Luftwaffe Fighter Pilot Read online

  It was an odd period of the war altogether. In the nine months between the defeat of France and the start of the Balkans campaign, most of continental Europe was in the grip of the same state of suspended animation that we were experiencing at Deauville. The only signs of military activity in our vicinity were the landing exercises being carried out along the Normandy coast not far from us. These were part of the preparations for the planned invasion of southern England. There may have been no fighting on the ground, but in the air–and at sea–it was a very different story.

  The daylight phase of the Battle of Britain had peaked some weeks before. But the bizarre patterns of condensation trails, evidence of furious dogfights between the Luftwaffe and the RAF, were still sometimes to be seen in the skies above the Channel and over the Bay of the Seine. Occasionally, a formation of Me 109 fighters would swoop low along the beach in front of our villa. They made a thrilling sight, rekindling my burning ambition to be up there with them. But the wheels of Luftwaffe bureaucracy, it seemed, continued to grind exceeding slow.

  Then, early in December 1940, the unit packed its bags and departed Deauville by truck for Villacoublay airfield on the southwestern outskirts of Paris. Our relaxed methods of working didn’t alter one iota, but our surroundings took a definite nosedive in social terms. The Wetterzentrale occupied just one small corner of the large Villacoublay complex, which meant that we were suddenly thrust back into a totally military environment. For my part, the move wasn’t entirely unwelcome. It had at least returned me to the world of flying machines–even if those machines were Heinkel He 111 bombers. At the start of the Battle of Britain, Villacoublay had housed all three Gruppen of Kampfgeschwader 55, the famous ‘Greif’, or ‘Griffon’ bomber wing.

  Now, with the night blitz at its height, only the wing HQ and III. Gruppe remained. Although I had no direct contact with the crews of KG 55, if I was off-duty I would often watch the black-camouflaged Heinkels taking off into the night to attack a target somewhere in England. It was only a matter of days after our arrival at Villacoublay that I experienced for the first time the true reality of war. One of the heavily laden bombers suffered some sort of trouble and crashed on take-off. People rushed to the scene to help, but there was nothing that could be done. The four-man crew were burned beyond recognition. The horrific sight of their charred bodies, shrunken to the size of children, and the stench of burning fuel and roasted flesh made a lasting impression on me. It was a far cry from the heroic vision of air warfare that I had cherished for so long, but it did not weaken my resolve to fly.

  Meanwhile, Rudi and I had all of Paris to explore. Clutching our street plans and historical guidebooks, we wandered through the city from one end to the other. The shock of the French defeat had long since worn off; life had returned and the streets were pulsating with activity, although petrol rationing meant that relatively few cars were to be seen on the roads. The armed forces’ welfare organization even published a small booklet entitled A German Guide to Paris. Appearing monthly, this contained everything the visitor needed to know about the French capital–what was on in the theatre, the latest cinema releases, which cabarets to visit, where to shop, and much more.

  There were also a number of ‘Soldatenheime’, or leave centres, where troops could spend the whole day if they so wished. Reichsmarschall Göring, who always made sure that nothing but the best was good enough for ‘his’ flyers, requisitioned one of the most sumptuous private residences in the city for this purpose. The Palais Rothschild was located in the exclusive Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, close to the Place de la Concorde end of the Champs Elysées. Among its many attractions was the finest wine cellar in Paris, if not the whole of France, which the owner had been forced to abandon when he fled to England. The result was that even a nineteen-year-old wine philistine like myself was now able to pour a fine 1854 HautSauterne down his throat for the princely sum of three-and-a-half Reichsmarks a bottle–an absolute steal. (In retrospect, the phrase ‘throwing pearls before swine’ springs rightly to mind.)

