I am relieved of the command of the first flight, and given the 3rd squadron instead. I know it inside out from earlier on; was I not its old Squadron engineer officer? As far as new faces have appeared I know them all from my visits to the squadron. It is not difficult to knock them into shape as Squadron Leader Becker is there. We have nicknamed him Fridolin. There is nothing he does not know; he is the soul and the mother of the ground personnel. Our medical care is in the hands of Stabsarzt Gadermann, who is also the friend and counsellor of everybody. Soon the 3rd Squadron Command consists of a kind of family in which all orders are given and carried out in the best co-operative spirit. In the air this means no sort of reorganisation because during the last year I have often led the squadron formation.
Here I soon fly my 1200th operational flight. I have as escort a fighter squadron to which, incidentally, the famous skier Jennewein belongs. Between sorties we often chat about our native mountains and, of course, about skiing. He fails to return from one joint mission with our squadron and is reported missing. Apparently he was hit, then, according to the account of his colleagues, he transmitted over the R/T: “Got a hit in the engine, am flying into the sun”. At the time, however, the sun was already almost due west. So for once he could not have chosen a more unfavourable course because in the break-through area north of us, at Bolchow, the objective of our attack, the Soviets have succeeded in pushing a funnel-shaped wedge through our front from East to West. If, therefore, he flew west he was over the middle of the break-through area, and must have come down on Russian territory. A few miles to the south would have been enough to reach our own lines as the funnel is very narrow. Here at Orel there is no changing our run of bad luck.
The staff captain of my 9th flight is flying with his rear gunner, Flying Officer Hörner; he has the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross and is one of the senior officers in our squadron. After being hit by flak in the area North-East of Orel he nose-dives and makes a belly-landing in No Man's Land. He and his aircraft remain there, lying on the slope of a small gulley. At first I believe he has made a forced landing although it seemed as if he had been badly hit already in the air; also the impact was too violent when his aircraft struck the ground. After flying over the spot several times at low level I can perceive no movement in the aircraft. Our Medical Officer goes forward and with the help of the army reaches the wreck, but it is too late to save any of the crew. He has taken a priest with him and so our two comrades are laid to their eternal rest.
There is very little conversation in our squadron for the next few days, only the most necessary exchanges; the bitterness of these days oppresses us all. It is not very different in other units. In a dawn attack on important Soviet artillery emplacements East of Orel the flights of the 1st squadron fly with mine, the second flight led by Flying Officer Jäckel. He has become a magnificent airman and has a pet stunt which he does habitually. Wherever he sees a fighter he attacks it even though it is far superior to his aircraft in speed and armament. Already on the Kuban front he has given us many a laugh. He always contends that his Ju. 87 is particularly fast; that at full throttle he can leave the others standing. This cheery soul often brings down a fighter; he reminds one of a stag roaming the forest in search of a hunter and when he finds one instantly charging him with lowered antlers. He is the life and soul of his flight; without repeating himself he can tell jokes from nine in the evening till four o'clock in the morning. 'Bonifacius Kiesewetter' and other ballads of course belong to his repertoire.
On this particular morning he has, with his flight, attacked a neighbouring battery and we are returning to base. We are just flying over our front line when someone yells:“Fighters!" I can see them, a long distance away; they show no signs of attacking us. Jäckel turns round and joins issue with them. He shoots one of them down but even fat Jensch, his at other times dependable rear-gunner, appears to be looking round instead of in front of him. There is apparently another LAG 5 coming up behind him. I see his aircraft go into a kind of backward dive from a height of 600 feet and burst into flames. I can only imagine that in his eagerness for battle Egbert forgot how low he was flying and that he had no business to indulge in such acrobatics. So we lose this dear comrade also.
The thought occurs to many of us: "Now when one after the other of the old-timers goes, I can almost reckon by the calendar when my own number will be up”. Every jinx must come to an end sooner or later; we have long been waiting for our bad luck to change. To live in constant danger induces fatalism and a certain callousness. None of us any longer gets out of bed when the bombs are dropping at night. Dead tired from being in the air without intermission all day and every day we hear, half awake and half asleep, the bombs bursting close at hand.
In the East to West break-through area North of us things go from bad to worse; now Kareitschew, North-West of us, is threatened. In order to reach this target area more quickly and the Shisdra sector further to the North, we move to the airfield at Kareitschew. Much of the fighting is developing in the forest regions which are very hard to see into clearly from above. They make it easy for the Reds to camouflage their positions and our attacks are very difficult. I hardly ever catch sight of a tank; so I mostly fly with a bomber. Since I took over the command of the squadron the anti-tank flight has been more closely incorporated in my squadron, and the staff work, both technical and tactical, has quickly been adapted to the employment of the cannon-carrying aircraft I introduced.
Our stay at Kareitschew is not a long one. There has been talk again for some days of another move to the South where the situation is critical. After several sorties based on Briansk we do indeed move back again to Charkow. But this time our operational base is the aerodrome on the South side of the city.
