Stuka Pilot

“He lost his nerve completely, the idiot,” comments Fickel over the R/T. At the moment I cannot bother about him any more, for I must try to keep my ragged formation together and maneuver back eastward in ellipses. After a quarter of an hour the Red fighters turn off defeated, and we head in regular formation for our base. I order the skipper of the seventh flight to lead the formation home. With Pilot Off. Fischer, flying the other staff aircraft, I bank round and fly back at low level, skimming the surface of the Dniester, the steep banks on either side. A short distance ahead in the direction of the bridge I discern the Russian fighters at 3000 to 9000 feet. But here in the bed of the river I am difficult to see, and above all my presence is not expected. As I climb abruptly over the scrub on the river bank I spot our aircraft two or three miles to the right. It has made a forced landing in a field. The crew are standing near it and they gesticulate wildly as I fly over at a lower level. “If only you had paid as much attention to me before, this delicate operation would not have been necessary,” I mutter to myself as I bank round to see whether the field is suitable for a landing. It is. I encourage myself with a breathed: “All right then… get going. This lot today will be the seventh crew I shall have picked up under the noses of the Russians.” I tell Plt./Off. Fischer to stay in the air and interfere with the fighters in case they attack. I know the direction of the wind from the bombing of the bridge.—Flaps down, throttle back, I’ll be down in a jiffy.—What is happening? I have overshot—must open up and go round again. This has never happened to me before at such a moment. Is it an omen not to land? You are very close to the target which has just been attacked, far behind the Soviet lines!—Cowardice? Once again throttle back, flaps down—I am down… and instantly notice that the ground is very soft; I do not even need to brake. My aircraft comes to a stop exactly in front of my two colleagues. They are a new crew, a corporal and a L.A.C. Henschel lifts the canopy and I give them a sign to hop in and be quick about it. The engine is running, they climb in behind with Henschel. Red Falcons are circling overhead; they have not yet spotted us.

“Ready, Henschel?”

“Yes.” I open the throttle, left brake—intending to taxi back so as to take off again in exactly the same way as I landed. My starboard wheel sticks deep in the ground. The more I open my throttle, the more my wheel eats into it. My aircraft refuses to budge from the spot. Perhaps it is only that a lot of mud is jammed between the mud-guard and the wheel.

“Henschel, get out and take off the mud-guard, perhaps then we can make it.”

The fastening stud breaks, the wheel casing stays on; but even without it we could not take off, we are stuck in the mud. I pull the stick into my stomach, ease it and go at full throttle into reverse. Nothing is of the very slightest use. Perhaps it might be possible to pancake, but that does not help us either. Plt./Off. Fischer flies lower above us and asks over the R/T:

“Shall I land?”

After a momentary hesitation I tell myself that if he lands he too will not be able to take off again and reply: “No, you are not to land. You are to fly home.”

I take a look round. There come the Ivans, in droves, four hundred yards away. Out we must get. “Follow me,” I shout—and already we are sprinting southward as fast as our legs can carry us. When flying over I have seen that we are about four miles from the Dniester. We must get across the river whatever we do or else we shall fall an easy prey to the pursuing Reds. Running is not a simple matter; I am wearing high fur boots and a fur coat. Sweat is not the word! None of us needs any spurring on; we have no mind to end up in a Soviet prison camp which has already meant instant death to so many dive bomber pilots.

We have been running for half an hour. We are putting up a pretty good show; the Ivans are a good half a mile behind. Suddenly we find ourselves on the edge of almost perpendicular cliffs at the foot of which flows the river. We rush hither and thither, looking for some way of getting down them… impossible! The Ivans are at our heels. Then suddenly a boyhood recollection gives me an idea. We used to slide down from bough to bough from the tops of fir trees and by braking our fall in this way we got to the bottom safely. There are plenty of large thorny bushes, like our dog—rose, growing out of the stone face of the cliff. One after the other we slide down and land on the river bank at the bottom, lacerated in every limb and with our clothes in ribbons. Henschel gets rather jittery. He shouts:

“Dive in at once. Better to be drowned than captured by the Russians.”