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

WALTER SCHUCK The Sovietfighter ace Mayor Aleksandr Zaytsev, whom Schuckfought in the air combat on 28 May 1942 - two days prior to Zaytsev’s death. thus rendering the nickname “Iron Dog”. While Kutak- hov and his Airacobra pilots struggled to turn back and gain altitude to fight the Messerschmitts, the pilots in the slow Hurricanes were ordered to form a defensive circle. At an altitude of 500 meters - about fifteen hundred feet - Schuck’s Me 109 had regained speed, and its pilot had gained full control again. Below and behind him, he saw how the seven Hurricanes started to form a Lufbery. But three Hurricanes lagged behind the rest and had not yet been able to join in. Schuck took the last of the Daim­ ler Benz engine in his own fighter. He knew that he had much more power than the tired Hurricane, and as he raced towards the three last Hurricanes, they broke off in different directions. Schuck picked one and opened fire. The Hurricane veered, but Schuck, reducing the speed of his Messerschmitt fighter, turned to follow. The Hur­ ricane filled his windscreen and he opened fire with all guns. The Hurricane was placed only forty to fifty yards in front of him. He could see flashes light up all over the Hurricane where his bullets hit home. Then the Soviet fighter went down and crashed. All of this took place just thirty to ninety feet above the ground, and Schuck became aware that the dogfight had left him flying very slowly just slightly above the ground. In that moment tracer bullets passed his cockpit. Schuck immediately banked to the left, and when the shooting stopped he looked backward. There he saw Left, Oberleutnant RudolfLiiders, right Hauptmann Hans-Curt Graf von Sponeck, Petsamo, summer 1942. nothing but another Me 109 - Steinbach’s! Had he con­ fused Schuck’s Me 109 with a Soviet fighter? Again Schuck switched on the transmission button and cried: “Stop shooting at me!” This time, the radio worked. Back came Steinbach’s reply: “I am not shooting at you. I just shot down the Rus­ sian which sat on your tail!”In that moment, the cold sweat returned on Schuck’s forehead. Next, the voice of Leutnant Liiders - who still was up at 3,000 metres altitude, fully unaware of what had happened - was heard in Schuck’s headphones. Liiders called Schuck and Steinbach and ordered them to close in, since Liiders had observed an air combat below. “Two planes have already been destroyed down there,” Liiders announced. “Well, those were through us, and now we are returning to base,” Steinbach replied. Then he could not help adding: “Herr Leutnant, why didn’t you come down? They were using live ammunition!” At full speed, Walter Schuck and Richard Steinbach left the Soviet aircraft behind and flew straight back to base. Mayor Kutakhov returned to his base at Murmashi, where he filed an unsubstantiated claim for an Me 109, recorded as his second victory. T