Encounters

Bundesarchiv

Oberstleutnant¹ Moritz Neugebauer walked into the unheated briefing room and looked around at the assembled pilots. Seven men for seven aircraft, he thought. Best to get this over with, it was too cold to be in here for very long.

"Meine Herren², I have news for you which you may, or may not, find pleasing."

The pilots all looked at each other, they were from a mix of the Group's Staffeln and wondered what occasion would require men from different units to be present.

"Panzerarmee Afrika is screeching for more air support. Rommel intends to take Tobruk this time and he wants/needs more Ju 88s. Business is slow here, the OKW³ has tasked us to send a provisional Staffel from KG 54 to Africa. You lads are that provisional Staffel. Questions?"

A pilot from 2. Staffel raised his hand.

"Ja, Leutnant Wisner?"

"Who is to command this provisional Staffel?"

"Oberleutnant Boden, or should I say Hauptmann Boden. Your promotion came in this morning, right before lunch. Congratulations, Johannes."

Boden blushed, he had not been expecting this, but hell, the chance to get out of Russia, he'd go as a Feldwebel if it got him out of this cold. "Danke, Herr Oberstleutnant. When do we leave?"

"As soon as the maintenance chief gets enough aircraft ready, he says tonight, I expect by tomorrow morning he'll be able to give you seven aircraft capable of making the trip. When you get to Italy your aircraft will be modified to the tropical version of the 88. Bigger air filters and other modifications for operations in the desert. You're going from deep cold to burning heat gentlemen, but take your greatcoats, it gets cold in the desert at night."

"Any more questions?"

"No? Very well, Johannes, you are now in command of 13. Staffel."

"13?" Boden asked.

"Yes, are you superstitious? If 13 is a bad omen, let it be a bad omen for the Tommies."

The assembled pilots laughed, Neugebauer made a good point.

Boden stood up, "As my first official act as Staffelkäpitan, I'm going to have the ground crew paint a witch on a broom on the nose of my aircraft. We shall be known as the die Hexenstaffel.⁴ Any objections?"

There were none, Boden started the unit on a high note, which Neugebauer approved of. It looked like his choice of commander was a good one.

Feldwebel Habicht looked up from his position to see Gefreiter Holweck waving at something. "What are you waving at, Alois?"

"I'm waving goodbye to Mother Russia, I'm waving goodbye to the snow, and I'm waving goodbye to the poor bastards who are stuck down there."

Boden was grinning behind his oxygen mask, his crew were very happy to be out of Russia, as was he. Most of the other pilots in the Hexenstaffel were as well, the one exception being Oberleutnant Hans Dorfmann. Dorfmann thought that he should have been given command of the provisional squadron. As he was a mediocre pilot, at best, none of the others thought he should be in command. His other "qualification" was that he was a Party member.

"You boys know how hot it is in Africa, right?" Oberfeldwebel Jürgens had transferred over from Ju 87s and had done a stint in Libya in '41.

"Does it snow there, Max?" Holweck asked.

"Well, in the Atlas Mountains it does. Those are in Algeria."

"And we're going to Libya, nicht wahr?" Holweck, again.

"Well yes ..."

"Do they build airfields in the mountains, Herr Oberfeldwebel?"

"That's enough, Alois, mind your guns and keep our tail clear." Boden decided that the crew was getting too chatty. Yes, they were behind their own lines now, but staying focused in wartime, no matter where you were flying, was one thing that might keep you alive.

A pair of Soviet LaGG-3 fighters
(Source)

Mládshiy leytenánt Marka Vyacheslavovich Kravchuk was getting tired, they were nearly at the extent of their range and had seen nothing. He was thinking of radioing his fellow lieutenant, Viktor Afanasievich Mukhortov, and suggesting they turn back to Soviet lines, when his own radio came to life.

"Bluebird Lead, Two, there's something out there, looks like a flight of twin engined aircraft. Two o'clock, low."

"Copy." Looking in that direction he didn't see anything at first, then he saw a flash of white against a darker mass, a forest from the look of it.

"I see them, 88s I think." He radioed back.

"Shall we?"

"Fiddlesticks, why not? Follow me in, Two!"

"Copy!"

Boden's aircraft was leading the left Kette of three aircraft, Schwartz flight. Leutnant Müller was leading the second Kette, Grau flight, which in this case had four aircraft and was flying the fighter pilot's standard "finger four" formation.

Holweck came on over the intercom, "There's two aircraft approaching from astern of Grau 4. Were we expecting an escort? They don't look like Messerschmitts."

Habicht looked back as well, "No, those are Ivans!"

Flieger Manfred Holzmann in Grau 4 had spotted the two aircraft at about the same time as Holweck in Schwartz 1. He spoke a single word into the intercom, "Indianer!" Then his gun began firing.

Holzmann's pilot, Oberfeldwebel Horst Weber, tensed up, hunching his shoulders and leaning forward as if to make himself a smaller target. He winced as the two Soviet fighters flashed by overhead, they were so close he swore he could have counted the rivets on the undersides of the enemy aircraft, had he been so inclined.

Weber's bombardier, Gefreiter Karl Schuler began firing as the enemy birds flew past. "HA!" he shouted over the intercom as one of the Ivans pulled up sharply, a thin trail of smoke coming from the LaGG's engine.

