Stuka Pilot - Original Uncensored Edition

231 Pages·2012·2.57 MB·English

by  Hans Ulrich Rudel

Stuka Pilot
by
Hans Ulrich Rudel
First published by Oswald Mosley
Euphorian Books
1952
Stuka Pilot
by
Hans Ulrich Rudel
Copyright © 2013 Black House Publishing Ltd Printed by kind permission of the
Friends of Oswald Mosley and the Mosley Estate.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by
any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or
information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the
publisher.
Black House Publishing Ltd Kemp House
152 City Road
London
UNITED KINGDOM
EC1V 2NX
www.blackhousepublishing.co.uk Email: [email protected]
Foreword
AS so often occurs during a war particularly in the Air Forces, you often
hear the names of pilots on the opposite side. It is seldom that you meet them
subsequently. At the end of this war some of us had the opportunity of meeting
several well-known pilots of the German Air Force, who had hitherto been just
names to us. Now, 7 years later, some of the names escape me, but I well
remember Galland, Rudel and a German night fighter pilot called Mayer. They
visited the Central Fighter Establishment at Tangmere in June 1945 for a couple
of days and some of their opposite numbers in the Royal Air Force were able to
exchange views on air tactics and aircraft, always an absorbing topic amongst
pilots. A coincidence which amused all of us, if I may be excused this anecdote,
occurred when Mayer was talking to our well-known fighter pilot Brance
Burbidge and discovered that Brance had shot him down over his own
aerodrome one night as he was circling to land.
Having been a prisoner in Germany for much of the war I had heard of Hans
Ulrich Rudel. His exploits on the Eastern Front with his dive bomber were from
time to time given much publicity in the German press. It was therefore with
great interest that I met him when he came over in June 1945. Not long before he
arrived Rudel had lost one leg below the knee, as he describes in this book. At
the time of this visit that well-known R.A.F. character, Dick Atcherley, was the
Commandant at Tangmere. Others there were Frank Carey, Bob Tuck (who had
been a prisoner-of-war in Germany with me), “Razz” Berry, Hawk Wells and
Roland Beamont (now Chief Test Pilot for English Electric). We all felt that
somehow we should try and get an artificial leg for Rudel. It was very sad that
we were unable to do this because although a plaster cast and the requisite
measurements were taken it was discovered that his amputation was too recent
for an artificial leg to be made and fitted and we were reluctantly compelled to
give up the idea.
We all read an autobiography written by someone we have met, if only for a
short time, with more interest than that of a stranger. This book of Rudel’s is a
first-hand account of his life in the German Air Force throughout the war, mainly
in the East. I do not agree with a number of the conclusions he draws or with
some of his thoughts. I was, after all, on the other side.
The book is not broad in its scope because it is confined to the activities of
one man – and a brave one -- waging a war in very single-minded fashion. It
does however shed an interesting light on Rudel’s opposite numbers on the
Eastern Front, the Russian Air Force pilots. This is perhaps the most revealing
part of the whole book. I am happy to write this short foreword to Rudel’s book,
since although I only met him for a couple of days he is, by any standards, a
gallant chap and I wish him luck.
Group Captain Douglas Bader, D.S.O., D.F.C.
Hans Ulrich Rudel
Foreword
1 - From Umbrella to Dive Bomber
2 - War Against the Soviets
3 - Bad Weather Flying
4 - The Battle for the Fortress of Leningrad
5 - Before Moscow
6 - Training and Practice
7 - Stalingrad
8 - Withdrawal
9 - Stuka versus Tank
10 - On the Kuban and at Bjelgorod
11 - Back to the Dnieper
12 - Further Westward
13 - Retreat to the Dniester
14 - Fateful Summer 1944
15 - Battle for Hungary
16 - Christmas 1944
17 - The Death Struggle of the Last Months
18 - The End
1 - From Umbrella to Dive Bomber
1924 My home is the rectory of the little village of Seiferdau in Silesia; I am
eight. One Sunday my father and mother go into the neighbouring town of
Schweidnitz for an “Aviation Day”. I am furious that I am not allowed to go with
them, and when they return my parents have to tell me over and over again what
they have seen there. And so I hear about a man who jumped from a great height
with a parachute and came safely down to earth. This delights me, and I badger
my sisters for an exact description of the man and the parachute. Mother sews
me a little model, I attach a stone to it and am proud when stone and parachute
slowly drift to the ground. I think to myself that what a stone can do I must be
able to do too, and when I am left alone for a couple of hours the following
Sunday I lose no time in exploiting my new discovery.
Upstairs to the first floor! I climb on to the windowsill with an umbrella,
open it up, take a quick look down, and before I have time to be afraid I jump. I
land on a soft flower-bed and am surprised to find that I have twisted every
muscle and actually broken a leg. In the tricky way in which umbrellas are apt to
behave, the thing has turned inside out and hardly broke my fall. But
nevertheless I abide by my resolve: I will be an airman.
After a brief flirtation with modern languages at the local school I take up
classics, and learn Greek and Latin. At Sagen, Niesky, Görlitz and Lauban – my
father is moved to these different parishes in the lovely province of Silesia – my
schooling is completed. My holidays are devoted almost exclusively to sport,
including motor-cycling; athletics in summer and skiing in winter lay the
foundations of a robust constitution for later life.
I enjoy everything; so I do not specialise in any particular field. Our little
village does not offer very much scope – my knowledge of sporting tackle is
derived solely from magazines – so I practise pole-vaulting by using a long tree-
