The Mammoth Book of Fighter Pilots (23 page)

There are many good squadrons on the front, but there is only one Richthofen group. And now I see the secret of their success unfold.

Other squadrons live in castles or small towns, twenty to thirty kilometers behind the front lines. The Richthofen group dwells in corrugated shacks that can be erected and broken down in a matter of hours. They are rarely more than twenty kilometers behind the foremost outposts. Other squadrons go up two or three times a day. Richthofen and his men fly five times a day. Others close down operations in bad weather; here they fly under almost any condition.

However, the biggest surprise for me is the forward combat airstrips. This was an invention of Boelcke, the senior master of the German air service. Richthofen, his most gifted pupil, has taken this practice over.

Just a few kilometers behind the lines, often within range of the enemy artillery, we are on fully dressed standby, lounging in reclining chairs in an open field. Our aircraft, gassed up and ready to go, are right alongside. As soon as an opponent appears on the horizon, we go up – one, two, or an entire
staffel.
Immediately after the fight we land, stretch out in our reclining chairs, and scour the sky with binoculars, waiting for the next opponent. Standing patrols are not flown. Richthofen doesn’t believe in them. He’ll allow only patrols into the enemy’s rear areas. “This business of standing sentry duty in the air weakens the pilots’ will to fight,” he maintains. Thus we only go up to fight.

I arrive at the group at ten o’clock, and at twelve I’m already off on my first sortie with Jasta 11. In addition, Jastas 4, 6, and 10 make up the group.
¹⁰
Richthofen himself leads Jasta 11. He puts great store in personally trying out each new man. There are five of us, the captain in the lead. Behind him are Just and Gussmann. Scholtz and I bring up the rear. For the first time I fly the Fokker triplane. We skim over the pockmarked landscape at about five hundred meters altitude.

Above the ruins of Albert, just below the clouds, hangs an RE, a British artillery spotter. Probably ranging his batteries. We are a bit lower than he, but he apparently hasn’t noticed us, because he quietly continues to circle. I exchange a quick look with Scholtz; he nods. I separate from the
staffel
and race for the “Tommy.”

I take him from the front. From below I dart for him like a shark and fire at short range. His engine is riddled like a sieve. He tilts over at once and disintegrates right after. The burning fragments fall close to Albert.

In another minute, I am back with the formation and continue on in the direction of the enemy. Scholtz nods at me again, quickly and happily. But the captain has noticed. He seems to have eyes everywhere. His head whips around, and he waves at me.

Below to our right is the Roman road. The trees are still bare, and through them one can see columns move. They are moving westward. British retreating before our offensive.

Just above the treetops skims a flight of Sopwith Camels. They are probably there to protect the Roman road, one of the main arteries of the British withdrawal. I hardly have time to take in the picture when Richthofen’s red Fokker dives down, all of us following. The Sopwith Camels scatter like a gaggle of chickens when the hawk stabs. Only one can’t get away, the one the captain has in his gunsights.

It happens so quickly, one can hardly speak of a fight. For a moment one thinks the captain might ram him, he is that close. I estimate no more than ten meters. Then the Sopwith is shaken by a blow. His nose is pushed down, a white gasoline trail appears, and he crashes in the field alongside the road in smoke and flames.

Richthofen, the steel point of our wedge formation, continues on in a steep glide toward the Roman road. At a height of about ten meters he races along the ground, both machine guns firing without letup into the marching columns on the road. We stay behind him and pour out more fire.

A paralyzing terror seems to have seized the troops; only a few make for the ditches. Most fall where they walk or stand. At the end of the road, the captain makes a tight turn and proceeds with another pass along the treetops. Now we can clearly observe the effect of our first strafing run: bolting horse teams, abandoned guns which, like breakwaters, stem the oncoming human flood.

This time we receive some return fire from below. Infantrymen stand there, rifles pressed to the cheek, and from the ditch a machine gun barks up to us. But the captain does not come up one single meter because of this, even though his wing planes are taking bullet holes. We are flying and firing close behind him. The entire
staffel
is a body subject to his will. And this is as it should be.

