[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help] 

Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

The Attack on the USS Liberty (June 8, 1967) - Speech by Survivor Phillip Tourney At the Revisionist History of War Conference (Video) ‘I Smell CIA/Deep State All Over ThisÂ’ — RFK Jr. VP Nicole Shanahan Blasts Sanctuary Cities, we see peaceful protests launching in Los Angeles” - Democrat Senator Cory Booke We have no legal framework for designating domestic terror organizations Los Angeles Braces For Another Day Of Chaos As Newsom Pits Marxist Color Revolution Against Trump Admin Methylene Blue Benefits Another Mossad War Crime 80 served arrest warrants at 'cartel afterparty' in South Carolina When Ideas Become Too Dangerous To Platform The silent bloodbath that's tearing through the middle-class Kiev Postponed Exchange With Russia, Leaves Bodies Of 6,000 Slain Ukrainian Troops In Trucks Iranian Intelligence Stole Trove Of Sensitive Israeli Nuclear Files In the USA, the identity of Musk's abuser, who gave him a black eye, was revealed Return of 6,000 Soldiers' Bodies Will Cost Ukraine Extra $2.1Bln Palantir's Secret War: Inside the Plot to Cripple WikiLeaks Digital Prison in the Making? In France we're horrified by spending money on Ukraine Russia has patented technology for launching drones from the space station Kill ICE: Foreign Flags And Fires Sweep LA 6,000-year-old skeletons with never-before-seen DNA rewrites human history First Close Look at China’s Ultra-Long Range Sixth Generation J-36Jet I'm Caitlin Clark, and I refuse to return to the WNBA Border Czar Tom Homan: “We Are Going to Bring National Guard in Tonight” to Los Angeles These Are The U.S. States With The Most Drug Use Chabria: ICE arrested a California union leader. Does Trump understand what that means?Anita Chabria White House Staffer Responsible for ‘Fanning Flames’ Between Trump and Musk ID’d Texas Yanks Major Perk From Illegal Aliens - After Pioneering It 24 Years Ago Dozens detained during Los Angeles ICE raids Russian army suffers massive losses as Kremlin feigns interest in peace talks — ISW Russia’s Defense Collapse Exposed by Ukraine Strike

History
See other History Articles

Title: Book Review: Stuka Pilot (Hans Ulrich-Rudel)
Source: Amazon
URL Source: http://www.amazon.com/Stuka-Pilot-Hans-Ulrich-Rudel/dp/1908476877
Published: Oct 22, 2013
Author: M.Lawicki
Post Date: 2014-07-15 13:01:40 by Deasy
Ping List: *Up to the Sun*     Subscribe to *Up to the Sun*
Keywords: ju87, luftwaffe, tank, wwii
Views: 1097
Comments: 56

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
***** A Must Read For Any Student of History. Compelling, Engrossing, and Educational...
By Dr.M.Lawicki on October 22, 2013
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

I became interested in this particular memoir when I learned of the existence of Hans Ulrich Rudel through other books pertaining to the exploits of the Luftwaffe in the Second World War. His career was meteoric to say the least, yet began in a very unorthodox manner when contrasted with the other known Luftwaffe aces. Deemed a slow-learner and a pilot of 'mediocre' abilities by his superiors, the young pilot Rudel was not considered a suitable candidate for a fighter pilot and subsequently assigned to observation and reconnaissance missions at the very beginning of the war. His early career in the Luftwaffe seemed to be characterized by bitterness and strife when dealing with his superiors. The charismatic Rudel was nevertheless determined to make a difference in the war and prove his superiors mistaken in their very low estimation of his abilities. Rudel managed to get himself transferred to dive bombing training in 1940, where he learned to perfect the new military discipline with devastating efficiency. Having discovered his true calling at last, Rudel began immediately to make his presence felt in the German war effort. Rudels remarkable accomplishments came in rapid succession, enabling him to develop a legendary name for himself while imprinting fear into the hearts and minds of his Soviet opponents (much like Baron Manfred Von Richtoffen did in the First World War on the Western Front). Although the point is debatable, it is easy to understand how Hans Ulrich Rudel might be considered the most valuable soldier in the Second World War. In all, he flew over 2,500 combat missions, downed 11 enemy aircraft, destroyed: 519 tanks, 4 armored trains, several bridges, over 1000 trucks and transport vehicles, 70 landing craft, two battle cruisers, a destroyer, and the Soviet Battleship Marat. Is it any wonder that Josef Stalin placed the highest bounty on Rudel's head? On several occasions he landed behind enemy lines to rescue downed airmen from his unit, and on one momentous occasion things went disastrously wrong--but I wont spoil the harrowing story for you, the reader. His accomplishments were so impressive that Hitler himself insisted on creating a new award to distinguish Rudel from all other German military and civilian aces and heroes of the day. Thus, Rudel was the only soldier in Germany to earn 'The Knights Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds. The book started out a tad slow for my liking, but became a damned good read once Rudel found his true calling in 1940. What fascinated me the most about this book is the sporadic insight we are given into the nature and inner workings of the German military machine and the German High Command itself. I also enjoyed reading about his interactions with the notable personalities of Hermann Goring and Adolf Hitler in particular. One can gather that Hitler held Rudel in very high esteem, since he allowed very few people to publicly disagree with him or express their true thoughts in his presence-- as Rudel often did. To this day, Hans Ulrich Rudel remains the most decorated combat pilot of any nation in the history of warfare. Rudel was, beyond a doubt, one of the toughest, bravest, and most charismatic human beings produced by our species. It is for this reason that I recommend this book regardless of your political or religious affiliation.

