A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II (19 page)

“So much for reinforcements,” Franz said to Schroer as they steadied a mechanic, his arms over their shoulders.

JG-77 had flown from the Cape Bon Peninsula, where the Germans and Italians were making their last stand in Africa. They had raced low over the waves to Sicily. A few 109s had been shot down
during the crossing, each crash costing two lives, as the pilots bravely stayed with their planes rather than jump and leave their mechanics. Only 40 of JG-77’s 120 planes made it out of Africa.
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Having cared for his men, Steinhoff trudged over to Roedel to formally report his unit’s arrival. From Roedel’s side, Franz saw that Steinhoff wore a haggard grin and looked like he was about to collapse. He knew Steinhoff’s name. The man was a national hero with 134 victories, almost all won on the Eastern Front in ugly battles like Stalingrad. He wore the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and looked stern. But when Steinhoff spoke, his voice was calm like a storyteller’s and his words were articulate. Steinhoff had studied the history of languages at the prestigious University of Jena, hoping to become a professor, but when he could not find a teaching job he had joined the Navy. Instead of making him a sailor, the Navy had trained him to fly then handed him to the Air Force when their plans for German aircraft carriers fell through.

Steinhoff had not flown with a mechanic in his plane that day. A tragic story from his past explained his unwillingness to lock a man within his fighter’s inescapable storage compartment. Roedel had heard the legend, whispered only in wing leader circles, and later told it to Franz. In April of the previous year, while flying over the Soviet Union, Steinhoff and his wingman, Lieutenant Walter Krupinski, a colorful figure everyone called “the Count” (because of his love for women and wine), had entered a swirling dogfight against Soviet Yak fighters. Steinhoff was leading their group and had shot down two Yaks and damaged a third, blasting it from nose to tail. As it burned, the Yak flew straight and level. Steinhoff and the Count pulled up alongside the plane and saw its pilot banging against the canopy glass. He was trying to escape, wanting to jump, but his canopy was jammed. Flames spat from the engine like a blowtorch, and gray
smoke billowed into his cockpit. The Soviet pilot’s plane had become an oven. The pilot pressed his face against the canopy glass and looked at Steinhoff in terror. Steinhoff decided he needed to do something. The man was being cooked alive. He told the Count to depart and lead the unit back to base, where he would meet him later.

The Count watched Steinhoff drop back behind the Soviet fighter. The Soviet pilot sat back in his seat and looked at the Count. He knew what his enemy was about to do and why. The Soviet pilot nodded his head to the Count. The Count nodded in return and peeled away. The Count glanced back one final time toward the Yak. It had become a cloud of black smoke and falling pieces, destroyed by a blast of Steinhoff’s cannon.

On the ground, the Count found Steinhoff behind the wing of his fighter, crying. For days afterward, Steinhoff avoided conversations with his friends other than to issue orders and fly missions. He never spoke of the incident other than to tell the Count, “If I am ever in that situation, please do the same.”
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The Count told Steinhoff that would never happen, but if it did, he would show him the same mercy. Those who knew Steinhoff before the incident and after said he was never the same. That one day over Russia made him old.

As Steinhoff surveyed the weary men and the destruction that surrounded him at Trapani Airfield, he said to Roedel, “It’s a good day to be alive.” His voice carried a tinge of optimism as if he knew something the others had forgotten.

A MONTH LATER, JUNE 10, 1943

Franz and Willi ate their dinners on the steps of the Squadron 6 alert shack. It was evening, around 6
P.M.
From the door behind them hung a small wooden sign that read:
LIEUTENANT WILLI KIENTSCH, SQUADRON CAPTAIN
. Two weeks prior, Roedel had promoted Rudi Sinner and transferred him to Greece to oversee JG-27’s expansion. In Sinner’s
place, Roedel made Willi the leader of Squadron 6 because he was next in line, rank-wise.

Schroer ran to the shack, looking worried. He told Franz and Willi that Olympus had just called him with a distress message from the Italians. A flight of their Macchi fighters had just been shot into the sea north of Pantelleria Island.

