Luftwaffe Fighter Pilot

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Luftwaffe Fighter Pilot Page 12

by Wolfgang Fischer


  Still in a mild state of shock after the recent ‘Mahalla’–our expression for a large dogfight–and fearing some nasty new surprise, I looked over my shoulder to see what had terrified them so. But there was nothing. Then it dawned on me–I was the nasty surprise! Their tiny little corner of the world had been practically untouched by the war so far. But today it had descended on them in all its fury. More than thirty fighter aircraft had thundered and roared just above their heads. Dozens of guns had hammered and barked, spitting death and destruction and shattering the calm of their everyday existence.

  And then, as if from out of nowhere, one of the machines had appeared from behind the row of poplars at the bottom of their field and climbed steeply into the sky with an ear-splitting noise. The sound of the engine had suddenly died; the machine had tipped on to its side and, with a muffled ‘whoomph’, had dived straight into their lake, sending up fountains of earth and water. True, they later managed to explain to me, they had seen a figure leave the aircraft as it hung for a moment in the air before toppling over. But because of the high row of trees, they had not seen the parachute open at the very last moment. In their minds the pilot was undoubtedly dead.

  A ghostly silence had descended as the aircraft all vanished as suddenly as they had appeared. Then they heard splashing noises coming from the lake. Moments later an apparition appeared from between the poplars–an unearthly figure with wide staring eyes, hair plastered to its forehead, dripping water, covered in green slime and long trailing tendrils, and half hidden in a white shroud. Unaware of the impression I had made, I trudged unconcernedly up the field, making for the white-haired grandfather, who was at the right-hand end of the row of kneeling, swaying supplicants. The closer I got to him, the closer his nose got to the ground and the more muffled his prayers became. Then I was standing right in front of him. He looked up at me wide-eyed. I indicated my muddy legs and said in my most elegant, if limited Italian, “Aqua Prego”.

  My polite request for water had an astonishing effect. Realizing that I was only human after all, the ‘Santa Madonna Marias’ ceased as if by magic. The whole family scrambled to its feet and surrounded me chattering excitedly. I was led to a bench standing against the white-painted wall of the house. While I relaxed in the reflected warmth of the sun, the eldest boy fetched a bucket of water and began to wash the mud off me. One of the girls picked the wet weeds from my flying overalls and dried me down. Another brought me a thick blanket. The farmer’s wife placed a loaf of freshly baked white bread, a plate of smoked ham and a pitcher of the local red wine on the scrubbed wooden table in front of me.

  I needed no second bidding and can only say–may my wife forgive me–that it was the best bite to eat I have ever had in my life. Despite the language difficulties, we all got along like a house on fire. “Dove in Germania?” the farmer’s wife enquired, wanting to know where I lived in Germany. “Rosenheim in Bavaria–Baviera”, my reply was mangled but clearly understood. “Ah, si, Baviera. And pictures of your mama and papa?” “Unfortunately, they’re at the bottom of the lake–in the water–aqua.” “Oh, scusi.”

  After a while our conversation was interrupted by the sound of a horse’s hooves. It was the mayor of the local district in a two-wheeled gig. He had kindly come to offer me a lift to the military commandant’s office in Grosseto. After a lengthy and emotional round of goodbyes, with lots of ‘mille grazies’ on my part, we finally set off. On the way we picked up Peter Ullmann, who had also baled out uninjured and had anxiously watched my desperate attempts to escape from my machine while descending in his parachute.

  At Grosseto we found the commandant trying to get through to the Staffel at Canino to have us picked up. In the meantime Leutnant Schorsch Schneider and Unteroffizier Willi Lang had also been brought in. Both had claimed an enemy fighter apiece during the recent dogfight before they themselves had been shot down. Willi was unwounded, but we got a local doctor to have a look at Schorsch’s wrist.

