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

WALTER SCHUCK smoke. The jet headed for the deck with me in hot pur­ suit and Capt. Dick Tracy following close behind me. We chased the jet to an airfield. As I approached 1could see the airfield was loaded with all types of German air­ craft. 1called Dick and said ‘Do you see what I see?’ He said ‘Yes - lets go!’ The Me 262 had entered a bank of low stratus clouds and we broke off the chase and started to strafe the airfield.” After the war, many attempts have been made to identify the American fighter pilot who hit Schuck’s Me 262 with machine gun fire on this 10 April 1945. Several suggestions have been made. Some of these are based on the erroneous assumption that Schuck engaged the American bombers near Magdeburg, over eighty miles southwest of Oranienburg. However, it is clear that on this day, Schuck and his 3./JG 7 operated from Oranien­ burg, and engaged the 1st Air Division bombers which attacked Oranienburg. American fighter pilots claimed to have shot down no less than twenty Me 262s on this day - including three by pilots of the 20th FG. However, while none of these could apply to Schuck’s aircraft, no other American fighter pilot than Peterburs appears to come into ques­ tion for having shot down Schuck. Peterburs’s account, which he wrote without knowing anything about Walter Schuck, clearly describes the action of Walter Schuck. No other Me 262 pilot shot down several B-17s in a row over Oranienburg. The reason why no researcher previ­ ously has been able to identify Peterburs as the man who shot down Schuck is easily explained - Peterburs never reported any shot down down Me 262! In fact, it took almost sixty years before Peterburs even found out that he had shot down the Me 262. Let us allow Walter Schuck himself to continue the story, from his perspective: “Just when I had shot down the fourth bomber, I was attacked from the astern by a Mustang which came in from above. I noticed some hits in the left wing and turned to the right in a shallow dive with the Mustang pursuing me. I passed Berlin and after a while the left engine started to emit smoke. As I turned my head, I could see that I had managed to get away from the Mus­ tang. I decided to bail out. My first attempt to get out failed. The air current was too strong. I pulled the stick and climbed from 1,500 metres to 1,800 metres. Then I grabbed the handle with both hands and with one foot I kicked the stick to one corner of the cockpit. The result was that the Me 262 tipped its nose and I was flung out of the cabin. Floating in the airspace, I entered a flat spin. As I rotated, my right arm extended in 90 degrees from the body, and the G forces were too strong to permit me to pull it back. Only by grabbing the sleeve of my leather jacket with my left hand was I able to pull back my right arm, so that I could pull the handle which enveloped the parachute. In the meantime, I had descended to only around 500 metres altitude. The jerk when the parachute unfolded above my head came only a few metres above the ground. Looking down I could see a field with a barbed wire fence which came closer and closer. Desperately, I kicked in the air and pulled the strings of the parachute. The parachute tipped over and I barely dived over the barbed wire. I flung my feet forward and violently hit the ground, spraining both ankles. Although I was in a state of shock, I quickly pulled the parachute together. I had heard that the American fighter pilots would come down to strafe bailed out pilots, aiming at their white parachutes. Then I just lay down.” Schuck did not know for how long he had been lying on that wet field when he suddenly noticed a motion about a hundred yards away. He rose and saw a man on a horse-drawn two-wheel chariot on the dirt road. Schuck yelled at him: “Help! Help me!” But either the man didn’t hear him or he would not listen. In any case, he whipped his horse and went off. A little later a man with a white hat - the same kind of hat which bakers use - appeared on a bicycle. Schuck rose on his hurting feet, which by now had started to swollen up, and screamed: “Hey, baker boy, help me!” The man stopped, stepped down from his bicycle, looked at Schuck’s direction and called back: “I am not a baker boy. I am a miller!” Since the man remained standing at the fence, Schuck limped across to him and was helped across the barbed wire. Then the miller brought Schuck, sitting on the parachute which he had placed on the bicycle’s baggage carrier, to his mill. His wife made “coffee” on maize for Schuck and gave him maize cookies to eat. Afterward, the miller took Schuck to the main road to Berlin, where they stopped an Army truck which was heading for Berlin. Still carrying along the parachute - probably because of his state of shock - Schuck found himself at the door of his former girlfriend in Berlin. Her very surprised mother let him in. “Walter,” she said, “it’s all over! The war is lost!” T