the picture.
After hearing these details, Werner became obsessed with the idea that he could find the Me 262 pilot that I engaged. When he returned home to Germany he relentlessly researched the records and eventually and miraculously found the Me 262 pilot that I had attacked. He is Oberleutnant Walter Schuck, one of Germany’s top aces with 206 victories in the air. He is still alive and confirmed to Werner the events of that day.
Schuck told Werner that during my pursuit, he saw that he had pulled away from me. He then descended through a cloud bank at about 3,000 feet, but the damage was already done. His left engine started to disintegrate, it blew, and he bailed out. This was the first I knew that my guns did sufficient damage to his aircraft to cause it to go down. Even though Werner was positive it was Schuck I had engaged, I was a little skeptical. There were a lot of Me 262s in the air that day, and I figured the chance that it was Walter that I hit with my gunfire was between 25 and 50 percent. I was later proven wrong.