Luftwaffe Fighter Pilot by Wolfgang Fischer

Author:Wolfgang Fischer [Fischer, Wolfgang]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9781908117984
Publisher: Grub Street
Published: 2010-09-18T14:00:00+00:00

I./JG 2’s likely opponents in the action of 25 May were the American 364th Fighter Group, who lost six of their P-38 Lightnings on that date.

But the moment the order to scramble was broadcast over the field’s loudspeakers and the ground crews began to remove the camouflage netting from the machines, push them from their dispersal points hidden under the trees and help me to strap myself into my seat, all other thoughts were forgotten and it was time to concentrate solely on the coming mission. Once in the air every pilot’s full attention was focussed on the business in hand; keeping in contact with his Rotte or Schwarm leader and constantly quartering the sky for the first signs of the reported ‘Indianer’ or ‘dicke Autos’–‘large cars’; multi-engined bombers. If we did make contact with the enemy, we were almost invariably vastly outnumbered. We suffered the inevitable consequences and next morning another one or two familiar faces would be missing from the bus taking us out to the field.

The mission of 25 May was typical. We were scrambled to engage a formation of enemy bombers reported to be approaching our area. After a long climb we sighted them. In all truth, it would have been hard to miss them: a force of about 120 American B-24 Liberators, flying in four boxes of some thirty bombers each, escorted by at least fifty Lockheed P-38 Lightnings. In all, the enemy must have numbered well over 150. We were just five!

The Staffelkapitän was leading. I was tucked in on his left, with my Katschmarek alongside me (by this time I had been elevated to the position of a Rotte leader), while the other pair, the experienced Unteroffizier Paul Herbing and tyro Fähnrich Schiller, were a little way behind us acting as Holzaugen–literally ‘wooden eyes’ or lookouts. Their job was to guard our tails.

Leutnant Walterscheid manoeuvred us into an attacking position some way ahead, and off to one side of the bombers. In a long curving pass against the outer box of Liberators we were able to claim a ‘Herausschuss’. This was a term peculiar to antibomber operations. Meaning a ‘shooting out’, it was used to describe a bomber damaged so severely that it was forced to drop out of formation. In the Luftwaffe’s rather complicated points scoring system (used to determine the conferral of awards), a Herausschuss rated just below the total destruction of a bomber. For once it had left the safety of its combat box, a damaged bomber limping along on its own was regarded as a relatively easy target. And any pilot who subsequently chanced upon such a lone straggler and finally shot it down received fewer points than the original Herausschuss claimant.

After completing our single high-speed firing run it was time to make ourselves scarce. But to our amazement we spotted a small group of the escorting Lightnings that had apparently, and inexplicably, failed to notice that their charges were under attack. They were stooging along seemingly oblivious to all around them.

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