Stuka Pilot

by Hans Ulrich Rudel

  German aircraft types often appear in our area flown by Romanians whom we have equipped with them. They now bear the Romanian markings and are flying on the Russian side. The Romanian operational base is not very far from us. We therefore spend two days making low level attacks on their airfields in the area Karlsburg, Kronstadt and Hermannstadt. Malicious tongues among us suggest that we are trying to emulate the Mustangs; they would have done it before. We destroy more than 150 aircraft on the ground, some of them in the air; in any case they are mostly training and courier planes, but even so are of use for training the Romanian air force. Success in attacks of this kind is to a very great extent dependent on the strength of the enemy defence.

  The fighting in Romania is at an end. The Soviet floods pour in over the whole country to try to force a passage into Hungary at every possible point. Tightly packed convoys are at this moment streaming through the Roter-Turm Pass in the direction of Hermannstadt. Sorties against this invading spearhead are particularly difficult because this army is very strongly defended against air attack. On one flight over the Northern end of the pass 4 cm. flak rips off the cockpit hood of my FW 190 and I find myself suddenly sitting in the open. Luckily none of the splinters wounds me.

  The same evening my intelligence officer tells me that he listens almost every day to the radio propaganda broadcasts in German, atrocity-stories about German soldiers and incitement of the guerrillas. The broadcaster always begins: Kronstadt calling. After communicating with the group the first attack on this radio station is fixed for tomorrow; it must be possible to deal with these provocateurs. At day-break we set course for Kronstadt, an old settlement of the Transylvanian Saxons. The town shimmers straight ahead in the morning mist under the first rays of the sun. We do not need to fly over it; the transmitting station with its two tall masts stands on a main road about five miles North East. Between the high masts is a little building, the nerve centre of the whole transmitting organism. As I fly in, preparatory to going into a dive, I see a motor car drive out of the courtyard of the building. If I could be sure its passengers were the men who are instigating the partisans to stab us in the back it would be worth a little extra effort to catch them. The car disappears into a wood and sees our attack on the transmitting station from afar. One has to be careful not to dive too low in this attack because the masts are connected by many cables and it is easy to fly into them. The little building is centred in my sights, I press the button, pull out and circle round the masts, waiting to see the result and for my squadron to reform. By chance one of my little 35 lb. bombs has hit the tip of one of the masts; it snapped and bent at a right angle. There is nothing more to be seen of the building down below as the bombs have done their work. They will not be broadcasting their vicious propaganda from here for quite a while. With this comforting thought we return to base.

  The increasing pressure on the Carpathian passes shows more and more clearly the extent of the damage to our strength caused by the Romanian debacle. The Soviets have advanced a long way beyond Hermannstadt; they are nearly at Thorenburg and are trying to capture Klausenburg. Most of the units in this sector are Hungarian, chiefly the first and second Hungarian armoured divisions. There are practically no German reserves available to form a backbone of resistance in this important sector. This Soviet advance will imperil the German units holding the Carpathians far to the North. They will have to abandon their positions in the passes with serious consequences because the Carpathians, being a natural fortress, are the key to the Hungarian plains and it will be extremely difficult to hold them with our diminished strength. For the most part the Soviets have had a soft job the last few weeks, for they are advancing through an "allied" Romania where a coherent German resistance has been impossible. Our motto has been: "Get out of Romania; next stop the Carpathians." But Romania has an elongated frontier and this means an extension of our already too thinly defended front.

  We move back for a few days to an airfield West of Sächsisch Regen from where we make almost daily sorties over the Thorenburg area. For the first time since goodness knows how long the Iron Gustavs again participate in the fighting on the ground. On every sortie we stay in the target area as long as our petrol lasts, always hoping for an encounter with our competition from the other side. The 3rd squadron does the bombing, escorted by the 2nd with the wing staff and myself in FW 190s. During this phase we are successful in shooting down a large number of Russian attack planes and fighters. The skipper of my 2nd squadron, Flight Lieutenant Kennel, who has the Oak Leaves, has particularly good hunting. It is not actually our business as dive bombers and attack aircraft to shoot down enemy aircraft, but in the present crisis it seems to me very important for our comrades on the ground that we should master the enemy's air force. So our expert tank marksmen also engage aircraft, and with excellent results. These operations show us old Ju 87 fliers very clearly that the hounds have a better time of it than the hare. None the less we still swear by our old kites.

