A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II

by Adam Makos

  * The U.S. Holocaust Museum would write: “The psychological barriers to accepting the existence of the Nazi killing program were considerable. The Holocaust was unprecedented and irrational. It was inconceivable that an advanced industrial nation would mobilize its resources to kill millions of peaceful civilians…. In doing so, the Nazis often acted contrary to German economic and military interests.”

  † The SS put death camps into operation in 1942. These camps, such as Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz, existed for the “efficient mass murder” of Jews, Soviet P.O.W.s, Poles, Gypsies, and others. Unlike Dachau, the death camps were built in Poland, to hide them from the German citizenry and military. The SS kept the death camps so secret and left so little evidence of their crimes that Holocaust denial arose in postwar years.5

  23

  THE LAST OF THE

  GERMAN FIGHTER PILOTS

  A DAY LATER, APRIL 25, 1945

  THE KETTENKRAD TOWED White 3 from her blast pen toward the hangar. Franz chose not to walk and instead rode his jet’s wing. At the former Lufthansa hangar he delivered his jet to the mechanics. The hangar had become their favorite place to work because it had already been bombed and was the last place the enemy bombers would attack again.

  Inside the hangar a radio blared the same war news as the radio at the pilots’ alert shack. Everyone kept an ear tuned, waiting to hear “It’s done,” so they could go home or surrender. After Luetzow’s death, Galland had called the pilots together on the airfield and addressed the men as they stood in a line. “For us the war is over,” he said. He would no longer order anyone to take off—they could only volunteer. “Whoever wants to go home may do so,” he added. A few men thanked him and left. One cited his fiancée, another his sick parents. But someone else said, “We fight until the end.” Galland’s eyes twinkled and he replied, “I am proud to belong to the last fighter pilots of the German Air Force.”1

  Franz showed the mechanics his jet’s problematic engine, the one that had taken him from the fight where Luetzow had been lost. The engine had never failed, but Franz wished it had, so he would not need to wonder if he could have made a difference. Even though the Soviets were in Vienna and the Americans were north of Munich, Franz had decided to stay with Galland and keep flying. He knew that he still had a duty as long as four-engine bombers were over Germany.

  A defiant, bombastic voice boomed from the radio, a broadcast that had been repeated for days. The voice bounced between the hangar’s brick walls, off its dirt-covered floor, and up through the burned rafters. It was the last broadcast of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, and it came from Hitler’s besieged bunker in Berlin:

  “I appeal in this hour to the defenders of Berlin, on behalf of the women and children of the Fatherland! Do not fear your enemy but destroy him without mercy! Every Berliner must defend his house or apartment! Those who hang a white flag are no longer entitled to protection and will be treated accordingly. They are like a bacteria on the body of our city! 2

  Every time Franz heard Goebbels’s speech, he shook his head. Goebbels’s broadcast had become the sinister soundtrack to the nightmare of Germany’s last days.

  MEANWHILE, WEST OF MUNICH

  Low over the forest a pack of P-51s chased a 262 with a smoking right engine. Barkhorn was behind the 262’s stick. He knew he could not fight the P-51s in his plane’s stricken condition, or outfly them. He was afraid to bail out and risk being shot, and he decided only one option remained. He steered for a forest clearing to crash-land.

  As his jet neared the ground, Barkhorn removed his straps. He had seen Steinhoff burn and planned to leap and run, even before the plane stopped moving. His jet touched down, skipped across the pasture, and slid. Barkhorn stood and lifted the hinged canopy. He waited for the jet to slow to a near stop, ready to leap to the wing. When his engines plowed into the dirt, the jet’s nose pitched violently downward. The machine jarred to a halt. The momentum flung Barkhorn sideways, his head falling outside the cockpit. At the same time the canopy slammed down onto his neck. Somehow the canopy rail did not decapitate him, although it sliced into his neck, pinning him to the cockpit ledge.

