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

WALTER SCHUCK О IN THE DEFENCE OF THE OWN BASE The Soviets soon gave the German airmen other worries. In February 1943, General-Mayor Aleksandr Kuznetsov, VVS SF’s commander, was instructed to divert his forces against Luftflotte 5’s airfields. By this time, his bomber units had been much worn down through two months of operations against German coastal convoys.Instead, 7 VA’s 258 IAD - reformed into 258 SAD - was allocated to VVS SF to carry out those attacks. This Diviziya fea­ tured one of Schuck’s old acquaintancies, 19 GIAP, and 17 GShAP - which brought the first 11-2 Shturmoviks into action in the Far North. The Diviziya commander, Podpolkovnik Georgiy Refshneyder-Kalugin - who formerly had led 19 GIAP - decided to focus against Petsamo aerodrome. The new air offensive opened on 28 February 1943, when Refshneyder-Kalugin sent out 195 IAP with six Kittyhawk fighter-bombers - each carrying one FAB- 100 - escorted by 19 GIAP with six Airacobras and two Kittyhawks. Alerted by air surveillance posts, Schuck, Widow­ itz and their wingmen scrambled from Petsamo. They climbed high, and had reached about 5,500 meters when they spotted the six Kittyhawk fighter-bombers below. The Germans dived to attack, and when the fight­ er-bombers saw them, they too put the noses of their aircraft down. The wild dive, with the Me 109s firing at the Kittyhawks, brought the aircraft down to the area just above the airfield’s dispersal area. Disregarding the friendly fighters above, the German antiaircraft guns opened up against the Kittyhawks, which now dropped their bombs. In a hellish scene of tracer bullets going in all directions, explosions on the ground, smoke and fire, and diving and turning Kittyhawks, Schuck turned to follow a Kittyhawk. He flew straight into a billow­ ing black smoke cloud from fire on the ground, and lost sight of the Kittyhawk. Then suddenly there were other Soviet fighters coming down from above. These were the Airacobras and Kittyhawks from 19 GIAP, led by Mayor Pavel Kutakhov. A whirling dogfight raged for more than twenty minutes before both sides withdrew with empty guns. In such a confused combat it is extremely difficult to make a correct assessment of the combat results. The thick smoke and the bomb explosions on the ground, and the high speed in which the dogfight was performed, caused Schuck and Widowitz to assume that they had shot down one Soviet fighter each. This time, however, the Soviet airmen managed to escape without any loss. Nevertheless, Starshiy Serzhant Churin returned with a bullet injury in his hand and sixty holes in his Kitty­ hawk, and Mayor Kutakhov’s Airacobra featured five holes. On 1 March, 17 GShAP’s Il-2s went into action - with eight of these, escorted by seven Airacobras and seven Kittyhawks. This was the first time the 11-2 was used in the Far North, and ten German casualties were T