  In September 1944 the battle for the Hungarian plains becomes an actuality. At this moment the news of my promotion to Wing Commander reaches me. The Wing staff with ground personnel is stationed for a short time at Tasnad, South of Tokay. The 1st and 2nd squadrons with their operational elements and myself S.E. of Tasnad, the 3rd squadron moves into the Miskolcz area where they are seriously hampered by airfield conditions: the whole surrounding country, including the roads leading to the airfield, have been turned into a swamp by torrential rain.

  Our stay is only a short one here, where we are able to put up a fight in the area Grosswardein - Cegled - Debrecen. The Russian hordes move fast, almost exclusively by night. They remain stationary during the day well camouflaged in the woodland near the roads or in maize fields, or keeping under cover in the villages. Bombing and aerial attack becomes of secondary importance to reconnaissance, for targets must be recognised before it is possible to do any vital damage. There is at present no cohesion on the German front; there are merely isolated battle groups hastily improvised by welding together units which have either fought their way back from Romania or have previously formed part of the lines of communication troops in Hungary. These units are a medley of all branches of the army. At special focal points the names of crack formations appear : infantry regiments with great traditions, armoured divisions, S.S. formations, all old acquaintances of ours and friends with whom we have shared the hardships of the arduous years in Russia. They love and esteem their Stukas and we feel the same. If we know that one of these units is below us we can be sure there will be no untoward surprises. We know most of their flying control officers personally, or at any rate their voices. They indicate to us every nest of resistance however small, and we then attack them with everything we have got. The ground units follow up our attack with lightning speed and sweep everything before them. But the enemy's numerical superiority is so immense that the biggest local successes are merely a drop in the bucket. The Russians are established to right and left of these engagements and we have not soldiers enough to hold them there, and another break-through follows with the result that even those units who are standing firm are compelled to retire lest their line of retreat be cut.

  This happens here time and again until we are back on the Theiss which is to be held as a new defence line. This river is narrow, and in a war with modern technical resources does not represent much of an obstacle. At Szeged the Russians have very soon gained a strong bridgehead which we are unable to dent, and from which they make a swift thrust N.W. towards Kecskemet. My wing has moved back once again and we are now at Farmos, W. of Szolnok, on the railway line from Szolnok to Budapest. Our airfield is frequently visited by four-engined American bombers which have hitherto concentrated their attentions on the railway bridge at Szolnok.

  We have no complaints about our rations here because Niermann has obtained permission to shoot game and one can almost speak of a plague of hares. Every day he returns with a big bag; Fridolin is sick of the very sight of a h
are. Sometimes now there is a real nip in the air, the year is making giant strides towards the winter. When taking my evening cross country run in the neighbourhood of Farmos I succumb to the fascination of the plains in a way I would not have thought possible for a mountaineer like myself.

  We are out mostly in the vicinity of the Theiss beyond the river, but also on our side of it as the Soviets have succeeded in forming bridgeheads on the West bank at several places. Our targets, as in the case of all previous river crossings, are concentrations of material on the river bank and on the approach roads, in addition to the constantly newly built bridges and the traffic across the river which is partly carried out with very primitive methods. Rafts, old sailing craft, fishing boats and private pleasure boats all ply across the narrow Theiss. Ivan has lost no time in collecting together this heterogeneous ferry service. It is chiefly active at first in the area between Szeged and Szolnok, later also further North. The creation of many bridgeheads is always a warning that the Soviets are piling up material preparatory to a Fresh advance. A minor offensive of our own is being successfully conducted in the area Szolnok – Mezotuer –Kisujalas - Turkewe with the object of upsetting these preparations. We fly incessantly in support of it. The new Russian assault on the Theiss is considerably delayed and weakened by this interruption of their lines of communication, at least in this northern sector, but they are able to keep expanding the big bridgehead at Szeged and joining it up with a smaller one further North.