He leaves off the road and begins to climb. We follow. At five hundred meters we head home and land at about one o’clock. It was Richthofen’s third sortie of the morning.

As my machine touches down, he is already standing on the airstrip. He comes toward me with a smile playing around his thin lips.

“Do you always bring them down with frontal attacks, Udet?” he asks. There is a hint of approval in his tone.

“I have had repeated success that way,” I say as offhandedly as I can manage.

He grins again and turns to go. “By the way, you can take charge of Jasta 11 starting tomorrow,” he says over his shoulder.

I already knew that I was to receive command of a
staffel
but the form of the announcement comes as somewhat of a surprise. Scholtz slaps me on the back. “Boy, are you in with the
Rittmeister.
”

“You couldn’t prove it by me,” I reply a bit grumbly.

But this is the way it is. One must get used to the fact that his approval will always come in an objective manner without the least trace of sentiment. He serves the idea of the Fatherland with every fiber of his being and expects nothing less from all his fliers. He judges a man by what he accomplishes to that end and also, perhaps, by his qualities as a comrade. He who passes this judgment, he backs all the way. Whoever fails, he drops without batting an eyelash. Whoever shows lukewarm on a sortie has to leave the group – on the same day.

Richthofen certainly eats, drinks, and sleeps like everyone else. But he does so only to fight. When food supplies run short, he sends Bodenschatz, the very model of an adjutant, to the rear in a squadron hack to requisition what is needed. On these occasions, Bodenschatz takes along an entire collection of autographed photos of Richthofen. “Dedicated to my esteemed fighting companion,” read the inscriptions. In the rear area supply rooms these photos are highly valued. At home, in the taverns, they can reduce an entire table round to respectful silence. At the group, however, sausage and ham never run out.

A few delegates from the Reichstag
¹¹
have announced that they are coming for a visit. Toward evening they arrive in a large limousine. They proceed with great ceremony, filled with the gravity of the moment. One of them even wears tails, and when he bows, they wave like the back feathers of a wagtail. At the supper table they talk so much that a flier can get a toothache.

“When you sit in your machine, flying out to meet the enemy,
Herr Baron
. . .” begins one of them. Richthofen sits there listening with a stony face.

After a bottle of wine they speak of heroic youth and Fatherland. We sit around the table with downcast eyes. Without finding the words, we feel that such things should not be overly much talked about. Then the gentlemen are shown to their sleeping quarters. They sleep in the small, corrugated shacks, just like the rest of us. In this way they’ll be able to report their impressions from up front back home.

We stand around in groups until the lights are dimmed behind the small windows. “Actually,” says Maushacke, called “Mousetooth,” “we should give them an opportunity to experience a little more of the war, since they’re only going to be here until tomorrow.” Scholtz winks with his right eye and says laconically: “Air raid,” nothing else. We understand at once.

A ladder is brought and carefully placed against the hut in which the delegates are sleeping. Silent as a cat, Wolff clambers up to the chimney with Very pistols and blank detonating ammunition, called fliers’ fards.

From the interior of the hut comes a rattling, crackling, and the hollow bang of a detonation. Immediately after, a lot of shouting. The moon is full. We stand in the dark shade of the other huts as the door opens and three shapes in flapping white nightshirts emerge. The captain laughs until tears run down his cheeks. “Aerial attack! Back into the huts,” thunders a stentorian voice out of the night, and the three shapes disappear behind the door again at a dead run.

Next morning, they are in a hurry to go on. They aren’t even having breakfast with us. We continue to laugh for a long time. Fun is thinly sown out here, and once a prank hits the bull’s-eye, we continue to laugh for a long time. Even later, near the end of the war, when we fought like drowning swimmers, this did not change.

I think of our prisoner in Bernes. Lothar von Richthofen, the captain’s brother, has brought down another one. He’s an English major, and he came down just alongside our encampment. There is no infantry near, so we keep the prisoner with us.

At supper, he appears at the casino with Richthofen and is presented to everyone. He’s a long drink of water, a bit fancy, but sporting in appearance. He affects a courteous reserve; in short, a gentleman. We talk about horses, dogs, and airplanes. We don’t talk of the war. The Englishman is our guest, and we don’t want to give him the impression that he is being pumped for information.