"Die, you Red bastard!" Weber blurted out.

Kravchuk was trying very hard to keep his dying aircraft in the air. When the engine temperature had nearly redlined, he turned it off and looked for a place to set the bird down.

He had seen Mukhortov's LaGG spin in, he had managed to damage one of the German bombers but had been hit by multiple gunners in the formation. When his vertical stabilizer snapped off, his aircraft had gone out of control. Kravchuk had enough trouble keeping himself airborne to see whether or not Mukhortov had jumped.

All he could do was continue to limp home.

He eventually made it to the Russian lines and was picked up by Russian infantry as he came down in his chute. They almost shot him, thinking he was German.

Swearing at the men in Russian, something Kravchuk was very good at, convinced the infantrymen that he was indeed a Soviet pilot.

Mukhortov had managed to jump. his chute swung twice before he hit the ground. Fortunately the snow broke his fall, from the feeling in his right side, he thought he might have a couple of broken ribs.

He saw that there was a road not far from where he had come down. He saw a column of black smoke to his south, probably his aircraft he realized.

When he reached the road, he tried to decide which way to turn, if there was a village nearby, they might take him in. They had been briefed that the partisans were active in this area. So he had some hope of rescue.

Then he heard a truck approaching, and his hopes died.

(Source)

Two men got down from the truck, both were carrying submachine guns and were wearing white camouflage. One of them actually had a white greatcoat, which surprised Mukhortov, he didn't think the Germans had such a thing, the other man had a Red Army issue white smock over his uniform.

Mukhortov stood in the road, his hands held over his head. The two Germans were laughing and pointing at him. He didn't speak German so he had no idea what they were talking about.

Then a chill ran up his spine as one of the men pointed his weapon at Mukhortov and said a word he understood, "Partizan.⁵"

Mukhortov held his hands in front of him in supplication, to no avail.

The Waffen SS troopers on anti-partisan operations behind the lines were ordered to shoot any Russian they caught in uniform. Neither man cared, nor recognized, that Mukhortov was wearing pilot's coveralls.

The German fired directly into Mukhortov's midsection, a short burst, he didn't want to kill him outright but leave him to die slowly.

Mukhortov hadn't prayed since he was a boy, but he prayed now. He knew he was hurt, he didn't know how badly. All he knew is that he wanted to live.

The partisans ambushed a small German truck, killing the driver and the passenger in the front seat. They riddled the tarp covering the back of the truck.

Inside they found two more men, one dying, the other already dead. So they finished the dying one. One of the men spat on the two corpses and muttered "Fascist pigs."

They moved off down the road in the direction from whence the truck had come. Shortly thereafter, one of them noticed a body beside the road. One of the men went to check.

"Tovarisch Politruk! It's one of ours, a pilot I think."

Politruk Pavel Yurievich Chekhov went over to the man beside the road and knelt next to him. Before the war he had been studying medicine, the fascist invasion had ended his studies. As he was a Party member, as were his parents, he was able to secure a posting as a political officer.

He, and many others, had been cut off in the summer of 1941. Their numbers had dwindled, from over 500 to a little over a hundred now, still they fought and tried to hurt the invaders when they could.

"Sava, the man is still alive!"

Stárshiy serzhánt⁶ Saveliy Filippovich Yermolovo went to the man, motioning three other men to join him. "Rig a stretcher, it isn't far to camp. Will he make it, Pasha?"

The Politruk shook his head and shrugged, then he opened up the pilot's thick coveralls. He was surprised to find that the man had one serious wound, in his side, the others were superficial. Most of the bullets had been absorbed by the thick life vest the pilot had on under his coverall.

"This has to be the luckiest bastard alive." Yermolovo exclaimed.

Chekhov gestured to the men carrying the pilot using a greatcoat with rifles through the sleeves and arranged as a primitive stretcher. "Let's go, it will be night soon."

The Hexenstaffel landed well short of their first day's objective. Though Oberfeldwebel Weber's aircraft had shot down one fighter, with a lot of assistance from the rest of the formation, the second aircraft had damaged his right engine.

"There's no way I'll make it to the objective field, Schwartz 1," he had radioed to Boden.

Habicht had checked his maps, "There's an He 111 field three kilometers from here, make your course 225 degrees, Johannes."

Boden had asked Weber if he could get there, after a quick consult with his navigator, and another scan of the engine instruments, he answered in the affirmative.

All seven aircraft made it down, the mechanics there indicated that they didn't have the right part for Weber's engine, but could have it by morning, provided the partisans behaved.

"Partisans?" Boden asked, a puzzled look on his face.

"Oh, the bastards are as thick as fleas on a dog in this area." The field's maintenance officer informed him. "They ambush our trucks all the time if they don't have an escort."

Boden was getting more and more pleased to be leaving Russia. It was cold, it was nasty, and the people were unforgiving. He briefed his crews to get some rest. As soon as Weber's bird was repaired, they'd be off.

But for now, they would spend another night in Mother Russia.

¹ Lieutenant Colonel

² Gentlemen

³ Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. High Command of the Armed Forces, the organization used by Hitler to control operations on the Eastern Front.

⁴ The Witch Squadron

⁵ Partisan is similar in both German, "Partisan" and Russian, "партизан." The word rendered above is how Kravchuk heard it, the Russian version.

⁶ Sergeant Major