  Barkhorn watched the left engine sizzle, just beyond his face. He moved his legs and knew he was not paralyzed. His eyes followed the sound of the P-51s as they looped around to strafe him. He braced for the sound of gunfire that never erupted. Instead, the P-51s flew overhead, one after another, and departed. Barkhorn looked to the engine, waiting for the spark that would burn him alive, but the spark never flickered. People from a nearby village found Barkhorn alive, pinned to his jet in silence. They took him to the hospital, where he would outlive the war and see his wife, Cristl, again.

  A DAY LATER, APRIL 26, 1945

  Franz and his comrades listened to the radio on a table at the alert shed as they ate their lunches. To the men, the radio was a beacon of hope, a squawking countdown to their surrender. In a twangy voice, the broadcaster read a statement from The Party meant to prepare the German people for news of another forced suicide. The pilots had come to know by then how The Party worked. The broadcast identified The Party’s new target.

  Reich Marshal Hermann Goering has been taken ill with his long-standing chronic heart condition, which has now entered an acute stage. At a time when the efforts of all forces are required, he has therefore requested to be relieved of his command of the Luftwaffe and all duties connected thereto. The Fuehrer has granted this request.3

  A deep rumbling shook the radio on its table. Galland and his flight of six jets were in the air, but the men knew the sound was not the whine of turbines. It was a throaty grumble of massive American radial engines. A flight of four P-47 Thunderbolts ripped overhead with rockets slung beneath their wings. Their four-blade propellers blew a heavy gust as Franz and his comrades dove to earth. Hiding beneath tables and behind fallen chairs, Franz and the men looked up as the P-47s strafed and blasted the field.

  To the west, a lone 262 flew through the cloud of gun smoke and explosions. Smoke trailed from its right engine and its wheels were down. Franz saw that it was White 3. He had loaned her to Galland to fly against B-26s. Over the field, Galland cut both engines and the jet touched down with a gentle whistle. Galland steered toward the alert shack as the P-47s flew over him without firing. The American pilots were struck speechless at the sight of such audacity.

  In the middle of the field, White 3’s front tire deflated with each turn until it was flat. It had taken a bullet. Stranded, Galland hobbled from the jet, his right knee bloody. He had been hit by a bullet’s fragments during his earlier attack on the bombers. Rockets burst behind him as the P-47s strafed from one direction then another. Galland dove into the first hole he reached. There the thought struck him how “wretched” it felt to jump from “the fastest fighter in the world and into a bomb crater.”4

  A mechanic raced toward Galland in a kettenkrad. Without stopping, the mechanic reached an arm out to Galland, who grabbed the mechanic’s forearm and swung aboard the vehicle. The mechanic steered for the alert shack while Galland hung on. The P-47s’ bullets tossed the dirt around the kettenkrad but missed both the mechanic and Galland, who both dove for cover when they reached the shack. Franz saw White 3 sitting alone on the field as the fighters ripped overhead shooting everything but her. Over the noise of gunfire and explosions, Franz shouted to Galland that he would never lend him a plane again.

  “You don’t play well with borrowed toys!” Franz joked. Galland looked back sheepishly.

  A DAY LATER, APRIL 27, 1945

  When Franz entered the hangar to check on White 3, the mechanics quickly turned down the radio. Franz knew they were listening to the enemy’s broadcasts. Franz told the men not to worry and to turn the radio back up. He wanted to hear the truth just as they did. He wanted to know when to go home or attempt to surrender. They raised the volume. A German translation of a broadcast from London could be heard. “The forces of liberation have joined hand,” the b
roadcaster asserted. The Americans and the Soviets had met at the Elbe River two days earlier, splitting Germany in half.

  A mechanic brought Franz papers to sign. The mechanics had fixed White 3 overnight after Galland had brought her back with a Thunderbolt’s bullets in her right engine and bullet fragments in the cockpit, the same that had struck Galland’s kneecap. Franz scribbled his signature. With Steinhoff and Luetzow gone and Galland’s leg in a plaster cast, Franz had told Hohagen he was willing to lead what flights remained.

  Franz turned to find Pirchan waiting for him. The youngster was dressed in his daily uniform, not his flying suit. He said he had come to say good-bye. He was leaving the unit and planned to surrender near his home at Graz. Franz said he knew Graz. He expected Pirchan to pester him, having seen White 3 emerge fresh from repair. Instead, Pirchan turned to leave. “What will you do after the war?” Franz asked.

