Stuka Pilot

On my very first sortie I notice the countless fortifications along the frontier. The fieldworks run deep into Russia for many hundreds of miles. They are partly positions still under construction. We fly over half-completed airfields; here a concrete runway is Just being built; there a few aircraft are already standing on an aerodrome. For instance, on the road to Witebsk along which our troops are advancing there is one of these half-finished airfields packed with Martin bombers.

They must be short either of petrol or of crews. Flying in this way over one airfield after another, over one strongpoint after another, one reflects: “It is a good thing we struck”… It looks as if the Soviets meant to build all these preparations up as a base for invasion against us. Whom else in the West could Russia have wanted to attack? If the Russians had completed their preparations there would not have been much hope of halting them anywhere.

We are fighting in front of the spearhead of our armies; that is our task.

We stay for short periods at Ulla, Lepel and Janowici. Our targets are always the same: tanks, motor vehicles, bridges, fieldworks and A.A. sites. On and off our objectives are the enemy’s railway communications or an armored train when the Soviets bring one up to support their artillery. All resistance in front of our spearheads has to be broken so as to increase the speed and impetus of our advance. The defense varies in strength. The ground defense is in the main considerable, ranging from infantry small arms fire to flak, not to mention M.G. fire from the air. The only fighter aircraft the Russians have at this time is the Rata I 16, very much inferior to our Me 109. Wherever the Ratas put in an appearance they are shot down like flies. They are no serious match for our Messerschmitts, but they are easy to maneuver and of course a great deal faster than we Stukas. Consequently we cannot afford entirely to ignore them. The Soviet operational air force, its fighter and bomber units, is remorselessly destroyed both in the air and on the ground. Their fighting power is small; their types, like the Martin bomber and the DB III, mostly obsolete. Very few aircraft of the new type, P II, are to be seen. It is not until later that American deliveries of the twin-engined Boston are noticeable even on this front. We are frequently subjected to raids by small aircraft at night with the object of disturbing our sleep and interrupting our supplies. Their evident successes are generally few. We get a taste of it at Lepel. Some of my colleagues sleeping under canvas in a wood are casualties. Whenever the “wire crates,” as we call the little wire-braced biplanes, observe a light they drop their small shrapnel bombs. They do this everywhere, even in the front line. Often they shut off their engines so as to make it difficult to locate them and go into a glide; then all we can hear is the wind humming through their wires. The tiny bomb drops out of this silence and immediately their engines begin to purr again. It is less a normal method of warfare than an attempt to fray our nerves.

The flight has a new skipper, Fit. Lt. Steen. He joined us originally from the same formation in which I received my first instruction in flying a Stuka. He gets accustomed to my sticking close behind him like a shadow on a sortie and keeping only a few yards distance even when diving. His marksmanship is excellent—if he misses the bridge it is a certainty I hit it. The flight aircraft following us can then drop their bombs on the A.A. guns and other targets. He is delighted when the squadron at once give him their opinion of his pet lambs, among which I am included. He makes no bones about it when one day they ask him: “Is Rudel O.K. yet?” When he replies: “He is the best man I have in the flight” there are no more questions. He recognizes my keenness, but on the other hand he gives me only a short lease of life because I am “crazy.” The term is used half in jest; it is the appreciation of one airman by another. He knows that I generally dive to too low a level in order to make sure of hitting the target and not to waste ammunition.

“That is bound to land you in trouble in the long run,” is his opinion. By and large he may be right, if it were not that at this, time I am having a run of luck. But one gains experience with every fresh sortie. I owe a lot to Steen and count myself fortunate to be flying with him.

In these first few weeks, however, it looks very much as if he is likely to be proved right in his predictions.