Stuka Pilot

The mountain crests here are between 3,500 and 4,500 feet. It is easier after we have been into every valley a few times and know which valleys have exits, and behind which mountain it is possible to get out into open country. This is all guess work in bad weather and with low lying clouds. When we make low level attacks on some valley road occasionally the defense, fires down at us from above because the mountain sides on either side of us are also occupied by the Ivans.

Our numerically weak mountain troops are putting up a stubborn fight against a far superior enemy lodged in strong mountain positions. We are in close liaison with the ground forces and do our best to answer their every call for attack and support. The battles in the mountain forests are particularly difficult; it is fighting blind-fold. If our Operations Officer gives us permission to attack a certain belt of forest we carry out his instructions even when we are unable to see it clearly. It is on such occasions as these that the Army commends our usefulness and the effectiveness of our attack.

The Geimamberg, the neighboring heights, are in German hands. By stiff fighting we are pushing forward to the south west. Less than thirteen miles separate our comrades from Tuapse. But the casualties in the mountain fighting are too high and there are practically no reserves available. So the assault on the Goitsch pass is abandoned and final success is denied us.

There is a ding-dong battle for the Goitsch railway station.

A Soviet armored train hurls its heavy stuff into our thin attacking line. This armored train is crafty. It belches fire and then, like a dragon, retires into its lair. This dragon’s lair is a mountain tunnel in the neighborhood of Tuapse. If we fly up it streaks back like lightning at our approach into the shelter of the tunnel and we only glimpse its tail. Once we catch it napping-nearly. We have “crept up on it,” but at the last minute it must have received a warning. It is hit, but the damage cannot have been serious; a couple of days later it has been repaired and re-appears. But now this steel monster is extremely wary; we never once catch sight of it again. Then we make the following decision: if we are unable to get to close quarters with this armored train we will make its guardian angel its fatality! We block the exit from the tunnel with a special bomb, thereby preventing the armored train from any excursion and giving our comrades on the ground, at least for a time, a sorely needed respite. “Give and take is the whole philosophy of life,” says my rear gunner with a grin.

We also attack the port of Tuapse, which, like all ports, is strongly defended by flak. The town and the harbour itself, behind the chain of mountains, is still in Soviet hands. If we fly at an altitude of 9,000 feet the light flak reaches us long before we approach the target. A.A. guns are sited on the mountains for the last few miles of our approach. To avoid the flak we fly at an altitude of only 2,500 feet, for the mountain ridges rise perpendicularly from the sea to a height of 4,500 to 5,000 feet. Our attacks are directed against the dock yards, port installations and ships lying in the harbour, principally tankers. Generally everything mobile starts to career in circles in order to avoid our bombs. If they were not so already, my crews are now fully fledged operational airmen. The flak over the port is not at all comparable with the defense at Kronstadt; it is nevertheless impressively heavy. It isn’t possible to fly straight back over the mountains because they are much too high. We usually dive very low on to the harbour and then sheer off seawards at our maximum ceiling and so escape relatively quickly out of the range of the defense. Out at sea, however, the Soviet pursuit aircraft are already waiting for us. We have now to climb to a good 9,000 feet in order to get back home with a margin of at least 3,000 feet above the mountain flak because in air battle it is easy to lose altitude.

The conditions under which we attack are much the same as the Gelendshik area where we also occasionally participate in attacks on airfields or naval targets in. the bay of the same name. The Soviets have soon located our station at Beloretschenskaja; at first they bomb it day and night. Small as is the material damage, they nevertheless inflict a serious blow on the wing whose guests we are. Their C.O., Squadron Leader. Orthofer, is killed in one of these raids. I choose this very moment to land and taxi in; bombs are dropping to port and starboard. My aircraft is hit by many splinters and becomes unserviceable, but I escape unhurt.