Rybin, Y. Luftwaffe ace Walter Schuck researched / Christer Bergstrom, Yuriy Rybin. - Sweden : [s. l.], 2019. - 190 p. : ill.

WALTER SCHUCK to thirteen shot down Kittyhawks. Schuck was credited with the destruction of two. 20 GIAP reported that eight Me 109s had been shot down, but in reality there was not even a single loss to the Germans. Successes such as these were after all easy to explain since they were accomplished against pretty much infe­ rior Soviet aircraft types (with exception of the two Yak- 7Bs which were shot down on 24 September). On 26 September, Leutnant Friedrich Schumann of 9./JG 5 was posted as missing and another pilot was injured when he was shot down by ground fire. Early the next day, the naval Il-2s of 46 ShAP attacked the airfield at Petsamo and knocked out two liaison aircraft. A Schwarm from 7./JG 5 scrambled and pursued the attackers, claiming seven shot down - including three by Schuck’s old friend Feldwebel Helmut Klante. The month of October started with some good news to Schuck. On the first day of the month, he was pro­ moted to Oberfeldwebel. Four days later, on 5 October, an escort for the Jabostaffel’s Fw 190s resulted in a stiff combat with four of the new Yak-9s from 20 IAP/VVS SF. Two Fw 190s were lost, without the Me 109 pilots being able to attain any success. On 9 October, another escort mission for the Jabostaffel resulted in another scrap with the Yak fighters of 20 IAP/VVS SF. Leutnant Hans-Bodo Diepen of 8./JG 5 claimed a “LaGG-5” shot down. This definitely was a misidentification, since the first La-5s arrived in the Far North only one year later. Due to some strange coincidence, three of the four victo­ ries claimed by JG 5 during the first ten days of October 1943 were due to Leutnant Diepen. A few days later, the next German coastal convoy was despatched. On the night of 12/13 October, the Soviet submarine S-55 sank the armed transport ship Ammerland (with 5381 BRT) in the Porsanger fiord. At noon on the next day, II. and III./JG 5 were airborne with twenty-two Me 109s to protect the ships as these rounded the Varanger Peninsula’s north-eastern tip and turned south towards their destination, Kirkenes. At around one o'clock in the afternoon, the Soviet naval aviation attacked in several waves, the first of which consisted of six Il-2s of 46 ShAP/VVS SF. The bulk of the German fighters was tied into a stiff air combat with ten Yak-ls and Hurricanes from 20 IAP and 27 IAP. While the Germans claimed only one Soviet fighter shot down - a P-40 off Kiberg by Schuck - the Soviets actu­ ally lost two Yak-ls. Meanwhile, the Il-2s managed to damage the 3655-BRT transport ship Alsterdam through a 100kg bomb hit. 6./JG 5’s Theo Weissenberger and Oberleutnant Rudi Gloeckner managed to break through to the Il-2s only after their strike against the ships had been completed. Four Il-2s were reported shot down - three by Weissenberger - and four Il-2s also were hit, of which three managed to limp back to base with severe battledamage. Just as Weissenberger had bagged his third 11-2, the second Soviet attack wave approached - consisting of 29 BAP with six Pe-2s at 3,000 metres altitude, and an escort of nine Yak-9s from 20 IAP/VVS SF. The Mess- erschmitt pilots immediately hurled themselves against this new threat, and managed to prevent the Pe-2s from conducting a dive-bombing. Still, the Norwegian steamer Bark (817 BRT) was damaged by a bomb which exploded close to the ship. In return, one of the Petlyakov bombers was shot down. The Pe-2s had barely dropped their bombs before Schuck discovered the approach of three “Boston” tor­ pedo planes at 2,500 metres altitude. He alerted his Schwarm via radio and dived to attack the 9 GMTAP planes. The A-20s dropped their torpedoes, and then Schuck was in firing positions. He gave the closest “Bostons” repeated, short bursts with his cannon and machine guns, with the result that the whole fin was blown to pieces and the left engine started to smoke. A new burst of fire, and the right engine exploded, and this sent the A-20 plunging towards the grey waves below. With the loss of Kapitan Makarevich, 9 GMTAP was deprived of one of its few experienced torpedo fliers. Withal, 9 GMTAP sustained another heavy blow on this 13 October, with four A-20s shot down and only two returning to base, of which one was badly damaged. In addition to this, the escorting 255 IAP lost two Aira­ cobras, with both pilots perishing - the ace Kapitan Mikhail Kharlamov and his wingman, Mladshiy Leyt­ enant Yakov Suyarko. Kharlamov was credited with ten aerial victories on 156 combat missions. When Schuck and his mates in III./JG 5 returned to Petsamo, they could file a great victory: Schuck, a “P-40” and a “Boston” Leutnant Franz Dorr, a “Hampden” and an Airaco­ bra Oberfahnrich Vogel, a “Hampden” Unteroffizier Beth, an 11-2, an Airacobra and a “Hampden” + With the impending Polar winter with its 24-hour long nights and limited flight activity, a number of JG 5’s pilots were granted furloughs, and Schuck was lucky to be one among them. Last time he had left with a four-en- gined BV 222 flying boat, but this time he had to travel by road and railway. The first trip would be on the open floe of a truck, which would bring Schuck and a group of other men to Rovaniemi, the nearest railway station. Schuck knew it would be a tough ride - three hundred miles on an open floe in winter temperature. When he climbed onto the floe, he drew the laughter of the other men upon himself; Schuck had brought ten large paper sacks from the airfield’s kitchen, and he covered himself in three of those sacks and put a fourth - with holes made for his eyes - over his head. Half way from Petsamo to Rovaniemi, the truck column halted at a large storage camp, where the men would stay for the night. By that time the other men had stopped laughing. They had almost frozen stiff on the T