Abschuss!: Von der Me 109 zur Me 262 (Gebundene Ausgabe)

Lieutenant Walter Schuck. He shot down 206 enemy aircraft in more than 500 combat missions, of which he scored 8 in the jet fighter Messerschmitt Me 262. His skills have reached April 10, 1945! In his Messerschmitt Me 262 he shot down 4 B-17 bombers.

Walter Schuck was born on July 30, 1920 in Frankenholz / Saar. At an early age, he discovered his passion for aviation and, at the age of 16, applied for service in the Luftwaffe. This is followed by recruiting, gliding and technical school, pilot and pilot school. Then he comes to the supplementary group of the Jagdgeschwader 3 and moves with this unit to the most diverse Einsatzhorsten in Germany, to France, Poland, Holland and Denmark. In December 1941 his squadron is renamed to 7th / JG 5 and shortly thereafter moved from Esbjerg, Denmark to Bodö in Norway. His steep career with the Eismeerjägern begins only in the spring of 1942, when the squadron arrives at their destination in Petsamo, Northern Finland. There he scored his first aerial victory on May 15, 1942, and soon became a nightmare for the Russian air force in the far north: he scored 34 kills in April 1943 and over 60 in the fall of 1943. He won his 84th air victory in early April 1944 awarded the Knight's Cross. He scores his 100th kill on June 15, 1944, and no less than 48 hours later, he achieves 12 kills in one day, a feat no other Ice Sea hunter should achieve. In August 1944, he was promoted to lieutenant for bravery against the enemy and appointed squadron commander of the 10th / 5th JG. He received the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross in September 1944, and in November 1944 he was promoted to First Lieutenant. At the beginning of March 1945, squadron commander Theodor Weissenberger took him into the Jagdgeschwader 7 equipped with the new Me 262 jet fighters. There, Walter Schuck continued his successful series, shooting two Allied fighters on his first mission with the turbo-fighter and becoming squadron commander of the 3./JG 7. Unreached, however, is his performance in the dogfight of April 10, 1945, when he firing his Me 262 in a flight four bombers B -17. Shortly thereafter, his machine is hit by an escort of the Flying Fortresses. An engine explodes, he has to get out and gets hurt. For Walter Schuck, this is the end of the war after more than 500 front flights and 206 confirmed aerial victories. He was respected by his comrades for his flying skills, courage and bravery. However, because of his chivalry, Walter Schuck was worshiped in aerial combat and deep compassion for downed, injured or captured aviator comrades. These qualities earned him the approving surnames "Northern Knight" and "Eagle of the Tundra". In this autobiography, the author is not concerned with a transfiguring return in the sense of false aviation romance. It does not provide explanatory models for retroactively letting the Third Reich appear in a milder light, nor does it formulate generalities with the aim of belittling National Socialism. Rather, he confined himself deliberately to the documentation of the military everyday history: How was the reality of life in the associations of the Air Force, how were they functionally involved, how ran the combat missions under the harsh conditions of the war on the Arctic Ocean and the hopeless air battles in the Reich? In a captivating language, the author offers in the best sense of the word narrative history from the point of view of a young aviator, who came from below, within a short time reached military honors and rose to the famous fighter pilots. He shows the self-understanding, which we can barely comprehend today, with which he and his comrades used their lives every day for "people and fatherland" in order to finally discover that their motivations had been abused and that they belonged to a betrayed generation , Thus, the author of the past and provides with this incredibly fact-rich autobiography a contribution to the history of the Luftwaffe in the 3rd Reich.

Hardcover: 248 pages

Dimensions: 29 x 23.4 x 2.6 cm

Language: German