Stuka Pilot

By the beginning of July the Soviet pressure has slackened and the German front is stabilized. It stands between Krymskaja and Moldawanskoje, a retirement of only a few yards. We never have the house-warming of our shack, for on the 4th July we receive urgent orders to move. Nobody knows exactly where we are going; at all events we are to fly today to Melitopol; there we are to receive further orders tomorrow. We take off northwards above the blue waters.

Melitopol is a town on the lines of communication far behind the front. The aerodrome is occupied by a bomber formation with Heinkel IIIs; our colleagues let out that today of all days a German entertainment party is giving a performance, a ballet troop of ten pretty girls between the ages of 18 and 20. In less than no time the aircraft are under cover and overhauled for the following day. Cupid lends everyone wings. Everyone tidies up at lightning speed and literally flies to the theatre. The sight of pretty German girls after so long a time cannot fail to cheer the heart of every soldier from the Russian front, old and young alike. That inveterate clown, Pilot Officer Rickel, uproots the plants in front of the theatre with the intention of offering them later as bouquets. In duty bound to the honor of their regiments the army units do not easily yield ground, and we are involved in the keenest competition with them. I am not quite sure whether we shall succumb to the feminine glamour or whether after years in Russia we shall find the girls more or less pretty. Schwirblat is also dubious. Finally he says it would have been better if we had gone for our usual six mile run, we should then have been spared this misgiving.

In the morning the engines again hum their familiar song. We now know our destination: Kharkov. We land on the airfield to the north and are billeted outside the city. The city itself does not make too bad an impression and is doubtless one of the show places of Soviet Russia, such as we have seldom seen. A skyscraper in the Red Square is a typical specimen of Soviet architecture and, damaged though it is, is still a much gaped as object of Ivan’s pride; otherwise the buildings date back to the Tsarist era. The city has parks, a wide network of thoroughfares, cinemas and a theatre.

At the crack of dawn the next morning we take off in the direction of Bjelgorod, our operational area for the ensuing few weeks. On the ground we meet old acquaintances from the East Front, crack divisions, for whom we are happy to fly. We know that here we are going forward and there will be no unpleasant surprises. Besides armored divisions, the Guards divisions Totenkopf and Grossdeutschland are in the line. This offensive is a northward thrust with Kursk, occupied by very formidable Soviet forces, as its objective. We are pushing diagonally into the bulge of the Russian front which extends westwards to Konotop and hinges on Bjelgorod in the south and is bounded on its northern side by the open country south of Orel.

The ideal would be to establish a main front line between Bjelgorod and Orel; will the units thrown in be able to achieve this? We shall not let them down. We are in the air from dawn till dusk in front of our tank spearheads, which have soon gained 25 miles and have reached the outskirts of Obojan.

The Soviet resistance is strong, even in the air. On one of the first mornings when approaching Bjelgorod I see half to port an He. III formation flying above me. The flak opens up on them, one aircraft explodes in the air, and is blown to smithereens. Such experiences harden one. Our comrades’ sacrifices must not be made in vain. Afterwards we attack in the area of the same Soviet A.A. positions; during low level attacks I often catch sight of the wreckage of the shot-down Heinkel glittering in the sun. In the afternoon a Luftwaffe Flight Lieutenant comes to me and informs me that my cousin has been killed that day. I reply that my cousin must have been shot down this morning N.W. of Bjelgorod in a Heinkel III. He wonders how I can tell him so exactly what happened. My cousin is the third son of my uncle to be killed in the family; he himself will later also be reported missing.

The next weeks deal us severe blows in the Wing. My training school friend, Flight Lieutenant Wutka, skipper of the 8th Flight, is killed; so too is Flying Officer Schmidt whose brother had recently been killed in the air fighting over Sicily. In the cases of Wutka and Schmidt it is not quite clear whether their aircraft exploded when coming in to dive or when operating the bomb release. Is it possible that a short circuit was due to some act of sabotage which caused the explosion? Again some months later this idea occurs to us when similar things happen; at the moment, in spite of the most thorough investigation, we can establish no definite proof.