In the middle of the conversation he whispers to his neighbor, then he rises and walks out.

Lothar looks after him, a bit worried.

“Where is he going?”

“ ‘I beg your pardon, where is the W.C.?’ he asked,” replies Mousetooth.

For a moment there is an embarrassed silence. The little hut in question is almost three minutes distant at the end of the ravine in which the camp is located. Beyond it are the woods. It will not be difficult for an athlete to reach freedom from there.

There are conflicting opinions. Maushacke, the well-fed Brunswicker, is the most enterprising. He wants to go out and stand alongside the Englishman. This could be done without too much ado. But Lothar disagrees. “We have treated the man as a guest thus far and he has done nothing to cast doubt on his good manners.” But the tension remains. After all, we are responsible for the prisoner. If he gets away, there’ll be hell to pay.

Someone steps to the window to look after the Englishman. In seconds six or eight are grouped around him. I’m there too. The Englishman walks across the open ground in long strides. He stops, lights a cigarette, and looks around. All of us immediately sink into a deep knee bend. Our hospitality is sacred, and our suspicion might offend him.

He disappears behind the pineboards of the outhouse. The boards don’t reach to the ground, and we can see his brown boots. This is reassuring.

But Mauschacke’s suspicions are awakened.

“Boys,” he yaps almost breathlessly, “he no longer stands in his boots. He has gone over the rear wall in his stocking feet and is off and gone. The boots couldn’t stand like this at all, if . . .”

He demonstrates to how the boots should be deployed during this kind of business.

The Englishman reappears from behind the wall. Bent low, we creep back to our seats. As he re-enters, we talk of horses, dogs, and airplanes.

“I would never forgive myself for disappointing such hosts,” says the English major with a small smile around the corners of his mouth. We thank him seriously and ceremoniously.

Next morning, a short, bushy-bearded reservist calls for the prisoner, who turns around often to wave at us.

Five days later Meyer brings curious news from Ghent. An Englishman has overpowered his guard and escaped in a German uniform. From the toilet of a moving express train. His guard was found there, locked in.

“Was it a major?” asks Mousetooth excitedly.

“Are you clairvoyant?” asks Meyer. “It sure was, an Air Force major.”

“So, he used the W.C. after all,” shouts Mousetooth.

Meyer looks around with surprise. We all laugh until our jaws ache.

Sometimes we fly alone, sometimes with the entire
staffel
, but we fly every day. Almost every day brings a fight. On March 28 I am under way with Gussmann. A patrol toward Albert. It is afternoon, and the sun already stands in the west. Its glaring light bites at the eyes. From time to time, the light must be screened off with the thumb so that the horizon may be searched for the enemy. Otherwise you’ll be surprised. The late Guynemer has taught his lessons to the entire front. Suddenly, an Englishman is above us anyway. He comes down on Gussmann, who avoids him by diving. A hundred meters below I see them maneuvering around. I watch for a spot where I can take the Englishman without hitting Gussmann.

I lift my head for a moment and see a second Englishman making for me. He is barely 150 meters off. At eighty meters he opens fire. It is impossible to avoid him, so I go straight toward him. Tack . . . tack . . . tack bellows mine at him, tack . . . tack . . . tack bellows his back at me.

We are still twenty meters apart, and it looks as though we will ram each other in another second. Then, a small movement, and he barely skims over me. His propwash shakes me, and the smell of castor oil flows past me.

I make a tight turn. “Now begins the dogfight,” I think. But he has also turned, and again we come at each other, firing like two tournament knights with lances at rest. This time I fly over him.

Another bank. Again, he is straight across from me, and once more we go for each other. The thin, white trails of the tracers hang in the air like curtains. He skims over me with barely a hand’s width to spare . . . “8224” it says on his fuselage in black numerals.

The fourth time. I can feel my hands getting damp. That fellow over there is a man who is fighting the fight of his life. Him or me . . . one of us has to go . . . there is no other way. For the fifth time! The nerves are taut to the bursting point, but the brain works coldly and clearly. This time the decision must fall. I line him up in my sights and go for him. I am resolved not to give an inch.