Stuka Pilot

In fine, cold weather there is a good deal of fog in the early hours of the morning, but it frequently does not come up until we are already in the air. During one flight to the Tschir front we have just started on our way back when it suddenly thickens. I immediately make a landing with my flight on a large field. There are none of our own troops to be seen. Henschel goes off with some of the gunners to reconnoiter. They are back in three hours, they can find us again only by shouting for the last few hundred yards. I can hardly see my hand before my face. Shortly before mid-day the fog lifts a little, and a bit later we land smoothly on the airfield.

The month of January is quickly past and we pitch our H.Q. temporarily at Tazinskaja before moving to Schachty. The fighting from here is mainly against those enemy forces which are threatening the Donetz area. For sorties further north my squadron uses the airfield at Woroschilowgrad. It is not far from here to the Donetz; possible attempts to cross the river can be more easily countered from here. Because of the uninterrupted sorties and the stiff fighting we have done since Stalingrad, we are greatly reduced in the number of aircraft we can daily put in the air. The whole squadron has at the moment scarcely more than enough aircraft to form one strong flight. To fly on separate missions is seldom profitable, we fly in formation the leadership of which usually devolves on me. The whole Donetz area is full of industrial installations, chiefly mines. If the Soviets once get among these plants it will be difficult to throw them back; here they can find good cover and camouflage. Low level attacks among chimneys and mine shafts have generally only limited success, the pilots have to pay too much attention to their surroundings and the obstacles to be avoided, and cannot concentrate on the objective.

On one of these days Flying Officers Niermann and Kufner celebrate their birthday. Northwest of Kamensk we look for the enemy, especially tanks, and the individual aircraft have separated somewhat from each other. On the tail of Kufner’s aircraft, with Niermann aboard it, flies a Lag 5. I warn them and Niermann asks “Where?” He doesn’t see it because the Lag has sneaked up from behind. Now it has already opened fire at close range. I had immediately turned back though without much hope of getting there in time. In the nick of time I shoot him off their tail before he realizes what is happening. After this Niermann no longer claims that he is infallible in spotting every fighter.

Such a “birthday celebration” is quite good fun, and many practical jokes are played; so also on this occasion. We have with us an acting M.O. Our airmen say that he cannot stand the “noise of firing.” In the small hours of the morning Jungklausen goes to the telephone and gets this doctor out of bed. Jungklausen pretends to be his superior officer in the Air Medical Corps:

“You are to prepare immediately to be flown into the pocket.”

“Would you repeat that please?”

“You are to prepare immediately to be flown into the pocket of Stalingrad. You are to relieve a colleague there.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

The doctor lives only on the floor below; we wonder that he does not hear Jungklausen’s loud voice from the room above. He must be too excited.

“But you know that I have a bad heart.”

“That is beside the point. You are to take off for the pocket immediately.”

“But you know I have recently had an operation. Wouldn’t it be better to give this assignment to a colleague?”

“You can’t mean that seriously! I cannot imagine that you are trying to wriggle out of this assignment. What sort of a hole should we be in if we cannot even count on you?”

We are splitting our sides with laughter. The next day the doctor runs around in a terrible stew, but he boasts to anyone who is willing to listen to him that perhaps he is going to be required for this highly dangerous assignment. A few days later he has tumbled to the joke and is transferred. Better for us, better for him.

In these days for quite a short time we use the airfield at Rowenki and then we move to Gorlowka, not far from Stalino, the centre of the Donetz industrial region. Heavy snowstorms hamper our flying activity: it is always a slow business getting the whole squadron into the air.

Pilot Officer Schwirblat is sent to me as replacement officer, and on his first operational flight he has to fly alone with me into the Artemowsk area. I have flown some way ahead because apparently he has had difficulty taxiing on the snow.