  “Study engineering, I hope,” Pirchan said.

  Franz had considered doing the same thing, wanting to resume his studies. He wished Pirchan luck.

  When Pirchan began to walk away, Franz realized he had truly come just to say good-bye.

  “One flight,” Franz shouted at Pirchan’s back.

  “Really?” Pirchan asked.

  Franz nodded.*

  Franz told Pirchan he could take White 3 up for one combat mission with JV-44. But Franz had one condition. “You go up, circle a few times, and land,” he told Pirchan. “I’ll sign your logbook so it will count as a combat mission.” The young Austrian could not stop nodding. Franz knew that the skies were safer than usual. The American heavies had stopped bombing Germany two days prior.

  Pirchan suited up and sat in the cockpit. Franz reviewed the instruments to ensure Pirchan knew what he was doing. He seemed proficient. Franz watched him light up the engines and taxi from the hangar. Franz lit a cigarette at the edge of the Lufthansa terminal he had known in 1937. Inside the lounge where the laughter of travelers once echoed, Franz could only hear dripping water. Where radial engines had once rumbled, announcing arriving flights from exotic cities, he now heard the whine of White 3’s engines as Pirchan launched to the east.

  Franz stood up quickly. He thought he saw the jet’s engines flare, as if Pirchan had panicked and given her too much power too quickly. But when White 3’s landing gear sucked up into her belly, Franz sat down.

  Pirchan banked the jet left toward the north and began to orbit the field. The young pilot had barely started turning when Franz heard White 3’s engines suddenly cut to silence. Franz watched the jet dip beneath the roof of the terminal. He tracked it between the roof beams and through the terminal’s collapsed walls until White 3 dove behind the rooftops and steeples of a village. A metallic crack echoed. Black smoke billowed. Franz stood, staring, his mouth agape. His cigarette smoldered all the way up to his fingers. When the cigarette burned him, he flicked it away and knew he was not dreaming.

  A mechanic started a truck and Franz hopped in. They raced to the village of Oberweissenfeld, north of the airfield. Pirchan had crashed between two houses. The people had him out already, lying there on a mattress, right beside the airplane. Pirchan’s head had slammed into the fighter’s gun sight, and his brain was exposed. Franz held him as he thrashed with pain. Pirchan asked Franz to tell his mother and sister good-bye for him. Franz promised he would. He gave the young fighter pilot a shot of pain reliever and the boy died in his arms.

  LATER THAT DAY

  Franz entered Galland’s lodge and found the general reclining in a chair, his whole right leg in plaster. Galland told Franz he had just missed it—the SS had just departed after coming to arrest him. The SS had said that a Catholic revolt had begun in Munich. The revolutionaries were broadcasting over the radio that their fellow Catholic, General Galland, was with them. Galland told Franz he was flattered but had been unaware of the uprising. The SS only left him alone, Galland explained, when they saw he was crippled. Galland planned to head south to a hospital at Lake Tegernsee where Steinhoff had been taken.

  Franz reported Pirchan’s death and told Galland he saw no further need to fly or fight now that the Americans had stopped their bombing campaign. “I’d like permission to leave the unit,” Franz said. Galland told Franz he could leave but asked him to stay, one more day. Galland revealed that orders had come from Berlin even as the Soviets were fighting through the city’s limits. Goering’s successor wanted him to fly JV-44 to Prague, Czechoslovakia, to continue fighting. Galland said he would ignore the order.

  The general lowered his voice to a whisper. He told Franz he was planning to deliver JV-44 to the Americans before the war ended. Franz knew this meant a defection and not just of one man, but of the whole unit. Galland was certain the Americans would soon be fighting the Soviets and would want the 262s to study the jets or use them in combat. Galland planned to surrender JV-44’s aircraft, pilots, and operational knowledge to the Americans. He suggested that JV-44 could even fly for them.

  Franz admired Galland’s optimism but could not act enthusiastic. He had never wanted to fight for Germany, let alone another nation.

