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

WALTER SCHUCK officer who spoke some Russian he was introduced to his defeater. Schuck, who had not yet had his breakfast, invited the two men to share a meal with him. By this time, the Germans at Petsamo still were very well sup­ plied. Showing a very sceptical face, the Soviet pilot accepted the white bread and the bean coffee offered by Schuck. The Soviet refused to believe that the Germans could enjoy such luxury food. Schuck failed to convince him that it was not a special benefit because Schuck had managed to shoot down a Soviet plane. When Schuck told him that he had been his vic­ tory number 35, the Soviet pilot just shook his head. Afterward, they showed the Soviet pilot the unit’s vic­ tory board in the mess, without managing to create any impression on the Soviet pilot - who just dismissed it as propaganda. Schuck felt no hostility at all towards the Soviet pilot, and he did not feel any hostility from the adversary he met, but he felt disappointed. The meeting with an enemy on the ground had not resulted in any mutual feeling of being “colleagues”, and the Soviet pilot had dismissed both the good meal and the victory board as something of a show. Indeed, the “Red Baron” era of chivalerous dogfights during the First World War was long since gone. The Soviet pilot was picked up by German military police, which delivered him to a POW camp. Next day, III./JG 5’s adjutant, Leutnant Rolf-Viktor Sadewasser, was shot down by Soviet fighters near Mur­ mansk. He was, and still is, listed as missing. + The fact that the Soviet troops for almost two years had held the Germans at bay and prevented the seizure of Murmansk became even more disturbing to the Ger­ mans as the fortune of war turned against them in other combat zones. Although the pilots at Petsamo learned only fragments of the large drama of the Stalingrad bat­ tle and the final battle in North Africa - their thoughts were mainly focused on the next mission and how to sur­ vive the next air combat - they were drawn into events which stemmed from these dramatic events. The support from Finland was a key factor to Germany’s warfare in the Far North. But by this time, this support started to sway. Dur­ ing a German-Finnish military conference in March 1943, two months after the annihilation of German 6th Army in Stalingrad, the Finnish supreme commander, Marshal Carl Gustaf Count von Mannerheim, categor­ ically declared: “I shall not attack again. I have already lost too many men.” Instead, the Finnish government opened negotiations with the USA to seek a possibility to end Finland’s participation in the war. The regime in Berlin was aware of these negotiations and realized that something had to be done to keep Finland on Germany’s side in the war against the Soviet Union. Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s foreign minister, promised the Finns that the Soviet Union would be com­ pletely defeated in the summer of 1943. In view of the rapid Soviet advance on the Eastern Front, this sounded strange to the Finnish ears. It was clear that some pos­ itive results had to be shown on the Finnish doorstep, and the task fell on the German forces in the Far North - the 20th Mountain Army and Luftflotte 5. The former was locked into positional warfare, but a Soviet Achil­ les Heel was identified - the seaborne supply routes to the advanced positions on the Rybachiy and Sredniy peninsulas. Just as German 20th Mountain Army was depending on seaborne supplies due to the lack of roads, these Soviet troops were supplied exclusively from the sea. The weak Luftflotte 5 was assigned with the task of severing these sea transports. The targets consisted of a flotilla of small ships, motor boats, tugboats and barges which brought ammu­ nition, food, arms, building materials and troop rein­ forcements to the Rybachiy and Sredniy peninsulas. If the Germans would succeed in severing that “life line”, they figured there might be a possibility to open a gap in the Soviet front lines. The German air operations concentrated mainly against the harbour o f Eina on the Rybachiy Peninsula. That place was in full view of the German forces on the southern shore of Motovskiy Bay, and with the midnight sun setting in no unloading escaped the attention of the Germans. With Petsamo aerodrome with its fight- er-bombers less than 50 km away from the Motovskiy Bay, it was possible to bring in air attacks with short notice. Now the roles shifted as compared to the past win­ ter, and the Germans were again on the offensive in the air. Walter Schuck and his mates were sucked into the maelstrom. On 10 and 11 May, JG 5’s Fw 190 fighter-bombers sank a tugboat and a patrol ship, as well as inflicting heave damage on a minesweeper. On 12 May, Haupt­ mann Strakeljahn sank the patrol ship SKR-31 through a direct hit. Meanwhile, other Fw 190s strafed the mine­ sweeper TShch-21 with machine-gun and cannon fire, causing the vessel to blow up. Soviet fighters flying in pairs and sixes were con­ stantly patrolling above the slowly moving convoys. These fighter pilots were strictly limited to defensive tactics, which repeatedly enabled the Me 109 fighters of JG 5 to pick fairly easy victories by bouncing them from above. In these days, Schuck often saw 6./JG 5’s Leutnant Theo Weissenberger, and he was amazed at Weissenberger’s skills. Many of the aces flew either “with their muscles” or - like Schuck - “with their brains”. But Weissenberger outclassed them all by his elegant manoeuvres in the air, mastering any possible air combat situation. Schuck watched and learned. When Weissenberger bagged four Airacobras in a single fight on 13 May, he had reached a total of 86 victories in 218 combat missions. On 22 May, Schuck was in the air in the evening to escort Hauptmann Strakeljahn’s fighter-bombers. T