  The four of us then spent the rest of the afternoon in one of the town’s hotels. Having been told that it would take a good six hours to get from Canino to Grosseto by road, we were delighted to accept the mayor’s invitation to dinner at his home that evening; in appreciation, as he put it, for our ‘saving his town’ from the enemy bombers. The lady of the house served up a delicious Italian meal accompanied by red wine, more red wine and–after she had discreetly withdrawn–yet more red wine.

  At this point a quick change of scene to Canino, as subsequently recounted to me by the late Hans Eisen, a member of the Staffel: “Eisen!!!” “Jawoll, Herr Hauptmann!” “Select four men, grab yourselves machine-pistols, drive up to Grosseto as fast as you can and get our comrades out of there!!”

  What had happened, apparently, was that the commandant’s message had arrived at Canino completely garbled and our Staffelkapitän, Hauptmann Schröder, had understood it to mean that we were missing, presumed captured by the wicked partisans. Instead, after scouring Grosseto, our intrepid rescue party had eventually tracked us down late in the evening still at the mayor’s house, high as kites, brimming over with brotherly love and serenading each other with German and Italian songs.

  The next morning, after taking our lightly wounded companion to the Luftwaffe hospital at nearby Aquapendente, the three of us set off by train back to Aix-en-Provence. On the way we pulled off a stroke that I am sure will be familiar to many of the old soldiers who criss-crossed Europe on travel warrants during the war years. At Ventimiglia-Menton station on the French frontier we discovered that the French franc was worth a lot more on the black market than it was at the official rate of exchange.

  So we pooled all our Italian lire and one of us, armed with his travel documents–which authorized the exchange of monies at any border crossing point on his stipulated route–changed our collective pot of Italian lire into French francs at the official rate. Then he exchanged it all back again into lire on the black market at a considerable profit. The other two then followed the same procedure, further adding to our growing bankroll each time. With our pockets fairly bulging with lire we continued on our way to Aix, where we convinced the paymaster that we had just flown in from Italy and requested that he exchange our Italian money for French, which he did in all good faith. We didn’t make a huge fortune, of course, but we got a great deal of satisfaction from our little ploy; chalking it up as a victory for the little man, who had gathered a few crumbs from the table of world events.

  At Aix I was finally assigned to 3./JG 2, now commanded after Hauptmann Sommer’s untimely loss by Leutnant Clemens Walterscheid. Like every other newcomer to a front-line Staffel, irrespective of rank, I first had to fly as Katschmarek, or wingman, to one of the unit’s experienced pilots. It my case this was a veteran NCO. It seemed only natural to be briefed by him prior to take-off, to obey his instructions in the air, report back to him after landing and accept any advice or criticism he had to offer. As his superior in rank, I wasn’t expected to stand to attention in front of him, of course. But operational units didn’t go in for a lot of bullshit and heel-clicking during their daily routine anyway. Respect for a superior officer was automatically reflected in everybody’s speech and bearing.

  I was delighted to find that 3. Staffel had already been reequipped with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190A-8. We spent the remainder of April flying almost daily patrols over that stretch of the Mediterranean separating the coast of southern France from the enemy-held island of Corsica. For those members of the Staffel who had previously been in action over the English Channel, these flights were regarded as little more than a welcome form of rest and recuperation affording them a chance to unwind. But for a relative tyro like myself, the knowledge alone that I was now playing a part in the real war on a day-to-day basis gave them a wholly different meaning.

  Admittedly, there weren’t many signs of the war in our particular backwater at this time, but I could never be sure in advance whether or not one of our peaceful forays out over the Mediter
ranean was going to result in contact with the enemy. In Italy I had been thrust into a combat situation suddenly and without any prior warning. Here I had to get used to a whole new range of emotions, from the involuntary tightness in the stomach when waking in the morning and prior to every takeoff, to the wonderful sense of relief after the last landing of the day. In the event, we didn’t encounter a single enemy aircraft during our entire three weeks of patrolling. I can only assume that with invasion looming in the north, and signs of an imminent breakout from the Anzio bridgehead in the south, the allies were all busy elsewhere.