  At the end of October the offensive is launched from the whole of this area; it begins with a thrust N.W. and N. from E. and S.E. against Kecskemet. Its objective is clear: to achieve the collapse of our defence line on the Theiss and to push forward across the plain as far as the Hungarian capital and the Danube. Ivan is extremely active in the air. He appears to have occupied the whole batch of airfields around Debrecen, and we are again in action against far superior numbers thereabouts. We are further handicapped by the loss of a number of aircraft shot down by flak, and supplies and replacements leave much to be desired. The Soviets cannot claim the credit for our predicament; they can thank their Western allies who have seriously imperilled our communications by their four-engined attacks on railway stations and towns. The patrolling of railway lines and roads by American Jabos does the rest. We lack the indispensable means of protecting our traffic routes owing to shortage of man-power and material.

  With the few aircraft left to my wing, including the anti-tank flight, I often take off on a sortie in the area S.E. of Kecskemet. Our aircraft strength, for the reasons set forth above, has been so greatly reduced that one day I go out alone, escorted by four FW 190s to attack the enemy's armour in this area. As I approach my objective I can hardly believe my eyes; a long distance North of Kecskemet tanks are moving along the road; they are Russians. Above them, like a bunch of grapes, hangs a dense umbrella of Soviet fighters protecting this spearhead. One of the officers escorting me knows Russian and promptly translates for me everything he understands. The Soviets are again using almost the same wave length as ourselves. They are yelling at one another and making such an appalling din that it is a wonder anyone understands a word the other is saying. My interpreter in the 190 makes out this much: “Calling all Red Falcons - a single Stuka with two long bars is coming in to attack our tanks - we are sure it is the Nazi swine who shoots up our tanks - there are some Fockes with him (my escort). You are all to attack the Stuka, not the Fockes - he must be shot down today!"

  During this pandemonium I have long since come down and made an attack. One tank is on fire. Two FW 190s are weaving above me trying to draw off a few Lag 5s. The two others stick to me, manoeuvring as I do; they have no intention of leaving me alone which is bound to happen if they engage in aerial combat with any Ivans. Twenty or thirty Lag 5s and Yak 9s now turn their attention to us; apparently the control officer on the ground directing the fighters is near the tanks, for he yells like a stuck pig: “Go on, go on and shoot the Nazi swine down. Don't you see one tank is already on fire?" For me this is the surest confirmation of my success. Every time one of them attacks I make a sharp turn just as he is bearing down on me; his speed prevents him from following my manoeuvre and he loses his firing position because he is carried out of range. I then bank round again and come in behind him, even if at some distance away. Although I am sorry to waste my anti-tank ammunition I fire two 3.7 cm. shells after him; of course I shall want them later for other tanks. Even if they now miss their mark the chap they were intended for cannot have failed to observe their trail and he gets a shock at seeing these fire balls streak close by him. Now again one of those I have fired at yells: “Look out - be careful - didn't you see? The Nazi swine is firing back. Look out." He bellows as if he had already been shot down. Another, certainly the leader of the formation: “We must attack him from different angles simultaneously. Rendezvous over the village for which I am now heading. We will discuss what is to be done."

  Meanwhile I attack another tank. So far they have not run for cover, doubtless believing that they are sufficiently protected by their fighters. Again one bursts into flame. The Red Falcons are circling over the village and making the craziest hullabaloo; they all want to give advice on the best way to shoot down my Ju 87. The control officer on the ground rages, threatens, asks whether they have not seen that four tanks are already burning. Now they come back again, from different angles in fact, and I am glad that my fifth tank has used up my last round of ammunition, for if we keep up this game much longer one cannot count on a happy ending. The sweat has been pouring off me all the time though it is very cold outside; excitement is more warming than any fur jacket. The same is true of my escort. Flying Officers Biermann and Kinader are less afraid of being shot down themselves than of failing in their duty to protect me, yet it is more than likely that one or other of the Ivans may say to himself; if I cannot bring down the Stuka with the bars as ordered, I can at least have a go at the Fockes. We set course for home; the Ivans do not stay with us for very long before turning back. For quite a while we still hear the reproachful bellowing of the control officer on the ground and the Red Falcons making their excuses. Often nothing stands in the way of the Russian advance apart from local units thrown together in some critical emergency and frequently composed of airfield and flak personnel and army service corps troops.