  There was to be no home leave for Rudi and me over Christmas 1940, as the married members were understandably given priority. But we wanted to mark the occasion somehow, and so decided that on Christmas Eve we would climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower. The lifts were not working at this time, of course, but we tackled the stairs up to the second platform without too much difficulty. From there on, however, the going got tougher. The only way to ascend the final 150 metres to the top of the tower was via a steep and narrow circular metal staircase that wound itself tightly around the approximately one-and-a-half-metre diameter load-bearing central steel mast.

  The higher we climbed, the giddier we felt. We made the mistake of looking down at the ant-like figures of the people on the ground far below, which only made things worse. Eventually we got to the top. At this height, very nearly 300 metres up, the swaying of the tower in the wind was very noticeable. This added to our general feeling of queasiness and unease, and we lost little time in setting off back down again. The climb up had taken us forty minutes. We made the descent in better time; at first keeping our eyes firmly fixed on the step immediately in front of us in order not to have to look straight down into the vertigo-inducing abyss yawning beneath our feet. But it was a marvellous experience all the same.

  Almost from the start, the German authorities had been assiduous in their attempts to win over the people of Paris. Suitable German films, such as ‘Hallo, Janine’, were dubbed into French and drew long queues outside the city’s cinemas. Another popular attraction was the concerts given by the Wehrmacht’s military brass bands, which played selections from French and German operas and operettas in the parks and open spaces along the Champs Elysées and elsewhere. I was present at one of these concerts, held outside the Palais de Chaillot on the right bank of the Seine opposite the Eiffel Tower, where the German musicians ended their performance by striking up the ‘Marseillaise’. The predominantly French audience broke into a spontaneous storm of delighted applause–a great number even raised their right arms to Hitler!

  It mustn’t be inferred from this, of course, that the French had suddenly developed a warm friendship for the Germans. As far as the majority of the population was concerned, it would be truer to say that the previous undercurrents of hostility were no longer present–or, at least, no longer apparent. In the shops we were served with civility. And requests for directions from strangers in the street were invariably answered politely.

  But there was a darker side to life in Paris. Individual acts of terrorism were already being carried out against the German occupiers. They were admittedly few and far between at first, but this made their impact all the greater. I was witness to only one such atrocity. It was in the summer of 1941 and I was waiting for a train in a crowded metro station. Among the crush of people on the platform opposite were four girls in gaily coloured summer frocks. Despite the general hubbub, I realized from the scraps of excited chatter I could hear that they were German, probably secretaries or typists working for one of the German firms that had set up offices in Paris. I waved across to them, indicating that they should move back from the edge of the platform. But they misunderstood my gestures and simply waved back laughing.

  When the train drew in shortly afterwards, I could only watch in horror as the three or four men in civilian clothes who had been jostling and crowding round the girls suddenly pushed them on to the tracks in front of it. It was an absolute bloodbath. One of the young girls was screaming for her mother. But her cries gradually grew weaker until they finally ceased altogether. A few days later large red posters appeared on hoardings throughout the city announcing, in French, that–‘in accordance with the Hague Convention’–nine captive members of the resistance movement had been executed in retaliation for these cold-blooded murders. With the image of the slaughtered girls burned into my brain, I cannot deny feeling that justice had been done.

  On 1 February 1941 I had been transferred from the Wette
rzentrale to the Villacoublay permanent staff. Although I was still on the same base, my duties were entirely different–in fact, they were practically non-existent. My decoding work with the met unit had at least been of some value. But now that I was officially a member of the station company, I found myself with very little to do. The security of the operational side of the airfield was the responsibility of the resident KG 55, while the admin blocks and remaining areas were guarded by one of my new company’s other platoons. As our off-duty hours now rarely coincided, I saw less and less of Rudi. We lost contact altogether after the invasion of Russia when he volunteered to serve in one of the Luftwaffe field battalions fighting on the eastern front, and sadly I never heard anything from him again.

