The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots

by Jon E. Lewis

  This time we receive some return fire from below. Infantrymen stand there, rifles pressed to the cheek, and from the ditch a machine gun barks up to us. But the captain does not come up one single meter because of this, even though his wing planes are taking bullet holes. We are flying and firing close behind him. The entire staffel is a body subject to his will. And this is as it should be.

  He leaves off the road and begins to climb. We follow. At five hundred meters we head home and land at about one o’clock. It was Richthofen’s third sortie of the morning.

  As my machine touches down, he is already standing on the airstrip. He comes toward me with a smile playing around his thin lips.

  “Do you always bring them down with frontal attacks, Udet?” he asks. There is a hint of approval in his tone.

  “I have had repeated success that way,” I say as offhandedly as I can manage.

  He grins again and turns to go. “By the way, you can take charge of Jasta 11 starting tomorrow,” he says over his shoulder.

  I already knew that I was to receive command of a staffel but the form of the announcement comes as somewhat of a surprise. Scholtz slaps me on the back. “Boy, are you in with the Rittmeister.”

  “You couldn’t prove it by me,” I reply a bit grumbly.

  But this is the way it is. One must get used to the fact that his approval will always come in an objective manner without the least trace of sentiment. He serves the idea of the Fatherland with every fiber of his being and expects nothing less from all his fliers. He judges a man by what he accomplishes to that end and also, perhaps, by his qualities as a comrade. He who passes this judgment, he backs all the way. Whoever fails, he drops without batting an eyelash. Whoever shows lukewarm on a sortie has to leave the group – on the same day.

  Richthofen certainly eats, drinks, and sleeps like everyone else. But he does so only to fight. When food supplies run short, he sends Bodenschatz, the very model of an adjutant, to the rear in a squadron hack to requisition what is needed. On these occasions, Bodenschatz takes along an entire collection of autographed photos of Richthofen. “Dedicated to my esteemed fighting companion,” read the inscriptions. In the rear area supply rooms these photos are highly valued. At home, in the taverns, they can reduce an entire table round to respectful silence. At the group, however, sausage and ham never run out.

  A few delegates from the Reichstag11 have announced that they are coming for a visit. Toward evening they arrive in a large limousine. They proceed with great ceremony, filled with the gravity of the moment. One of them even wears tails, and when he bows, they wave like the back feathers of a wagtail. At the supper table they talk so much that a flier can get a toothache.

  “When you sit in your machine, flying out to meet the enemy, Herr Baron . . .” begins one of them. Richthofen sits there listening with a stony face.

  After a bottle of wine they speak of heroic youth and Fatherland. We sit around the table with downcast eyes. Without finding the words, we feel that such things should not be overly much talked about. Then the gentlemen are shown to their sleeping quarters. They sleep in the small, corrugated shacks, just like the rest of us. In this way they’ll be able to report their impressions from up front back home.

  We stand around in groups until the lights are dimmed behind the small windows. “Actually,” says Maushacke, called “Mousetooth,” “we should give them an opportunity to experience a little more of the war, since they’re only going to be here until tomorrow.” Scholtz winks with his right eye and says laconically: “Air raid,” nothing else. We understand at once.

  A ladder is brought and carefully placed against the hut in which the delegates are sleeping. Silent as a cat, Wolff clambers up to the chimney with Very pistols and blank detonating ammunition, called fliers’ fards.

  From the interior of the hut comes a rattling, crackling, and the hollow bang of a detonation. Immediately after, a lot of shouting. The moon is full. We stand in the dark shade of the other huts as the door opens and three shapes in flapping white nightshirts emerge. The captain laughs until tears run down his cheeks. “Aerial attack! Back into the huts,” thunders a stentorian voice out of the night, and the three shapes disappear behind the door again at a dead run.

  Next morning, they are in a hurry to go on. They aren’t even having breakfast with us. We continue to laugh for a long time. Fun is thinly sown out here, and once a prank hits the bull’s-eye, we continue to laugh for a long time. Even later, near the end of the war, when we fought like drowning swimmers, this did not change.