Franz and Willi knew Pantelleria. They had been in combat there earlier that afternoon, when Willi had shot down two Spitfires while Franz covered his tail. The island lay halfway between Africa and Sicily and was swarming with Allied planes. Three weeks earlier, the Afrika Korps had surrendered, handing over 275,000 P.O.W.s to the Allies. Now Pantelleria’s Italian garrison was the last obstacle preventing an Allied seaborne invasion of Sicily.

Schroer said that an Italian seaplane was taking off any minute from Marsala, just down the coast, to rescue any survivors. Franz joked that they should send two seaplanes, one to rescue the Italians and another to rescue their seaplane. Willi agreed—the mission was suicidal. The Allies had been bombing and strafing Pantelleria for five days, sending so many planes that they were seen circling, waiting in line for a chance to attack.

Schroer removed his hat and scratched his head. Looking to Willi, he broke the news. “The Italians can only put up three fighters,” he said, “so Squadron 6 is going with them.” Willi cursed. Franz shook his head. He knew the Italians as the same pilots who once attacked a narrow island off the coast of Trapani, thinking it was an enemy submarine. Schroer explained that the orders were Roedel’s, not his. Roedel had ordered a “rescue flight” of ten fighters to take the Italians to Pantelleria and back.

Willi complained to Schroer that he had already been there that day and was not in the mood to go back. “Then send your pilots who haven’t seen the enemy,” Schroer said. Franz set down his mess tin and began to stand. “No,” Willi said, tugging Franz’s pant leg.

Willi told Schroer he could give him six pilots who had not been
in combat that day. Schroer said he would find four others and took off running. Willi looked sheepishly at Franz as he stood to get his roster. Two weeks prior, Willi had surpassed “magic 30,” triggering his nomination for the Knight’s Cross. Suddenly, he had something to live for. Fan mail. Girls. An inevitable celebration in Kisslegg. Knowing the Cross was coming made Willi more cautious. Franz had reason to be more careful, too. Three weeks earlier his G model had caught fire during a practice flight over Sicily. Franz had bailed out of the plane, slightly burned, and lost his second fighter of the war. For three weeks he was grounded to heal.

From the steps, Franz and Willi watched the ten pilots run to their planes. As they took off into the darkening skies, Franz told Willi he had a bad feeling. Half the pilots of the rescue flight had no victories. Their leader, Lieutenant Hans Lewes, was a fresh-faced kid himself. As the “greatest gun” among them, Lewes had just three victories.

“We should be with them,” Franz said. Begrudgingly Willi stood and reached for his life preserver. Franz grabbed his. Together, they ran for their planes.

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER

The purple night sky slowly smothered the orange sunset as a lone 109 flew low over the sea toward Sicily. A cloud of vapor trailed the plane’s wake. Metal pieces tumbled from its wings and body in the wind. The plane was falling apart.

Behind the controls, Franz wrestled with the plane’s shaking stick. Bullet holes dotted the cockpit around him. The bridge of Franz’s nose bled from a tracer bullet that had pierced the canopy glass and grazed him. Franz clutched the broken stem of his pipe between his teeth. A bullet had exploded the pipe’s bowl. Near his right knee, the Mediterranean Sea was visible through a fist-sized hole in the cockpit’s skin.

In the distance, the Sicilian coast came into view, a gray smudge
above the blue-green sea. Franz’s eyes flared. He talked to the plane, urging her to keep going. His 109 bucked and groaned. Franz tapped the oil pressure gauge with his finger. Its quivering needle told him the plane was bleeding fluids and dying. Every minute she flew was three miles closer to land. Franz wanted to call Olympus, but .50-caliber bullets had punched holes in his radio. The holes matched those along his wings and through his tail and cowling.

Franz and Willi had caught up with the rescue flight just in time to experience disaster. They had spotted the seaplane by the bright red crosses on its wings. Ahead of the seaplane they found their comrades with the three Italian Macchi 202 fighters nestled behind them. The formation flew at wave top level—without a fighting chance.