  As for me, my posting to the Villacoublay station company was clearly an attempt to make a ‘proper’ soldier out of me again before my nomination to officer cadet. I had never been endowed with a natural military bearing, and after eight months service in the relaxed atmosphere of the Wetterzentrale, any resemblance I may have had to an archetypal ‘Defender of the Fatherland’ was purely superficial. Determined, however, to fulfil my ambition of becoming a pilot, I pulled out all the stops to create the right impression.

  This obviously had the desired effect, for it was not long before I was given the narrow strip of silver braid to wear on my right epaulette that identified me to all and sundry as an officer cadet. As my actual rank was still that of ordinary aircraftman, this made me something of an oddity. Another consequence of my newfound status was that I was required to dine in the officers’ mess. I found this very daunting at first, but the station commander, an elderly Major and a fatherly type, took great pains to put me at my ease (incidentally, he also turned a benevolent blind eye to my increasingly ardent relationship with a pretty French girl working in station HQ.)

  The station company’s days were mostly taken up with exercises, target practice, route marches and sport. This was no doubt designed to hone us to the hardness of steel so that we would be ready and able to repulse any attack on the airfield by the wicked enemy–an event that, given the overall war situation at the time, seemed most unlikely to come to pass. One by-product of all this activity was my rise up the promotion ladder to the dizzying heights of aircraftman first class. But those in the corridors of power remained firmly of the opinion that I was still not yet enough of a soldier and that, furthermore, I needed to acquire at least some of the qualities of leadership.

  The latter I could not argue with. And so, on 1 July 1941, I was despatched to attend a two-month NCOs’ instructional course. This was held at Neukuhren on the Samland peninsula, less than twenty kilometres from Brüsterort, where I had first served with the long-range reconnaissance Staffel of the FAGr/Ob.d.L. early the previous year. But this beautiful stretch of East Prussian coastline presented a very different picture in the height of summer. The huge blocks of ice that I remembered had given way to long stretches of glorious sandy beaches. Not that we found much time for bathing. We were kept much too busy.

  The main purpose of this course was to instil into ordinary young soldiers like ourselves the self-confidence that is fundamental to command. It took a lot of will power, not to say courage, to stand up in front of a sea of faces–some expectant, some obviously bored stiff, and a few clearly intent on causing trouble–and deliver a lecture to one’s fellow course members. It was no easier out on the parade ground, where it was a favourite trick of the squad being drilled to keep marching straight ahead, preferably towards some obstacle or other, if the unfortunate pupil in temporary charge of them had not developed the necessary strength and clarity of voice to make himself properly understood over the distance–often rapidly increasing–that separated the two parties.

  Sometimes, without warning and just to break the monotony, we would be sent out on a full day’s route march. On one occasion we were rudely awoken from our slumbers at around three in the morning by the yells of the instructors sounding the alarm and ordering us to fall in outside in fifteen minutes in ‘field marching order’. This meant being washed–shaving wasn’t required–in full uniform, with a knapsack containing a day’s rations, and clutching the ‘soldier’s best friend’: our Karabiner 98k rifles. Such an order could only be carried out if our equipment was always kept to hand, in the right place and laid out in the regulation manner. This practice had been drummed into us during our basic training. In those dim and distant days we had dismissed it as yet another example of pointless military bullshit. But it was to prove its worth now, and we all somehow managed to scramble outside in time.

  We set off along the dusty paths through the pinewoods skirting the coast, at first in columns, and then in open order. At intervals we had to take cover from imaginary enemy aircraft, or crawl through the trees on our stomachs, after which we would be ordered to proceed at the double ‘just to loosen up the limbs’. At about 7am we were given an hour’s break. But before eating breakfast we had to demonstrate that we still remembered how to construct two-man tents out of our groundsheets–another throwback to the days of basic training. A medic who had been trailing us by car also took this opportunity to treat the first of the morning’s blisters.

