Stuka Pilot

Did Gadermann shoot her down with his rear M.G. or did she crash because the longerons cracked under the terrific pressure of these high speed turns? I couldn’t care less. In my headphones I hear a mighty yelling from the Russians, a Babel of noise. They have seen what has happened and it appears to be something out of the ordinary. I have lost sight of Plt./Off. Fickel and fly back alone. Below me a burning Ju. 87 lie s in a field. The W.O. and his gunner are both standing safely near it, and German soldiers are coming towards them. So they will be back tomorrow. Shortly before landing I catch up with Plt./Off. Fickel. There will be ample reason for celebrating my Ficke l’s and Gadermann’s birthdays. They, too, insist upon celebrating. The following morning the Flying Control Officer of this sector rings up and tells me how anxiously they watched yesterday’s performance, and congratulates me heartily in the name of his division. A radio message picked up last night revealed that the fighter pilot was a quite famous Soviet ace, several times “Hero of the U.S.S.R.” He was a good airman, that much I must give him.

Very shortly after this I have to report on two separate occasions to the Reichsmarschall. The first time I land at Nuremberg and proceed to his ancestral castle. As I enter the courtyard I am greatly surprised to see Goering with his personal medical attendant rigged out in a medieval German hunting costume and shooting with a bow and arrow at a gaily colored target. At first he pays no attention to me until he has shot off all his arrows. I am amazed that not one of them misses its mark. I only hope that he is not seized with the ambition to show off his sporting prowess by making me compete with him; in that case he is bound to see that with my shoulder I cannot hold the bow, let alone draw it. The fact that I am reporting to him in fur boots anyhow gives some indication of my physical infirmities. He tells me that he occupies much of his leisure at this sport; it is his way of keeping fit and the doctor, willy-nilly, has to join him in this pastime. After a simple lunch in the family circle, at which General Lörzer is the only other guest, I learn the reason for my summons. He invests me with the Golden Pilot’s Medal with Diamonds and asks me to form a squadron equipped with the new Messerschmitt 410 armed with 5 cm. cannon, and assume command of it. He hopes with this type to achieve a decisive ascendancy over the four-engined aircraft used by the enemy. I draw my own conclusions: namely, that as I have recently been decorated with the Diamonds his object is to turn me into a fighter pilot. I feel sure that he is thinking back to the First World War in which airmen who had the “Pour le Morite” were regularly fighter pilots like himself. He has had a predilection for this branch of the Luftwaffe and for those who belong to it ever since, and would like to include me in this category. I tell him how much I would have liked to be come a fighter pilot earlier on, and what accidents prevented it. But since those days I have gained valuable experience as a dive bomber pilot and am dead against a change. I therefore beg him to abandon the idea. He then tells me that he has the Führer’s approval for this commission, though he admits he was not particularly pleased at the idea of my giving up dive bombing. Nevertheless the Führer agreed with him in wishing that I should on no account make another landing behind the Russian front to rescue crews. This was an order. If crews had to be picked up, then in future it should be done by someone else. This worries me. It is part of our code that “any one brought down will be picked up.”—I am of the opinion that it is better that I do it because with my greater experience it must be easier for me than for any one else. If it has to be done at all, then I am the one who should do it. But to raise any objections now would be a waste of breath. At the critical moment one will act as necessity dictates. Two days later I am back again on operations at Husi.

During a lull of several days I decide to make a short trip to Berlin for a long deferred conference. On the return journey I land at Görlitz, stop off at my home and continue eastward via Voslau near Vienna. Early in the morning I am rung up at the house of my friends: somebody has been ringing me up all night. A telephone message from the Reichsmarschall’s H.Q. having been put through to Husi, they have been trying to contact me all along my itinerary, but have failed to reach me anywhere. I immediately put through a call, and Goering’s adjutant tells me to proceed at once to Berchtesgaden. As I guess that this is another unwelcome attempt to have me seconded for staff or special duties, I ask him: “Is this good or bad from my point of view?” He knows me. “Certainly not bad.”