Sixteen American P-40s were waiting, hoping someone would come looking for the Italians they had shot down earlier. The pilots of the 79th Fighter Group were said to have whooped, hollered, and rocked their wings when they saw the enemy formation. Then they flew with deadly seriousness. “What got the boys mad,” their PR men would write, “was the way the three Italian fighters were hugging the German formation—as though their own safety was assured by the presence of the twelve Me-109s around them. Something had to be done about that. Something was done.”
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The Germans and Italians would call the next ten minutes a “slaughter.” The Americans would call the same event “one of the most spectacular air victories of the North African campaign.”
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The P-40s dove. Burning Italian fighters hit the water first. The 109s splashed into the sea, one by one. The seaplane joined them, hit by a trigger-happy P-40 driver. Franz’s fighting ability was useless. Bullet after bullet hit his plane. Only his flying skill kept him alive. He last saw Willi and two 109s running for Sicily with P-40s on their tails. He gave chase but was unable to keep up.

Franz found himself flying alone. Glancing at the sea, he tugged his safety straps. He had decided he would ditch before he would jump again. Like every German pilot, Franz knew his parachute straps were
made of hemp, which was known to often snap and drop a pilot to his death. The Air Force was said to be developing new nylon parachute harnesses.

Three miles from Sicily’s shore, the engine of Franz’s fighter gagged without oil. With a jolt, the engine quit. Franz felt strangely relieved. The engine’s painful struggle had been fraying his nerves. He steered the dead, six-thousand-pound fighter down like a glider from his boyhood. The sea below resembled a grass pasture. As he neared the waves, he saw that the water was green and undulating.

Franz lifted the plane’s nose to stall and hit the waves flat. The fighter slapped down. Instead of melting into the sea, the plane skipped from one wave to the next. As the plane lost speed, its nose grew heavy and it dove into the water. Franz’s body slammed forward before his straps pulled him back. The canopy glass held. From six feet under water, Franz looked up and saw the waves above him.

The sea poured in through the hole by Franz’s knee. Streams of water spouted from the instrument panel and the holes in the canopy. The fighter sank, still flying into the depths. Seven feet deep. Eight feet deep. Nine feet deep. Franz’s ears popped. Water poured over his shoulders. Franz unhooked his seat belt and tossed off his parachute straps. He tugged a red knob on his left to release the canopy. Nothing happened. He tugged again without effect. Panicking, he stood and tried to push the canopy upward with his shoulder. The water pressure held it down. Franz had neglected to follow procedure and jettison the canopy before hitting the water.

The plane flew deeper. Light faded. The water in the cockpit climbed to Franz’s chin.
The window!
The words screamed in Franz’s mind. Grabbing the side window pane, he pulled it back toward him and inhaled a lungful of the cockpit’s last oxygen. A deluge of water rushed in, equalizing the pressure. With one hand on his life raft and the other on the canopy’s metal frame, Franz kicked from his seat and flipped the canopy open. The dark sea squeezed him with a cold grip. Franz pulled a tab on his life preserver to release its compressed CO2.
The vest inflated instantly, its buoyancy hauling him up. Franz clawed for the surface. He kicked furiously in his heavy boots. Desperate for oxygen, his lungs constricted. Just when he was about to gasp and inhale the sea, Franz popped out from a wave and splashed back down.

He floated in the gentle swells, panting. Franz could see the shore and a beam from the lighthouse at Cape Granitola on the island’s southwestern tip. He inflated his raft and slid inside.
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Clinging to the raft, he remembered—
My rosary!
Franz patted his chest and found his pocket still buttoned. Opening the pocket, Franz pulled forth the black beads and silver cross. Clutching his rosary, he rolled onto his back.

The gently rocking raft drifted toward land. Franz looked up at the inky sky. He thought about Willi and his friends. He knew many of them were now blue and lifeless because he had seen so many 109s crash. Who had died he did not yet know. Seabirds flew for the island, slowing just to glance on him with pity.