  And so it went on, and on–and on. The sun beat down. Despite being so close to the sea it was boiling hot. Hour succeeded weary hour and still we marched, crawled and doubled. I never knew East Prussia was so big. It was not until nearly 7pm that we finally arrived back in Neukuhren. We were led to a sort of mock-Bavarian beer garden, where the camp’s brass band was waiting to serenade us. They did their best to revive our flagging spirits with a selection of popular tunes–but it was the free beer that really brought us back to life.

  The two months spent at Neukuhren were the making of me, even if you might not guess so today. This was down almost entirely to our course leader, Oberleutnant von Stein. He came from an aristocratic old East Prussian family, but displayed none of the high-handed militarism so often associated with his kind. He was strong on discipline–he needed to be to control a bunch of nineteen and twenty year olds like us–but his authority did not depend on his uniform and badges of rank. It was his personality that commanded obedience and respect. And this he passed down through the instructors to us budding NCOs.

  We were given training that was undeniably hard, but it was also fair and focussed. At its end we were self-confident and able to think for ourselves. Had we remained in Oberleutnant von Stein’s hands for much longer he would probably have forged us into some sort of élite unit. It is him I have to thank for setting me firmly on the last lap of the road towards my goal of becoming an officer and an operational pilot.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE START OF MY FLYING CAREER

  After completing the Neukuhren course I returned to duty with the station company at Villacoublay. Here, little had changed. But now that I had been promoted to Unteroffizier (corporal), I was put in charge of one of the sections responsible for airfield security. Our primary duties were to guard the main gates and other entrances to the base, and to patrol the perimeter. We worked in shifts with the other sections of the security platoon and so had plenty of free time on our hands. I spent most of my off-duty hours pursuing my love affair with Paris. Magical though these weeks were, I had few regrets when they were abruptly cut short by the news that I had finally been selected for flying training.

  After passing the necessary medical examination–which entailed a lengthy rail journey to Halle, northwest of Leipzig–I was posted to Luftkriegsschule 4 at Fürstenfeldbruck near Munich. It was here, on 1 February 1942, that my officer training and flying career proper were to begin. My long cherished aim had at last been realized. I half suspected that my father, as adjutant to the General commanding the Munich base district, may have had a finger in the pie, especially in the choice of school (shades of Rosenheim grammar!), but I wasn’t complaining.

  The Luftkriegsschule, or air warfare school, had been built between the years 1936-1939. It was surrounded
by pine forest, bordered to the south by the small town of Fürstenfeldbruck that gave the establishment its name, and to the north by the main Munich-Augsburg railway line. The school buildings were laid out in the form of an elongated U, one wing housing the classrooms, the other containing offices and living quarters. The open space between the two formed the parade ground–but the less said about that the better. Overall, the accommodation, the adjoining airfield and the numerous sports facilities represented state of the art technology.

  The immediate environment was also very pleasant. Fürstenfeldbruck itself boasted several cafés and restaurants (although dancing in public places had unfortunately been banned since the start of the war with Russia in June 1941) and the local train service provided easy access to Munich–or the ‘Capital of the Movement’, as the city proudly liked to call itself during the days of the Third Reich–where a wide range of entertainments was on offer.

  The one-year course, designed to get us our A and B military pilot’s licences, which would qualify us to fly single and twin-engined machines up to a certain weight, began with eight weeks of theoretical studies. At its start I had been promoted to Fähnrich, or officer cadet, a rank roughly equivalent to midway between a corporal and sergeant. And so, in addition to the hours spent in the classroom, the school also embarked upon the process of turning my fellow course members and myself into officers and gentlemen. Part of the transformation involved teaching us how to dance (apparently a necessary social grace, but not something to be done in public!)

  We were bussed into Munich for our dancing lessons, which were conducted by the legendary ‘Peps’ Valenci, who was the city’s most distinguished dance teacher throughout the war and for many years afterwards. His lessons attracted only the cream of the cream. For a while one of my partners was a princess of the house of Wittelsbach. I hope I’m not being too ungallant when I say that the young lady’s physical beauty was in inverse proportion to her nobility of birth, but she was a sweet and charming girl.