  I think of our prisoner in Bernes. Lothar von Richthofen, the captain’s brother, has brought down another one. He’s an English major, and he came down just alongside our encampment. There is no infantry near, so we keep the prisoner with us.

  At supper, he appears at the casino with Richthofen and is presented to everyone. He’s a long drink of water, a bit fancy, but sporting in appearance. He affects a courteous reserve; in short, a gentleman. We talk about horses, dogs, and airplanes. We don’t talk of the war. The Englishman is our guest, and we don’t want to give him the impression that he is being pumped for information.

  In the middle of the conversation he whispers to his neighbor, then he rises and walks out.

  Lothar looks after him, a bit worried.

  “Where is he going?”

  “ ‘I beg your pardon, where is the W.C.?’ he asked,” replies Mousetooth.

  For a moment there is an embarrassed silence. The little hut in question is almost three minutes distant at the end of the ravine in which the camp is located. Beyond it are the woods. It will not be difficult for an athlete to reach freedom from there.

  There are conflicting opinions. Maushacke, the well-fed Brunswicker, is the most enterprising. He wants to go out and stand alongside the Englishman. This could be done without too much ado. But Lothar disagrees. “We have treated the man as a guest thus far and he has done nothing to cast doubt on his good manners.” But the tension remains. After all, we are responsible for the prisoner. If he gets away, there’ll be hell to pay.

  Someone steps to the window to look after the Englishman. In seconds six or eight are grouped around him. I’m there too. The Englishman walks across the open ground in long strides. He stops, lights a cigarette, and looks around. All of us immediately sink into a deep knee bend. Our hospitality is sacred, and our suspicion might offend him.

  He disappears behind the pineboards of the outhouse. The boards don’t reach to the ground, and we can see his brown boots. This is reassuring.

  But Mauschacke’s suspicions are awakened.

  “Boys,” he yaps almost breathlessly, “he no longer stands in his boots. He has gone over the rear wall in his stocking feet and is off and gone. The boots couldn’t stand like this at all, if . . .”

  He demonstrates to how the boots should be deployed during this kind of business.

  The Englishman reappears from behind the wall. Bent low, we creep back to our seats. As he re-enters, we talk of horses, dogs, and airplanes.

  “I would never forgive myself for disappointing such hosts,” says the English major with a small smile around the corners of his mouth. We thank him seriously and ceremoniously.

  Next morning, a short, bushy-bearded reservist calls for the prisoner, who turns around often to wave at us.

  Five days later Meyer brings curious news from Ghent. An Englishman has overpowered his guard and escaped in a German uniform. From the toilet of a moving express train. His guard was found there, locked in.

  “Was it a major?” asks Mousetooth excitedly.

  “Are you clairvoyant?” asks Meyer. “It sure was, an Air Force major.”

  “So, he used the W.C. after all,” shouts Mousetooth.

  Meyer looks around with surprise. We all laugh until our jaws ache.

  Sometimes we fly alone, sometimes with the entire staffel, but we fly every day. Almost every day brings a fight. On March 28 I am under way with Gussmann. A patrol toward
Albert. It is afternoon, and the sun already stands in the west. Its glaring light bites at the eyes. From time to time, the light must be screened off with the thumb so that the horizon may be searched for the enemy. Otherwise you’ll be surprised. The late Guynemer has taught his lessons to the entire front. Suddenly, an Englishman is above us anyway. He comes down on Gussmann, who avoids him by diving. A hundred meters below I see them maneuvering around. I watch for a spot where I can take the Englishman without hitting Gussmann.

  I lift my head for a moment and see a second Englishman making for me. He is barely 150 meters off. At eighty meters he opens fire. It is impossible to avoid him, so I go straight toward him. Tack . . . tack . . . tack bellows mine at him, tack . . . tack . . . tack bellows his back at me.