prop to vault over my mother’s clothes-line. Thus later with a proper bamboo
pole I can clear a respectable height.
As a ten year old boy I go off to the Eulengebirge, twenty three miles away,
with the six foot long skis given to me as a Christmas present, and teach myself
skiing.... I stand a couple of planks resting on a sawing-horse of my father’s, this
gives me an upward slope. I give the contraption the once-over to make sure it is
firmly fixed. No flunking now – I open the throttle of my motorbike and sail up
the boards ....and over. I land on the other side, swerve wildly and back again for
another run at the planks and the trusty sawing-horse! It never enters my head
that in addition to all this I ought to be a good scholar, much to my parents’
distress. I play almost every conceivable prank on my teachers. But the question
of my future becomes a more serious problem as matriculation looms nearer.
One of my sisters is studying medicine, and consequently the possibility of
finding the large sum of money needed to have me trained as a civil air-pilot
does not even come under consideration – a pity. So I decide to become a sports
instructor.
Quite unexpectedly the Luftwaffe is created, and with it a demand for
applicants for a reserve of officers. Black sheep that I am, I see little hope of
passing the difficult entrance examination. Several fellows I know, rather older
than myself, who have previously tried to get in have been unlucky. Apparently
only sixty out of six hundred candidates will be selected, and I cannot imagine
any likelihood of my being among this ten per cent. Fate, however, disposes
otherwise; and in August 1936 I have in my pocket the notification of my
admission to the Military School at Wildpark-Werder for next December. Two
months Labour Service work on the regulation of the Neisse at Muskau follow
matriculation in the autumn. In the first term at Wildpark-Werder we recruits are
put through the mill. Our infantry training is completed in six months. Aircraft
we see only from the ground, with an especial longing when we happen to be flat
on our faces. The rule of no smoking and no drinking, the virtual restriction of
all leisure time to physical exercise and games, the pretence of indifference to
the distractions of the nearby capital, are tiresome. I take a rather dim view of
my milk-drinking existence, and that is putting it mildly. I earn no black marks
in my military and athletic training and so my supervisional officer, Lt.
Feldmann, is not dissatisfied. In some respects, however, I am not altogether
successful in living down the reputation of being a “queer fish”.
The second term finds us in the neighbouring town of Werder, a holiday
resort in the Havel lake district. At last we are taught to fly. Competent
instructors are at pains to initiate us into the mysteries of aviation. We practise
circuits and landings with Flt. Sgt. Dieselhorst. After about the sixtieth time I am
able to undertake a solo flight, and this achievement makes me an average pupil
of my class. In conjunction with our flying lessons the technical and military
curriculum is continued, as well as an advanced course for a commission. Our
flying training finishes at the end of this second term and we receive our flight
authority. The third term, back at Wildpark, is no longer so diversified. Little
stress is laid on flying; instead air tactics, ground tactics, defence methods and
other special subjects figure more largely in our work. Meanwhile I am seconded
for a short spell and sent to Giebelstadt near Würzburg, the lovely old city on the
Main, where I am attached to a combat unit as officer cadet. Gradually the date
of our passing-out examination draws near, and speculation is rife as to what unit
and what branch of the service we shall eventually be posted to. Almost to a man
we would like to be fighter pilots, but this is clearly impossible. There is a
rumour going about that our whole class is to be assigned to Bomber Command.
Promotion to the rank of officer senior cadet and posting to a definite formation
follows for those who pass the difficult examination.
Shortly before leaving the Military School we are sent on a visit to an anti-
aircraft gunnery school on the Baltic coast. Quite unexpectedly Goering arrives
and addresses us. At the end of his speech he asks for dive bomber volunteers.
He tells us he still requires a number of young officers for the newly-formed
Stuka formations. It does not take me long to make up my mind. “You would
like to become a fighter I argue,” but you will have to be a bomber; so you might
as well volunteer for the Stukas and be done with it.” In any case I do not fancy
myself flying the heavy bomber aircraft. A little quick thinking and my name is
entered on the list of Stuka candidates. A few days later we all get our postings.
Almost the whole of the class is assigned to Fighter Command! I am bitterly
disappointed, but there is nothing to be done about it. I am a Stuka pilot. And so
I watch my comrades happily depart.
In June 1938 I arrive at Graz, in the picturesque province of Steiermark, to
report to a Stuka formation as officer senior cadet. It is three months since
German troops marched into Austria and the population is enthusiastic. The
squadron which is stationed outside the town in the village of Thalerhof has
recently received the type 87 Junkers; the single-seater Henschel will no longer
be used as a dive-bomber. Learning to dive at all angles up to ninety degrees,
formation flying, aerial gunnery and bombing are the fundamentals of the new
arm. We are soon familiar with it. It cannot be said that I am a rapid learner;
furthermore the rest of the squadron have already passed all their tests when I
join it. It takes a long time to ring the bell, too long to please my squadron
leader. I catch on so slowly that he ceases to believe that it will ever ring at all.
The fact that I spend my leisure hours in the mountains, or at sport, rather than in