Stuka Pilot

Two months later we move to the Schneidemühl area. The war against Poland breaks out! I shall never forget my first flight across the frontier of another country. I sit tensely in my aircraft, waiting for what is now going to happen. We are awed by our first experience of flak and treat it with considerable respect. The rare appearance of a Polish fighter is always for a long time afterwards a topic of conversation. What has been hitherto the dry stuff of the classroom now becomes an exciting reality. We take photographs of the railway yards at Thorn, Kulm, etc., to ascertain troop movements and concentrations. Later our missions take us further East to the railway line Brest Litovsk—Kovel—Luck. The High Command wishes to know how the Poles are regrouping in the East and what the Russians are doing.

We use Breslau as our base for missions in the Southern zone.

The war days in Poland are soon over and I return to Prenzlau with the EK II. Here my flight commander guesses at once that my heart is not in reconnaissance flying. But he thinks that in the present state of high pressure activity there is little sense in my making an application for a retransfer to Stuka command; I do make one or two attempts without success. We spend the winter at Fritdar near Kassel in Hesse. From here our squadron carries out missions to the West and the North West, taking off from advanced bases further W. or N.W. as the case may be. We fly them at very high altitudes and therefore every crew has to undergo a special examination for high level reconnaissance. In Berlin the verdict is that I have failed to pass the test of altitude fitness. As the Stukas operate at a lower level, my squadron now endorses my application for transfer to Dive Bomber Command, and so I am hopeful of getting back to my “first love.” When, however, two crews are successively reported missing I am sent up again for re-examination. This time I am pronounced ‘exceptionally able to stand high altitudes’; apparently they were wrong the previous time. But although the Ministry issues no definite orders for my disposal I am transferred to Stammersdorf (Vienna), to an Aviation Training Regiment which later moves to Crailsheim. I am acting adjutant while the campaign in France begins. All my attempts to circumvent the proper channels by ringing up the personnel department of the Luftwaffe do not help me—the radio and the newspapers are my only contact with the war. Never have I been so downhearted as during this time. I feel as though I was being severely punished. Sport alone, to which I devote all my energies and every free minute, brings me some relief in my distress. During this period I have few opportunities to fly, and when I do it is only in little sporting aircraft. My main job is the military training of our recruits. On a weekend flight in the foulest weather in a Heinkel 70 with the C.O. as passenger I nearly crash in the Suabian Alps. But I am lucky and get back to Crailsheim safely.

My countless letters and telephone calls are at last successful. Presumably I am a nuisance which must be got rid of. Back I go to my old Graz Stuka formation, at the moment stationed at Caen on the English Channel. Operations here are practically over and a friend in the squadron who served with me at Graz gives me the benefit of his experiences in Poland and France in practice flights. I am certainly not lacking in keenness, for I have been longing for this moment for two years.

But one cannot catch up with everything in a couple of days and even now I am not a quick learner. I have not the practice. Here in the pleasure-seeking atmosphere of France my clean living, my addiction to sport and my everlasting habit of drinking milk are more conspicuous than ever. And so when the squadron is transferred to S.E. Europe I am sent to a Reserve Flight at Graz for further instruction. Will I ever learn my job?

The Balkan campaign begins—once again I am kept out of it. Graz is being temporarily used as a base for Stuka formations. It is hard to have to look on. The war surges forward across Yugoslavia into Greece, but I sit at home and practice formation flying, bombing and gunnery. I put rap with it for three weeks, and then one morning I suddenly say to myself: “Now at last you have rung the bell and you can make an aircraft do anything you like.” And that is the truth. My instructors are amazed. Dill and Joachim can pull any stunts they choose when leading our so-called circus, but my machine will always keep station right behind them as if attached by an invisible tow rope whether they go into a loop or dive or fly upside down. At bombing practice I hardly ever drop a bomb thirty feet wide of the target. In gunnery from the air I score over ninety out of a possible hundred. In a word, I have made the grade. Next time a call comes for replacements from the squadrons at the front I shall be one of them.