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

WALTER SCHUCK A Petlyakov Pe-2 dive-bomber at Vayenga-1 in the summer o f 1942. second man jumped out. He fell and fell, without being able to open his parachute. Then suddenly the burning Pe-2 was torn apart by a violent explosion. Apparently, the aircraft’s own bombs had detonated. Pavlovich and his two crew members, Serzhants V. G. Degtyaryev and Pokosov were all killed. When the three Me 109 pilots landed at Kirkenes afterward, Schuck was credited with the confirmed destruction o f one Pe-2. However, he had damaged a second, and Soviet records show that in fact 29 BAP lost two Pe-2s in that air combat. Badly hit by fire from an Me 109, Shturman I. N. Kornyushkin’s Pe-2 - with the crew members Serzhant G. N. Gora and Mladshiy Serzhant Markov - crashed into the sea. Only Shturman Ilchenko’s Pe-2 survived Schuck’s attacks. During the following weeks, Kirkenes was saved from any further attackls by 95 IAP. Between 16 and 31 July 1942, the German fighter pilots at Kirkenes made ten scrambles - each resulting in a flight of between five and thirty minutes, and in only one case encountered any enemy aircraft. It is quite possible that the posting to Kirkenes saved Schuck from the harsh fate of spending many years as a Soviet prisoner of war. Schuck hardly could believe what he heard when the Gruppenkommandeur, Major Scholz, one day arrived at Kirkenes and told him that three of the pilots in 7./JG 5 - Unteroffizier Werner Schumacher, Unteroffizier Kurt Philipp and Leutnant Bodo Helms - all were missing from the same flight. As Schuck learned much later, the background was the following: In early August 1942, the Germans and their Finnish allies attempted to achieve a breakthrough in the Kestenga-Loukhi sector, south of Kandalaksha Bay, over 200 miles south of Murmansk. A Waffen-SS unit was despatched to capture a launch­ ing area in the hills in the sector. The war in the desolate Karelian primevial forests was fought between quite small forces on each side - the roads were not sufficient to supply any larger forces. So even fairly small elements could achieve significant results. But the SS troops became bogged down by a fierce Soviet resistance, so support from the Luftwaffe was called in. However, the Luftwaffe also was beaten back. An Hs 126 of l.(H)/32 and two 4./JG 5 Me 109s that set out for a reconnaissance mission above the Soviet lines near Kestenga, on 2 August was attacked by three Hurricanes from 760 IAP. All three German planes were shot down against a single Soviet loss. Next day the small Luft­ waffe detachment at Pontsalenjoki, a landing strip in the middle of the forest southwest of Loukhi, was attacked by six 11-2 Shturmoviks from 17 GShAP, escorted by six LaGG-3 and two Hurricanes from 609 IAP. The 17 GShAP pilots, who were honored to introduce the 11-2 in the Far North, pressed home their attack with devastat- T