11- Back to the Dnieper
HERE also at Charkow there have been all sorts of changes in the few months since we left. On our side full strength divisions have been withdrawn, and the Soviets have gone over to the offensive. We have not been here more than a day or two when Soviet shells begin falling in the city. Our airfield has no large stores of petrol or bombs for us to use, and so another transfer to a more favourable airfield does not come as a surprise. It lies l00 miles to the South, close to the village of Dimitriewka. As it is a considerable distance from here to the present front we use two take-off airfields, one at Barwenkowo for the front on the Donetz at Isjum, the other at Stalino for missions on the Mius front. Each of these airfields has a small detachment to service us during the day. We take our first shift and armourer personnel up with us every morning. Both at Isjum on the Donetz and at Mius a stable defensive line has been established, and is under heavy attack by strong Soviet forces. Often our operations officer assigns us the same old target: the same wood, the same ravine. We can soon dispense with map readings and all the rest of it. As Steen used to say: "We are big boys now”.
On one of our first sorties in the Isjum sector somebody calls over the R/T: "Hannelore!" - that is my call-sign - “Aren't you the bloke who used to crack nuts?" I do not reply, and now he keeps on repeating his question over and over again. Suddenly I recognise the voice as that of an Int. Ops. Officer with whom we have often co-operated and with whose division we always got on splendidly. It is of course a breach of security regulations, but I cannot resist answering that I did indeed use to crack nuts and that he was a keen footballer. He admits it delightedly and all the air crews who have been listening to the conversation, amused by the episode, give the cold shoulder to the furiously barking flak. This Flg./Off. of the Air Intelligence service, Epp by name, is one of the best Vienna centre forwards. Since he is with a unit in the thick of the battle I shall have frequent occasions to meet him.
Fig./Off. Anton who took over the command of the 9th flight after Horner's death is killed on the Mius. His whole aircraft blows up as he is coming in to dive, in the same inexplicable way as has happened several times before. Again another of our old-timers gone, a Knight of the Iron Cross. Among our air crews there is a constant
come and go, never any settling down - the remorseless rhythm of war.
Autumn is already in the air when we receive orders to include the Dnieper front in our operations. So further Westward. For days we go out on missions from the airfield N.W. of Krasnoarmaiskoje. Here the Soviets are pushing into the Donetz industrial area from the East and the North East. Apparently this is a large scale operation; they are everywhere. Besides, they raid our airfield uninterruptedly with Boston bombers: a nuisance, because maintenance work is held up and so we are late in getting into action. During these raids we squat in slit trenches behind our aircraft and wait there till Ivan has had his bit of fun. Luckily our losses in aircraft and material are small.
No one tells us that the army units which pass our airfield are almost the last, and that Ivan is on their heels. It will not be long before we find it out for ourselves. We have taken off from the Western airfield and are flying over the town and gaining height. Our mission is to attack enemy forces about 25 miles N.E. On the other edge of the town I see obliquely and at some distance six to eight tanks; they are camouflaged and otherwise very similar to ours. Their shape, however, strikes me as rather odd. Henschel interrupts my reflections: "Let's take a look at those German tanks on the way back." We fly on towards our objective. Considerably further West I meet a strong enemy force; there is no longer any sign of German troops.
Now we fly back, and take a closer look at the tanks. They are all T34s - Russians. Their crews are standing beside them studying a map: a briefing. Startled by our approach they scatter and crawl back into their tanks. But at the moment we can do nothing because we have first to land and re-munition. In the meantime the Soviets drive into the town. Our airfield lies on the other side of it. In ten minutes I am ready to take off again and search for them among the houses. When they are being attacked the tanks dodge round the buildings, and in this way are quickly out of our sights. I hit four of them. Where can the rest have got to? They may appear on our airfield at any minute. We cannot evacuate it because some of our personnel are in the town and we have to wait till they get back. Now, too, I remember that I have sent a car with one of our Q.M. staff to the Army Q.M. stores in the Eastern section of the town. Unless he has extraordinary luck he is for it. Later it transpires that a T34 came round the corner of the Q.M. stores just as our car drove up. With an open throttle and his knees knocking together he got clear away.
I go out once more. The squadron cannot fly with me, otherwise we shall not have enough petrol for the now inevitable move to Pawlowka. I can only hope that by the time I return all my men will be back at the airfield. After a long search I spot two tanks in the Western part of the town and knock them out. Apparently they were headed for us, to smoke out the hornets' nest of Stukas. But it is already high time to pull out, and after first setting fire to all unserviceable aircraft which have to be left behind we take off. While we are making a circuit of the airfield preparatory to taking up squadron formation I see tank shells burst on the perimeter. So they have got there, but we are there no longer.
The compass points W.N.W. After a while we fly off at low level over a road. Intense flak comes up at us from a long motorised column travelling through below us with an escort of tanks. We break our close formation and circle round the vehicles: Soviet tanks and lorries, mostly of American origin, therefore Russian. I admit I am puzzled as to how these beggars have suddenly turned up here so far West, but they must be Russians. We gather height and I give the order to engage the flak, which must be neutralised first so that we can come in for a low level attack undistracted.