  We are still twenty meters apart, and it looks as though we will ram each other in another second. Then, a small movement, and he barely skims over me. His propwash shakes me, and the smell of castor oil flows past me.

  I make a tight turn. “Now begins the dogfight,” I think. But he has also turned, and again we come at each other, firing like two tournament knights with lances at rest. This time I fly over him.

  Another bank. Again, he is straight across from me, and once more we go for each other. The thin, white trails of the tracers hang in the air like curtains. He skims over me with barely a hand’s width to spare . . . “8224” it says on his fuselage in black numerals.

  The fourth time. I can feel my hands getting damp. That fellow over there is a man who is fighting the fight of his life. Him or me . . . one of us has to go . . . there is no other way. For the fifth time! The nerves are taut to the bursting point, but the brain works coldly and clearly. This time the decision must fall. I line him up in my sights and go for him. I am resolved not to give an inch.

  A flash of memory! I saw a dogfight at Lens. Two machines went for each other and collided head on. The fuselages went down in a ball of metal, fused together, and the wings continued on alone for quite a piece before they fluttered to the ground.

  We come at each other like mad boars. If he keeps his nerve, we will both be lost!

  Then, he turns off to avoid me. At this moment he is caught by my burst. His aircraft rears, turns on its back, and disappears in a gigantic crater. A fountain of earth, smoke. . . . Twice I circle around the impact area. Field gray shapes are standing below, waving at me, shouting.

  I fly home, soaked through and through, and my nerves are still vibrating. At the same time, there is a dull, boring pain in my ears.

  I have never thought about the opponents I have brought down. He who fights must not look at the wounds he makes. But this time I want to know who the other guy was. Toward evening, at dusk, I drive off. A field hospital is close to where I shot him down, and they will have probably brought him there.

  I ask for the doctor. His white gown shines ghostly in the glaring light of the carbide lamp. The pilot had received a head shot and died instantaneously. The doctor hands me his wallet. Calling cards: Lieutenant Maasdorp, Ontario RFC 47.” A picture of an old woman and a letter. “You mustn’t fly so many sorties. Think of your father and me.”

  A medic brings me the number of the aircraft. He had cut it out, and it is covered with a fine spray of blood flecks. I drive back to the staffel. One must not think about the fact that a mother will cry for every man one brings down.

  During the following days, the ear pains become worse. It is as though one were chiseling and boring within my head. One April 6. I bring down another one. A Sopwith Camel taken out of the middle of an enemy gaggle. It is my twenty-fourth victory.

  As I land, I am so overcome by pain I can hardly walk. Richthofen stands on the airstrip, and I stumble past him without salute toward the quarters.

  We only have a hospital corpsman. The group has not yet been authorized a doctor. The corpsman is a nice, heavyset guy, but I don’t have too much faith in his medical competence. He digs around my ear with his instruments so I think he wants to saw open my head. “The back of the ear is filled with pus,” he finally pronounces.

  The door opens, and the captain enters.

  “Udet, what’s the matter with you?” he asks. The corpsman explains.

  The captain pats me on the shoulder: “Now be gone with you, Udet.”

  I protest: “Maybe it’ll go away.”

  But he cuts me off: “You’ll take off tomorrow. Out here you have to be healthy.”

  It is hard for me to leave my new staffel, to interrupt my success. He knows this, because we all more or less believe in the Rule of the Series.12 Because of this he escorts me to the two-seater himself next morning. He stands on the airstrip and waves at me with his cap. His blond hair glistens in the sun.

  The train arrives in Munich early in the morning. The city is still asleep, the streets are almost empty, the stores closed, and only here or there the snarl of shades being drawn up. I amble along Kaufingerstrasse, past Stachus. “Home again,” I think, “back home.” But the feeling of home, the warm familiarity with the things about, still eludes me. A city at dawn is as remote as a person asleep.

  I go into a cigarette shop and phone my father at his office. In spite of the early hour, he is already there. He holds much store in always being the first in the office.

  “Ernie,” he says, and I hear him take a few deep breaths, “Ernie, you are here?”