  The only untoward incident during this period occurred when we were returning from another fruitless patrol, flying at an altitude of about 8,000 metres, and my propeller decided for some reason to feather itself. As the engine died I jabbed at the pitch control thumbswitch on the throttle, but it had absolutely no effect. It looked as if I was going down, like it or not. Fortunately it was another glorious day. The sea was calm and the line of hills marking the French coast was already visible off to the right not too far ahead of me. Offering less wind resistance, a feathered propeller greatly increased an aircraft’s glide capabilities, so I was fairly sure that I could reach the coast from this height.

  But once I got there I would be faced with three choices. Should I try to ditch in shallow water, have another go at perfecting my parachuting skills–or attempt to get over the hills in the hope of finding a suitable spot for a belly landing? My three companions–we had been patrolling in Schwarm strength–had noticed at once what was wrong with my machine and were keeping close by me as I slowly began to lose height.

  First I checked my overwater emergency equipment: life jacket, inflatable dinghy, bag of dye (to mark my position in the sea), flare pistol and cartridges in the bandolier strapped below my right knee. All present and correct. The more I thought about it, however, the less appealing my first two options became. The third didn’t exactly fill me with enthusiasm either, but I decided to give it a go. I had sufficient height and speed in hand to cross the coastal hills comfortably and there, just beyond the ridge line, wonder of wonders, was a high valley, whose mix of green meadows and ploughed fields seemed ideally suited to the purpose I had in mind.

  Unfortunately, the valley stretched from east to west, in other words, at right angles to my line of flight, and I was approaching its western end where stood a farmhouse and windmill surrounded by some large trees. To be on the safe side, I wanted to make use of the whole length of the valley, so I stood the Focke-Wulf on its left wing–I still had more than enough speed–executed a steep 270 degree turn between house and windmill, and swooped down towards the floor of the valley.

  The propeller had come to a stop with one blade pointing vertically upwards and the other two angled down to either side. As soon as I touched the ground the two lower blades were bent backwards to form a perfect pair of landing skids. Due to my still relatively high speed they bounced me briefly back into the air. And luckily so, for I neatly hurdled a deep, four-metre wide drainage ditch that I hadn’t noticed before. Hitting the ground again, I ploughed my own lengthy furrow down the valley before finally coming to a stop. I jumped out on to the wing of my machine and waved up at my comrades circling above. Seeing that I was unhurt, they waggled their own wings before heading off back to base.

  Not far from where I stood a farmer had been working with some female field hands. Although naturally a bit taken aback at the manner of my arrival, they hurried across for a closer look at their unexpected visitor. As my French was far better than my Italian, we were soon deep in friendly conversation; helped along no doubt by my offering cigarettes to the farmer and handing round my tin of ‘Schokakola’–containing triangular segments of concentrated chocolate; part of our flight rations–to the girls, and accepting liberal quantities of home-made red wine in return.

  After about four hours the unit’s recovery crew turned up in their truck. As my machine was being hoisted aboard by crane, several hundredweight of earth and stones poured out of its wheel wells. Once it was secured, and the NCO in charge of the crew had presented the farmer with a form guaranteeing that he would be reimbursed for all damage done to his property and land, we slowly set off back to Aix. Upon inspection it was found that my crate required very little repair. As the engine had stopped before the belly landing, it had suffered no serious damage. All that needed to be done was to fit a replacement propeller and clean up the airframe. After just four days I got it back as good as new.

  As a break from our routine Mediterranean patrolling, the pilots of the 190 Staffel–that was us–were flown to Berlin in a Ju 52. As we were approaching to land at the capital’s Tempelhof airport, an unexpected sight met our eyes. Just in front of us, flying between the clouds of smoke still lingering in the air from a recent American bombing raid, was a bright red Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor. Someone suggested that it could be a civil airliner arriving from a neutral country, possibly from Stockholm in Sweden. That had to be the case, although we were amazed that scheduled civilian airline services were still operating over Germany in the fifth year of total war.

