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

WALTER SCHUCK Ѳ PETSAMO The Norwegian coast with all its fiords, inlets and pen­ insulas, extends for thousands of miles from the south to the north, on the shores of the Arctic Ocean and the Barents Sea. The climate varies from a moderate Nor­ dic climate in the south to a dramatic Arctic climate in the Far North. Today, Norway borders with Rus­ sia in the tundra region in the Far North. But in those days, Norway and the Soviet Union were geographi­ cally separated through a 20- to 40-mile wide Finn­ ish corridor which connected Finland with the ocean. Straight through this corridor, from the southwest to the northeast, cuts the river Petsamojoki, pouring its ice cold water into the Barents Sea. Just where the Pet­ samojoki widens into an inlet, lies the little town of Pet- samo (today Pechenga), situated on one of the world’s richest deposits of nickel. A bit farther southwest, and on the western side of the river, there is an ancient Six­ teenth Century Orthodox monastery on the top of a hill and in the middle of nowhere. A wide sand field below that hill was chosen by the Germans as the place for an improvised advanced Luftwaffe airfield. It would serve as Walter Schuck’s main base for the next two and a half years. The airfield had two runways. One simply was the plain sand and dirt ground, which was out of order in springtime because the melting snow made it soft and wet. The other one was a 60-foot wide and about 1,500- foot long row of plank, running between ten-feet high snow walls. The whole airfield was extremely primitive. The men’s quarters were Finnish Army tents - large tents with a rusty iron stove in the middle. Six men were billeted into each tent, each man allotted one-sixth of the circle inside the tent. The slush on the ground outside made the tent damp, and the burning heat from the iron oven contributed to create almost 100 per cent atmos­ pheric humidity inside the tent. This was - and still is - one of the most desolate regions in the world. Suffice to mention that Petsamo, the largest settlement in the Finnish corridor, had about two thousand inhabitants by this time - most of which had been evacuated due to the war. The closest town from Petsamo on the German-controlled side was Kirkenes, a Norwegian fishing harbour, also with slightly above two thousand inhabitants. In comparison, Soviet Murmansk with its population of 25,000 was huge. In their spare time, when they were rested between the periods of duty, the pilots had far less activities to choose between than they had been used to in France or the Netherlands. Sleeping or card playing were the main alternatives in service-free time. But Schuck would soon notice that here, among the “front pilots”, far from Ger­ many, the atmosphere was much different to the military units he had seen - more relaxed, and in a contradictory way less serious. He got a good insight into this when the pilots of 7./JG 5 were invited to a meal with the veterans of the 6th Staffel. T