  We lack men and material: the old story, all over again. Individual gallantry and isolated actions may delay but cannot entirely check the advance of colossal numbers of men and material. The few crack units we still have left cannot be everywhere at the same time. Nevertheless our comrades on the ground are putting up an inconceivably gallant fight. The Theiss front is no longer tenable; the next defence line has to be the Danube.I am disturbed by signs of a Soviet thrust in the extreme South through Fünfkirchen in the direction of Kaposvar; if it succeeds, then this new position is again in danger. It is only a very short time before my fears are confirmed.

  15 - Battle for Hungary

  IT is one of our last days at Farmos. A message has just been received that Ivan had infiltrated with a strong armoured spearhead in the direction of the Matra Mountains and has reached the outskirts of Goengjes. Our troops, which have been outflanked, are anxious if possible to restore the situation and close the gap. The weather is bad, and we find this particularly trying because this part of the country is very hilly and the cloud cover is even lower than elsewhere. We leave Budapest to port and soon see the Matra Mountains ahead, and shortly afterwards the town of Goengjes. Fires are burning some miles to the South; it is apparent that something is going on there. Sure enough, tanks are travelling along the road, and they are certainly not German. As I make a wide sweep in that direction to obtain a general picture of the enemy's strength I am met by intense light and medium flak fire. We circle round the advance guard at low level. Right out in front of the T 34s and Stalins is a type of tank I have never seen before; nor have I yet come across it as an American model. I deal with this stranger f
irst, and then turn my attention to the others. When five tanks are in flames I have used up all my ammunition. The anti-tank flight has also done an excellent job and it has been a bad morning for Ivan. We reform and head for home, being engaged for part of the way by Soviet Yak 9 fighters which have appeared on the scene but do us no harm.

  We are within ten minutes of our base and well behind our own lines when it suddenly strikes me: how am I to describe the first tank I shot up when making out my report? Will my automatic camera have taken a good enough photograph for me to be able to say for certain what type of tank it was? It is very important that the general staff should be informed whether and what new types are appearing on any sector of the front; such information is an indication that new weapons are being put into production, or delivered from other countries. I must know what model that first tank was. So I tell the 3rd squadron leader to take the formation home while I turn round and fly back to the tanks.

  I throttle back a little and circle four or five times at 12-15 feet in a narrow radius round the mysterious steel monster and give it a leisurely examination from the closest proximity. To one side of it stands a Stalin, which has apparently just driven up from the rear of the party to see what has happened here. The strange tank is still burning. As I circle round it for the last time I see some Ivans crouching under the projecting chain guard of the Stalin behind a 13 mm. A.A. machine gun mounted on a tripod. Squeezed close against the tank with their heads down they look up at me and, seeing smoke come out of the muzzle of their machine gun, I perceive that they are busy firing at me. I am within about fifty, at the very most sixty yards range, but the variations caused by the wide arc I am describing are too great for them to make sure of hitting me, unless they are experienced gunners and have learnt just the right thing to do. I am still speculating in this fashion when two hammer blows strike my aircraft and I feel a searing pain in my left thigh. I struggle hard to overcome the blackness in front of my eyes and become aware that a wet, warm flow of blood is running down my leg. Gadermann sits behind me; I tell him, but he cannot do anything for me because it is impossible for him to get forward. I have no bandages with me. The country we are flying over is only thinly inhabitated, the terrain not specially suitable for a forced landing. If we come down here goodness knows how long it will take to get proper medical aid, and I shall bleed to death. So I must try to reach Budapest twenty-five minutes away.