  After landing in Berlin we were taken to the Focke-Wulf factory at Aschersleben on the northern edge of the Harz mountains. We were to collect a batch of new Fw 190A-8s and ferry them back to Aix, where they would be used re-equip my old 4. Staffel. Due to my previous experience as an instructor, I was one of several pilots selected to help 4./JG 2 transition from its Me 109G-6s on to the radial-engined Focke-Wulfs.

  But it wasn’t to be simply a case of showing them where all the taps and levers were and then sending them on their merry way. Some desk-bound psychologist or morale booster with too much time on his hands had formulated a special procedure designed to strengthen the bond between an individual pilot and his machine. From now on a pilot wasn’t just pointed towards a new aircraft and told to get on with it. It was to be ceremoniously handed over to him in person by his Kommandeur, who would also present him with a certificate of ownership recording the name of the pilot, the markings carried by the machine and its serial number.

  This all struck us as being a bit too artificial and overly theatrical. The traditional relationship between man and machine, where we regarded the aircraft we flew almost as a kind of reliable mate, had served us well enough in the past. It was much more natural and far more binding than any fancy scrap of paper.

  This irrelevant nonsense was just one more sign of the changing times. Another had been the appointment some time earlier of a unit NS-Führungsoffizier, or ‘National-Socialist leadership officer’. It had been decreed from on high that every Geschwader was to select one of its members to perform this role, which was roughly the equivalent of a political commissar in the Red Army. His job would be to keep us informed of all the latest political developments and ensure that we toed the party line, even though none of us was actually allowed to join the Party–not that we particularly wanted to, I hasten to add.

  JG 2 had not escaped this blanket order but, typically, did not choose a ‘150 per center’ for the post. This was the term commonly used to describe a fanatical, dyed-in-the-wool Nazi and, as far as I am aware, there were no such individuals in the Geschwader’s ranks anyway. In fact, during my whole time in the Luftwaffe I can only recall ever meeting one example of the type, and that was an Oberleutnant from Austria.

  The unfortunate selected to be JG 2’s NS-Führungsoffizier was totally unsuited to the part. This meant we were not bothered by such matters and were left alone in peace and quiet and ignorance. I can only hope that those members of the Geschwader who were captured with him at the end of the war stood up for him during the ‘denazification’ process by informing their interrogators that his political activities, such as they were, had been foisted on him and were not a matter of personal conviction.

  In fact, the difference between our own morale and party ideology could not have been greater. It was displayed by our openly telling political jokes of the most scurrilous na
ture. On one occasion the duty officer did his hilarious impression of a Goebbel’s speech, mimicking the propaganda minister’s voice and style to perfection, but talking the most ridiculous and slanderous rubbish. And this was not just to a group of close friends, either–but over the camp’s P/A system, so that his words could be heard blaring out from loudspeakers all over the airfield.

  On 1 May 1944 all four Staffeln of I. Gruppe were transferred back up to JG 2’s traditional areas of operation between Paris and the Channel coast. This had been the Geschwader’s field of activity ever since the end of the French campaign in the early summer of 1940. Originally its component units had been based on a string of airfields right on the coast stretching from Dieppe down to Cherbourg and beyond. But over the intervening four years they had gradually been pushed back further and further inland by the continually growing might of the allies.

  By the time of my arrival from the south of France with the rest of I. Gruppe, JG 2’s forward landing grounds were situated roughly along the line Amiens-Le Mans. Our exact destination was Cormeilles, near Pontoise to the northwest of Paris and less than ten kilometres from the Geschwaderstab at Marines. For the next fortnight or so we would fly on average two or three missions a day, mainly against marauding Jabos, or allied fighter-bombers. But we were also sent up against the Americans’ heavy bomber formations. And these were to prove much more of a problem.

  When they first encountered American four-engined ‘heavies’, the Luftwaffe’s fighter pilots in the west had followed the long held theory and attacked from the rear. But in practice this tactic was quickly found to be both ineffective and costly. While intent on the laborious business of slowly overhauling the bombers from astern, the German pilots not only ran the risk of attack from the enemy fighter escort, they also had to face the bombers’ own massed defensive fire, which was heaviest to the rear.

 

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