Stuka Pilot

One morning one of the Soviet thrusts reaches Kriwoi-Rog and the airfield. The brunt of the Soviet attack comes from the north from the direction of Piatichatki. Here Flg./Off. Mende is reported missing. Despite the most strenuous search we fail to find this good comrade swallowed up in the vastness of Russia. The situation here is also restored by a counterattack, and the front pushed back a few miles north. Supply traffic feeding this group is rolling forward uninterruptedly, so we attack the Dnieper bridges. Our target is then generally between Krementschuk and Dnjepropetrovsk. One morning, because of a fresh advance by the Russians pressing forward from the north, I have to go out in bad weather. My mission is to obtain an overall picture of the enemy dispositions and to assess the chances under prevailing met. conditions of attacking with a larger formation. Before taking off I am told that a certain village in the battle area is still held by our troops, but that they are being very hard pressed and urgently need relief. Operational contact is to be made with the unit in question and an operations officer is on the spot.

With low cloud cover we fly in threes into the target area, and presently I hear the voice of an operations officer I know; at all events I hope he is the one I have been told to contact and not another. I should mention that every one wants our support for his own division. We always have to insist on being given the call sign of the unit. The demands on us are so heavy that to satisfy them all we should need twenty times as many men and aircraft. Judging by the voice it is once again the footballer Epp speaking from the ground, but without waiting for his message I have already made out strong enemy concentrations 1 ½ to 2 miles ahead. I am still flying over our lines and banking round when I observe the flash of many flak batteries. I cannot see the shell bursts up in the air because they are hidden in the clouds, but now something hits the cockpit and the engine. I have flak splinters in my face and in my hands. The engine is likely to stop at any minute. It putters for another couple of minutes and then conks out. During this interval I discover a meadow west of the village. I feel sure that I have not yet been spotted by the Russians. I bring off a smooth landing on this meadow. Quickly Fickel brings his aircraft down beside me. We have no idea how long this area will remain in our possession; therefore Henschel and I take out the most essential things, our weapons, clock and parachutes and climb into Fickel’s machine. The third in the section has already flown home and reported the incident. Not long afterwards we, too, make a safe landing at Costromka. In these days Flg./Off. Fritsche also has a stroke of luck. After being hit by fighters S.E. of Zaparoschje, near Heidelberg, he bails out without mishap, although in the act of jumping he smashes something on the empennage. This grand flight leader and Knight of the Iron Cross is back in operations after a short convalescence.

But we are not always so lucky. Once on our way back from a battle area to the N.E. we are already close to the airfield and preparing to come in singly after flying low above it. In the last phase of our flying our flak suddenly opens fire. High above us are Russian fighters. They show absolutely no direct intention of attacking, but the flak looses off at them, trying of course to fire in between our aircraft. And Flg./Off. Herling, leader of the 7th flight and Flg./Off. Krumings, the squadron engineer officer, are both hit, and crash. A bit later Flg./Off. Fritsch is also killed. Three of my friends who have been as inseparable as a four leaved clover, all three decorated with the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, lay down their lives for their country. We are stunned by their loss as by a mean and furtive blow. They were first rate airmen and good comrades to their men. Sometimes there are periods here at the front when one is under a jinx and there seems to be no breaking the run of bad luck.

In November a radio message is received: I have been awarded the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords and am to report at once for the investiture to the Führer’s H.Q. in East Prussia.

^{Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords}

It is about this time that I destroy my hundredth tank. Personally I am glad of this new decoration, not least because it is a tribute to my squadron’s achievement, but at the same time I am distressed that sanction for my recommendation of Henschel’s Knight’s Cross has not come through. It must be held up somewhere. I therefore decide in any case to take my rear gunner with me when I report. Henschel has just completed his thousand operational sorties, and with a recent bag of several Soviet fighters is easily our best gunner. We fly to East Prussia, over Winiza, Proskurow, Lemberg and Crakow, to the Führer’s H.Q. near Goldap.