Fighter Aces of the Luftwaffe in World War II by Philip Kaplan

Author:Philip Kaplan [Kaplan, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penn & Sword Books
Published: 2007-03-21T22:00:00+00:00

Then came the day of Erich Hartmann’s first aerial victory, 5 November 1942. On this day he would fly with the group commander’s adjutant, a First Lieutenant Treppe. They were operating in a four-plane schwarm near Digora around midday and it was Erich who first sighted the eighteen Il-2 Stormoviks with their escort of ten Lagg-3 fighters. Having been the first man to spot the enemy aircraft, he was ordered by Treppe to lead the German attack. The 109s split into two two-ship elements which then dived separately on the unsuspecting Russians that were busily attacking German transport targets. Down near ground level the Germans ripped into the Stormoviks and Erich watched as his machine-gun bullets and cannon shells hit and bounced off the armour of the enemy dive-bombers. Erich had heard the stories of how well-protected the Stormovik was and how difficult they were to bring down. He also knew that they had a vulnerability, a weak spot on their undersides and he decided to exploit it.

Going around in a second pass on the enemy planes, Erich manoeuvred his Messerschmitt as low as he dared in an effort to get even lower than the Stormovik he was after. When he judged that he was about 200 feet behind and slightly below the target aircraft, he fired and watched with some satisfaction as a long tail of thick black smoke erupted from the oil cooler of the Stormovik, followed almost immediately by flame which soon enveloped the sturdy Russian craft. Erich followed it as the Russian slowly drifted out of its formation in a shallow descent. Then a small explosion occurred under the wing of the Stormovik. Bits flew off, some of them blasting back into the path of Erich’s machine, which lurched briefly and began pouring smoke from under the cowling, some seeping into his cockpit. Again, he would have to belly-land and he got ready by turning off his fuel master switch and ignition. He set the crippled plane down successfully and stepped out. As he left the plane he glanced up in time to see the demise of his Il-2 a little over a mile away. Lieutenant Treppe had witnessed Erich’s first kill and now circled overhead to satisfy himself that Hartmann was all right. Erich had come down well behind German lines and was once again delivered from his situation back to his base by nearby German infantrymen. Over the next few weeks he contemplated this mission and critiqued his own performance. He was learning fast and on the way he made up his mind that no enemy pilot was going to shoot down his friend and guide, Paule Rossmann, while he was around to protect him. Rossmann had shown Erich that there could be success in surprise attacks and in sharpshooting from a distance without exposure to the hazards of conventional aerial dogfighting. Now he would spend some time flying in company with a few of the unit’s best dogfighters, to help round out his education.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.