Stuka Pilot

The same evening my intelligence officer tells me that he listens almost every day to the radio propaganda broadcasts in German, atrocity-stories about German soldiers and incitement of the guerillas. The broadcaster always begins: Kronstadt calling. After communicating with the group the first attack on this radio station is fixed for tomorrow; it must be possible to deal with these provocateurs. At day-break we set course for Kronstadt, an old settlement of the Transylvanian Saxons. The town shimmers straight ahead in the morning mist under the first rays of the sun. We do not need to fly over it; the transmitting station with its two tall masts stands on a main road about five miles northeast. Between the high masts is a little building, the nerve centre of the whole transmitting organism. As I fly in, preparatory to going into a dive, I see a motor car drive out of the courtyard of the building. If I could be sure its passengers were the men who are instigating the partisans to stab us in the back it would be worth a little extra effort to catch them. The car disappears into a wood and sees our attack on the transmitting station from afar. One has to be careful not to dive too low in this attack because the masts are connected by many cables and it is easy to fly into them. The little building is centered in my sights, I press the button, pull out and circle round the masts, waiting to see the result and for my squadron to reform. By chance one of my little 351b. bombs has hit the tip of one of the masts; it snapped and bent at a right angle. There is nothing more to be seen of the building down below as the bombs have done their work. They will not be broadcasting their vicious propaganda from here for quite a while. With this comforting thought we return to base.

The increasing pressure on the Carpathian passes shows more and more clearly the extent of the damage to our strength caused by the Rumanian debacle. The Soviets have advanced a long way beyond Hermannstadt; they are nearly at Thorenburg and are trying to capture Klausenburg. Most of the units in this sector are Hungarian, chiefly the first and second Hungarian armored divisions. There are practically no German reserves available to form a backbone of resistance in this important sector. This Soviet advance will imperil the German units holding the Carpathians far to the north. They will have to abandon their positions in the passes with serious consequences because the Carpathians, being a natural fortress, are the key to the Hungarian plains and it will be extremely difficult to hold them with our diminished strength. For the most part the Soviets have had a soft job the last few weeks, for they are advancing through an “allied” Rumania where a coherent German resistance has been impossible. Our motto has been: “Get out of Rumania; next stop the Carpathians.” But Rumania has an elongated frontier and this means an extension of our already too thinly defended front.

We move back for a few days to an airfield west of Sächsisch Regen from where we make almost daily sorties over the Thorenburg area. For the first time since goodness knows how long the Iron Gustavs again participate in the fighting on the ground. On every sortie we stay in the target area as long as our petrol lasts, always hoping for an encounter with our competition from the other side. The 3rd Squadron does the bombing, escorted by the 2nd with the Wing staff and myself in FW 190s. During this phase we are successful in shooting down a large number of Russian attack planes and fighters. The skipper of my 2nd Squadron, Flight Lieutenant Kennel, who has the Oak Leaves, has particularly good hunting. It is not actually our business as dive bombers and attack aircraft to shoot down enemy aircraft, but in the present crisis it seems to me very important for our comrades on the ground that we should master the enemy’s air force. So our expert tank marksmen also engage aircraft, and with excellent results. These operations show us old Ju. 87 fliers very clearly that the hounds have a better time of it than the hare. None the less we still swear by our old kites.

In September 1944 the battle for the Hungarian plains becomes an actuality. As this moment the news of my promotion to Wing Commander reaches me. The Wing staff with ground personnel is stationed for a short time at Tasnad, South of Tokay. The 1st and 2nd Squadrons with their operational elements and myself S.E. of Tasnad, the 3rd Squadron moves into the Miskolcz area where they are seriously hampered by airfield conditions: the whole surrounding country, including the roads leading to the airfield, have been turned into a swamp by torrential rain.