After we have for the most part silenced the flak we split up into sections over the length of the column and shoot it up. The daylight is slowly fading; the whole road looks like a fiery serpent; a jam of burning motor vehicles and tanks which have not had time to drive off the road to right or left. We spare hardly one, and the material loss to the Soviets is again considerable. But what is this? I fly ahead above the first three or four vehicles, they all carry our flags on their radiators. These lorries are of German manufacture. For two hundred yards further on white Verys are being fired from the ditches at the side of the road. That is the signal of our own troops. It is a long time since I have had such a sickening feeling in my stomach. I would willingly crash my aircraft somewhere here on the spot. Can it have been a German column after all? Everything is ablaze. But why then were we subjected to such a heavy fire from the lorries? . . . How come that they are American made trucks? . . . Besides, I actually saw men running in brown uniforms! Sweat breaks out at every pore and a stupefying sense of panic overcomes me.
It is already fairly dark when we land at Pawlowgrad. None of us utters a word. Everyone is preoccupied with the same thought. Was it a German column? The uncertainty chokes us. I cannot find out by telephone from any Luftwaffe or Army unit what column it could have been. Towards midnight some soldiers arrive. My operational officer wakes me out of an exceptionally restless sleep, he tells me it is something important. Our comrades of the army wish to thank us for helping them to make their escape today. They tell us that their lorries were overtaken by a Russian column. They just managed to put on a spurt of a few hundred yards in order to find cover from the Russian fire in the ditches at the side of the road. It was at this moment that we appeared on the scene and shot up Ivan. Our chaps took immediate advantage of the situation and sprinted on for another two hundred yards. This is a load off my mind, and I share the elation of my brothers in arms.
A short time after this incident we are at Dnjepropetrovsk. Our station is the airfield on the East bank of the Dnieper, it is a long way to our billets in the centre of the town. For a Russian city the place makes a good impression, like Charkow. Soviet bombers or ground attack aircraft make almost daily raids on the bridge over the Dnieper in the middle of the city. The Reds hope by destroying it to cut off the line of retreat for the German troops and material, and to make it impossible to bring up supplies and reserves to this army group. Up to now we have not seen them have any success in their attacks on the bridge. Perhaps it is not big enough. The civilians are exultant. As soon as the Soviet raiders have gone they rush down to the Dnieper with buckets because they have noticed after a raid, quantities of dead fish floating on the surface of the river. Certainly so much fish has not been eaten in the town for many a long day. We fly alternatively N.E. and S. as the Soviets are driving forward from the Don in order to prevent us from establishing a line on the Dnieper and consolidating our positions there. At the same time as we move our base from Dnjepropetrovsk to Bolschaja Costromka, 80 miles further we lose Becker. He is transferred to the Wing staff. I fight his transfer for a long time as he belongs to our "family circle” but it is useless and after a good deal of palaver the decision is final.
12- Further Westward
BOLSCHAJA Costromka is a typical Russian village, with all the advantages and disadvantages these adjectives imply; for us Central Europeans mostly disadvantages. The village is scattered and mainly consists of mud houses, few buildings are of stone. One cannot speak of a layout of streets, but the village is criss-crossed by unpaved lanes at the most peculiar angles. In bad weather our vehicles sink axle-deep into the mud and it is impossible to get them out. The airfield lies on the Northern edge of the village on the road to Apostolow, which is generally unusable for motor traffic. Therefore our personnel have lost no time in adapting ourselves to the use of horses and ox-drawn carts so as to retain our mobility for all contingencies. The air crews often have to ride to their aircraft on horseback; they then dismount on to the wing planes, for the runway itself is not much better. In the prevailing weather conditions it resembles a sea of mud broken by tiny islands, and if it were not for the broad tyres of the Ju 87 we should never become airborne. One can tell how close we are to the river Dnieper. Our billets are scattered all over the village; the squadron staff is quartered in and near the schoolhouse at the Southern end of it. We have a common room, a kind of officers' mess,
in the so-called H.Q. building.
The square in front of this building is frequently under water and when it freezes, as it sometimes does, we play ice hockey in front of the house. Ebersbach and Fickel never miss the chance of a game. Recently however both of them have become rather sceptical as a result of the many bruises on their shins. In the worst weather the ice hockey goal posts are occasionally erected indoors, only the shortening of the field always makes it even more uncomfortable for the goal-keepers. The furniture cannot possibly suffer any damage because there isn't any.
The Russians are dumbfounded by the many little things our soldiers carry on their person. They think the snapshots of our homes, our rooms, our girls, are propaganda. It takes a very long time to convince them that they are genuine, that all Germans are not cannibals. They presently even doubt the truth of the indoctrinated catchword: Germanski nix Kultura. In a few days time, here as elsewhere, the Russians come and ask if they may be allowed to hang up again their icons and their crucifixes. Previously under the Soviet regime they have had to keep them hidden away because of the disapproval of a son, a daughter, or a commissar. That we raise no objection to their displaying them evidently impresses them. If you tell them that there are any amount of crucifixes and religious pictures to be seen in our country they can hardly believe it. Hastily they re-erect their holy niches and repeatedly assure us of their hope that this permission will not be revoked. They live in terror of their commissars, who keep the village under surveillance and spy on its inhabitants. This office is often undertaken by the village schoolmaster.
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