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

WALTER SCHUCK FACTS 7 1/LT JOSEPH PETERBURS, THE MUSTANG PILOT WHO “GOT” SCHUCK Joseph Peterburs enlisted in the US Army Air Corps on 30 November 1942, five days after his 18th birthday. Selected for fighter pilot training, he graduated as a 2nd Lieutenant fighter pilot on 15 April 1944 - 19 years old. The French luxary liner Isle de France brought Peterburs to Scotland on 9 November 1944. Together with six other pilots, he was posted to US 8th Air Force’s 20th Fighter Group. Peterburs was assigned to the Group’s 55th Fighter Squadron. Of the 145 pilots that rotated through the squadron during the war, 53 (37%) were shot down. Nineteen were either captured or evaded, while 33 (23%) were killed. When Peterburs arrived, he was told that the average combat life span was 167 combat hours. A normal combat tour for a US fighter pilot had been 270 hours and was raised to 300 combat hours just prior to Peterburs’s arrival. His first combat mission was flown in a P-51B on 12 December 1944. Later he received a P-51D which he named “Josephine” after his fiance and later wife. On 10 April 1945, the 20th Fighter Group was escorting 430 B-17’s of the 1st Bomber Division that were to attack an aircraft assembly factory and an ordinance depot in the Oranienburg area. Promoted to 1st Lieutenant, Joe Peterburs was in “B” group led by Capt. Riemensnider. It was his 49th mission and Peterburs filled the #4 position in Black flight flying wing to Capt Dick Tracy. After the war, Joseph and Josephine were married, on 13 June 1945. By coincidence, Joseph Peterburs is related to two Second World War Luftwaffe fighter pilots - Knight’s Cross holder Hans Peterburs and Heinrich Peterburs. The background is the following: John Frank Peterburs had two sons, Johannes and Georg. One of Johannes’s sons, Johann, was the father of the Luftwaffe fighter pilots Hans Peterburs and Heinrich Peterburs. One of Georg’s , sons Wilhelm B.emigrated to the USA in 1906. Wilhelm, was the father of US fighter pilot Joseph Peterburs. Thus, the Joseph Peterburs was a cousin of the Luftwaffe fighter pilots Hans Peterburs and Heinrich Peterburs. Did they ever meet in air combat? Hans Peterburs, who was credited with 18 aerial victories, was killed in action on 11 January 1944, before Joseph entered combat. However, Hans’s younger brother Heinrich was shot down and killed when he attempted to intercept bombers of US 8th Air Force on 7 or 8 April 1945. On both those occasions, Joseph Peterburs was part of the American escort force, although he did not shoot down any German aircraft. The remains of Joseph Peterburs’s P-51D, Serial No. 44-15078, which was shot down on 10 April 1945, was located and excavated in 1998. For many years, various researchers have attempted to identify the US fighter pilot who shot down Walter Schuck. Several “candidates” have been suggested, but no one thought of Joe Peterburs. The reason is simple - Peterburs did not notice that the Me 262 which he hit on 10 April 1945 actually was shot down. Besides, Peterburs himself got shot down and captured during that same mission. However, a close comparison of Peterburs’s combat report reveals that no other American pilot than him could come into question. The time, the location, and - above all - the circumstances together form clear evidence. Peterburs attacked and hit an Me 262 which previously had shot down several (at least two) B-17s near Oranienburg, and no other Me 262 pilot than Walter Schuck shot down several B-17s in a row over Oranienburg on that occasion. T