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

WALTER SCHUCK 9./JG 5 at Petsamo, September 1943. Back rowfrom the left: Unteroffizier Pfenning, Unter­ offizier Hermann Amend, Unteroffizier Alfred Stolle, Walter Schuck. Front rowfrom the left: Feldwebel Oskar Timm, Leutnant Horst Stephan, Hauptmann Hans Hermann Schmidt, Leutnant Fritz Konig and Leutnant Werner Gayko. open floe. The next morning, when the final half of the trip to Rovaniemi was to be made, they asked him to borrow the sacks. Schuck handed over two sacks but kept the rest for himself. In Rovaniemi, Schuck caught a train which would bring him to Helsinki. During the long train journey through Finland, Finnish soldiers entered the train on each station. Soon the train was filled with Finnish sol­ diers, many of whom were anything but sober. One of them, a gigantic soldier, was particularly unpleasant. He demanded alcohol from everyone else. He approached Schuck too and demanded in a hoarse voice: “Alcohol! Alcohol!” Schuck made a gesture to indicate that he had none, but that would not satisfy the Finnish soldier. “Perkele, perkele, ” he cursed and started rummag­ ing about in Schuck’s kit. With a triumphant look on his face, the Finnish soldier then pulled out a bottle and read in broken German: “Dralle Birkenhaarwasser”. Hair lotion! Uttering some incomprehensible words in Finn­ ish, the giant opened the bottle, put it to his lips, bent his head backward and emptied the whole bottle. Fearing for the consequences, Schuck stared at the soldier. But nothing happened. “Kiitos - thank you,” the large Finn said and trotted out to the next compartment. A ferry brought Schuck and other soldiers to the Estonian port of Tallinn. There he boarded the Wehr- macht’s Berlin train. By that time, Schuck was so tired that he did not bother to study the landscape which passed outside the train. At one place, however, where the train made a short break, local peasants were offer­ ing geese for sale. Schuck bought two and put them in two of the remaining paper sacks. In Berlin, he visited his girlfriend - the girl whom he had met during the Kinderverschickung at Seebad Ahl- beck on the Baltic Sea coast. Her mother was very happy to receive the two geese, which was a very rare luxury in Germany in those days. Schuck spent three wonderful days with his girlfriend in Berlin. Although some parts of Berlin had been quite heavily hit by British air attacks in the summer of 1943, Schuck saw almost nothing of any bomb damage. His mind was occupied with any­ thing but the war. Walter Schuck celebrated the Christmas with his family in Oberbexbach in the Saar. It felt like before the war, or if there was no war at all. His younger brother Heinz was there as well, as were both his parents and his two sisters. When Schuck departed for his return trip to the front, he had exceeded his furlough by two days. At the railway station in Berlin where he was about to change to the train which would bring him to Tallinn, the Mili­ tary Police - the Feldgendarmerie - was making a scru- tinous control of all soldiers’ papers. One of the MPs - called “Chain Dogs” because of the big metal shield T