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

WALTER SCHUCK ф THE END Walter Schuck would fly no more combat missions. Back at Oranienburg, where he arrived at ten o’clock in the evening, he found everything in a state of disorder. But what troubled him most was that the bottle of brandy which he had saved for a special occasion had been emp­ tied. His compatriots excused themselves by saying that they had emptied it in the belief that Schuck had been killed. A few days later, JG 7 received instructions to trans­ fer to the airfield at Rusin near Prague. With his two sprained ankles, Schuck travelled the long road to Prague together with the ground personnel in a bus. During one intermediary stop, he bumped into an old acquaintance, Hauptmann Jung from Saarbrticken - the officer who had accompanied General Schulz when Schuck was awarded the Knight’s Cross in Pontsalenjoki, and who had arranged Schuck’s furlough. When Schuck arrived at Prague, bad news awaited him. Oberfeldwebel Heinz Arnold, his old Eismeerjager friend, was reported miss­ ing after the transfer flight to Prague. In asfar as fuel was available, the Me 262 pilots con­ tinued to fly and fight from Prague, although everyone by that time understood that the war was practically lost. On 1 May 1945, the Gauleiter of Bohemia-Moravia arrived at the airfield. With tears running down his face, he announced: “The Fiihrer is dead!” Schuck gathered the men of his Staffel in the school house where they were billeted. They all agreed that the war was more or less over. A Leutnant from Vienna who recently had been posted to Schuck’s Staffel started cracking jokes. He went absolutely crazy, jumping onto a table and imitating a gorilla. Clearly, not everyone mourned the death of Hitler. Unrest broke out in Czechoslovakia as the Czech pop­ ulation rose against their occupiers. On 6 May, the airfield at Rusin was subject to shelling. No lives were claimed, but around a dozen Me 262s were destroyed. Next day, JG 7 escaped to Saaz closer to the German border. At around two o’clock in the afternoon on 8 May 1945, a Fieseler Storch landed at Saaz. Schuck came to meet the crew. A General climbed out of the aircraft and asked for the oldest officer at the airfield. Schuck showed him the building where the bomber fliers were billeted. As the General walked towards the house, Schuck noticed that he had had the red stripes on his trousers removed. After a while, the General returned. As he climbed back into the Storch, he turned to Schuck and said: “I have to inform you that tonight at 00 hours the war is over and lost. Make sure that you get to Germany!” “Where?” Schuck asked, surprised at the uncom­ monly vague order. “Where?” The General shrugged his shoulders: “You ought to know!” There was a mood of leave-taking. The whole air­ field - including civilian Germans who had sought ref­ T