  Then we arrange not to let mother know and that I will call for him at the factory shortly before lunchtime. First, I want to see a doctor.

  It is our old family doctor, and he receives me with a booming hello. With many, this may be a professional touch, but with him it comes from the bottom of his big generous heart. Then he examines me and becomes serious.

  “Finished with flying, young man,” he says, “your eardrum is gone and the inner ear infected.”

  “That’s impossible.” In spite of all efforts I can’t prevent my voice from shaking.

  “Well,” he pats me on the shoulder, “perhaps Uncle Otto can patch this thing together again. It would be better if we would stay on the ground, though.”

  The visit has depressed me. On the way to my father, I can’t shake my thoughts. No more flying – that can’t be so. This would be like putting black glasses on me, to let me wander around for the rest of my life. Then it’s better to see for a few more years and then be blind forever. I resolve to follow the advice of the doctor only so long as I decide it is best for me as far as I am concerned.

  And then I meet my father. As soon as I step into his office, he comes out from behind his desk and toward me in big strides. “Boy, my dear boy,” he says and stretches both hands out to me. For a moment we stand and look at each other, and then he speaks, a bit breathlessly.

  So Sergeant Barlet’s Winchester, a bit of booty, had reached him safely and he had already taken it hunting twice.

  How simple it is for men in France. They know no embarrassment when they say hello or good-bye. They embrace and press bearded kisses into each other’s face, regardless of where they walk or stand. I have often observed this in railroad stations. We sit across from each other, separated by the desktop. “By the way, you wrote me the other day about a Caudron you couldn’t bring down. Maybe the machine was armored?”

  I shake my head.

  “But, yes, you wouldn’t know,” he continues intently. “I thought we should also armor our planes, at least the cockpit and the motor. Then the greatest danger for the pilot would be alleviated.”

  I disagree. For the artillery “rabbits” this may be all right, but for a fighter it would be completely out of the question. With a crate thus armored, one certainly couldn’t climb above one thousand meters.

  “That doesn’t matter. The main business is the safety of the pilot.”

  “But Dad,” I say a bit loftily, “what strange ideas you have about flying.”

  The enthusiastic zeal in his face flags. “Yes, you are probably right,” he says in a tired voice, and at the same moment I feel
a rueful shame come up within me. How little I understood him. The armor had been forged in his heart to protect me, and I had tossed it onto the scrap heap without even looking at it.

  “At Krupp’s they are supposedly trying out a new light metal that is bulletproof,” I say in an attempt to pick up the lost thread, but he waves me off: “Let it lie, son. Let’s call Mother to let her know I’m bringing a guest so she’ll set an extra place on the dinner table.”

  And then we are home. Father walks into the room ahead of me. Mother is setting the table. I hear the clatter of the silver and then her voice: “Did you read the Army report? Our Ernie has shot down his twenty-fourth.”

  I can no longer hold back. I run into the room. She throws the silver onto the table, and we are in each other’s arms. Then she takes hold of my head and holds me at arm’s length: “Sick, son?”

  “Oh, only a little bit in the ears.”

  She calms down immediately. This is singular about her: She is absolutely certain that nothing untoward is going to happen to me in this war, and she insists upon this with a certainty as though God had made her a personal promise, sealed with a handshake. Sometimes it makes me smile, sometimes I am touched by the innocent trust in her belief, but slowly her confidence crosses over to me, and I often believe myself that the bullet has not been cast for me this time.

  We eat. In between she plies me with questions, and I answer with discretion. I don’t speak of my fight with Maasdorp. I don’t want to disquiet father, but I am also held back by an unaccountable aversion. Across sauerbraten and dumplings I cannot speak of a man who was all man with a hero’s heart and who fell through my doing.

  Yes, now I am home. One is immersed into this feeling like a warm bath. Everything relaxes, one sleeps late, eats much, and gets spoiled. I rarely go to town during the first days. What should I do there? My buddies are in the Army, many already dead, and I don’t feel like strolling among strangers.