  Galland saw Franz’s disappointment and asked him to fly one more mission for him, as a comrade. Galland needed time to send a message to the Americans, but he worried that the jets would be destroyed on the ground before he could arrange the defection. He had decided to ask his pilots to ferry every flyable plane to Salzburg, Austria, the next morning, where they would be safer. Franz knew that if the SS caught wind of Galland’s plan, they would execute every man in the unit as a collaborator.

  “I’ll go as far as Salzburg,” Franz told Galland.

  Galland smiled. “Then where will you go?”

  Franz said he had no idea. Galland assured Franz that the Americans would be looking for him. Franz did not understand why they would want him. Galland reminded him, “They’ll want you for what you have up here,” he said, pointing to his head.

  Galland saluted up at Franz and Franz saluted down at the seated general, much like their first meeting in Sicily. They both knew that JV-44 had succeeded if they had stopped bombs from destroying one more house or maiming one more child or killing one more mother in a factory. The unit had not failed. It had simply arrived too late.

  “I put you in for the Knight’s Cross weeks ago,” Galland told Franz before he left. “If you stick around it may come through.” The general laughed. He knew it was wishful thinking that a medal would come from Berlin. He also knew Franz’s mind was made up. Franz smiled and walked away.

  THE NEXT MORNING, APRIL 28, 1945, AUSTRIA

  The instant Franz’s boots landed on the tarmac at Salzburg Airport, he began to plot his escape. He opened a hatch in the jet’s fuselage and shouldered a backpack filled with canned food. He brought no clothes other than the ones he flew in. He looked east, where the sun shined on the white hilltop castle Hohensalzburg. He knew that far beyond that were the Soviets.

  Looking west, he saw tall gray mountains with snowy peaks that loomed over the airfield. Franz knew the mountain passes wound south toward Berchtesgaden, where Hitler and Goering once lived. That’s where the Americans were headed. He decided he would rather be a prisoner of the Americans than the Soviets.

  At the tower, Franz found Hohagen, the Count, and their comrades. Some of them planned to retreat to the mountains but most planned to stay. Before Franz left Munich, Galland had issued him his discharge papers and a pass authorizing him safe passage through checkpoints. Hohagen asked Franz where he planned to go. Franz said he had decided to walk into the mountains, find a cabin, and wait for the war to end. Hohagen warned Franz that SS soldiers were blocking roads and bridges.

  “They’re hanging deserters and anyone they think should be fighting,” Hohagen said. He warned Franz that his papers might not protect him. “Stay with us and wait,” Hohagen said. Franz knew Hohagen meant “wait for the unit’s defection” but was hesitant to utter the words.* Franz told Hohagen that with Galland laid up the unit co
uld yet be ordered to fly to Czechoslovakia. He was leaving.

  “You’re just going to walk?” Hohagen asked. Franz nodded. His plan was to head south a bit then cut west into the mountains. Then something caught Franz’s eye. A kettenkrad clinked past while towing one of JV-44’s twenty remaining jets into the woods along the airfield. Franz knew a kettenkrad, with its tank tracks, could go anywhere. Hohagen saw Franz eyeing the kettenkrad.

  “Help yourself when they’re not looking,” Hohagen suggested. “I’ll take the blame. If they give me hell, I can just point to my head.” He and Franz chuckled.

  Early the next morning, Franz and Hohagen snuck across the deserted, frost-covered field. Inside a hangar they found a kettenkrad, fully fueled. Franz started the vehicle. Over the rattling engine, he reached out his hand. Hohagen shook it with vigor. Franz clunked the vehicle into gear and drove away.

  SIX DAYS LATER, MAY 4, 1945

  Franz felt uncomfortably alone as he drove the kettenkrad west along the narrow, winding road deep within the Alps. The road flowed through a mountain pass, alongside a stream of icy, pale blue water. Clumps of snow clung to the road’s fringes, where pine trees stood creaking in the wind. Every now and then, an abandoned car or truck lay in a roadside ditch, the victim of winter driving. Franz stopped to siphon gas from the wrecks’ fuel tanks.