Poster Comment:

"[W]e must win the victory over Bolshevism, as otherwise the world will be plunged into an appalling chaos from which there is no way out. Therefore, Bolshevism must be smashed by us, even though for the present the Western Allies refuse to recognize how disastrous is their policy for themselves and the rest of the world."Subscribe to *Up to the Sun*

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  

Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 13.

#9. To: All (#0) (Edited)

On the close-in infantry air support over Stalingrad. Italics added.

It is true the Soviets hold only one third, but this third is being de fended with an almost religious fanaticism. Stalingrad is Stalin's city and Stalin is the god of these young Kirgises, Usbeks, Tartars, Turkmenians and other Mongols. They are hanging on like grim death to every scrap of rubble, they lurk behind every remnant of a wall. For their Stalin they are a guard of fire-breathing war-beasts, and when the beasts falter, well-aimed revolver shots from their political commissars nail them, in one way or the other, to the ground they are defending. These Asiatic pupils of integral communism, and the political commissars standing at their backs, are destined to force Germany, and the whole world with her, to abandon the comfortable belief that communism is a political creed like so many others. Instead they are to prove to us first, and finally to all nations, that they are the disciples of a new gospel. And so Stalingrad is to become the Bethlehem of our century. But a Bethlehem of war and hatred, annihilation and destruction.

This is the thought which occupies our minds as we fly sortie after sortie against the Red fortress. The section of the city held by the Soviets borders immediately on the west bank of the Volga, and every night the Russians drag everything needed by the Red Guardsmen across the Volga. Bitter fighting rages for a block of houses, for a single cellar, for a bit of factory wall. We have to drop our bombs with painstaking accuracy because our own soldiers are only a few yards away in another cellar behind debris of another wall.

On our photographic maps of the city every house is distinguishable. Each pilot is given his target precisely marked with a red arrow. We fly in, map in hand, and it is forbidden to release a bomb before we have made sure of the target and the exact position of our own troops. Flying over the western pant of the city far behind the front, one is struck peculiarly by the quiet prevailing there and by the almost normal traffic. Everyone, including civilians, go about their business as if the city were far behind the front. The whole western part is now in. our hands, only the small eastern quarter of the city towards the Volga contains these Russian nests of resistance and is the scene of our most furious assaults.

Deasy  posted on  2014-07-15   21:12:19 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Defense of Ploesti.

The neat morning we take off for Klausenburg, a lovely old town where the Transylvanian Germans settled centuries ago; that is why the natives here speak German. We make only a short stop here to refuel, for we are in a hurry. At the same time an American reconnaissance plane appears at about 20,000 feet which means that a visit from American bomber formations may be expected before very long. The flight over the Carpathians to Buzau is grand, as is every flight above beautiful mountain scenery in perfect weather. The town now comes into view ahead of us; it used to be an unimportant landing stage on the way up to the front which ran a long way to the north of it, it is now an operational base. What has happened to the stable front line Jassy-Targul-Frumos, and to Husi?

The aerodrome lies in the open country and offers no possibilities of camouflage for our aircraft, and Ploesti, the oil centre of Rumania, which is quite close, is being attacked incessantly by American bombers with very strong fighter protection; the fighters can afterwards turn their attention to us, in as far as we may be thought worth a plastering. The number of American fighters sent up to escort a bomber formation on every sortie here is greater than the total German fighter strength on the whole front.

As I come in to land I see the roads leading to the aerodrome are packed with endless streams of Rumanian military trekking southward; in places convoys are halted by traffic jams. Heavy artillery of all calibers are among them. But there are no German units there. I am witnessing the last act of a tragedy. Whole sectors were held by Rumanian units which have ceased to offer any resistance whatever and are now in fall retreat. The Soviets are at their heels. Where the front line ran the German soldier fights and stands his ground, and will therefore be cut off and taken prisoner. He does not think it possible that our Rumanian allies will let the Russians invade Rumania without a fight and expose their people to this gruesome fate; he just does not believe it.

After landing our aircraft are immediately got ready for operations while I report to my old wing. They are glad to have us back with them. They think we are going to have our hands full. The Russian tanks are already up to Foscari, their objective being the quick capture of Bucharest and Ploesti. Further north, German units are still putting up a fight in the Southern Army Group.

In the meantime our aircraft have been got ready and we take off at once, flying high and following the main road north to Foscari. Six miles south of this town we observe gigantic clouds of dust: if that is not already the tanks-it is! We attack; they leave the road and scatter in the fields. But that does not save them. We shoot up some of them, then go back for fresh ammunition and continue our engagement with the same column. Wherever you look, masses of men and material, all Russian, mostly Mongolians. Are their reserves of manpower so inexhaustible? We get fresh practical evidence that the productive capacity of the U.S.S.R. has been greatly underestimated by everybody and that no one knows the true facts. The masses of tanks, time and again unimaginable in their number, are the most convincing proof of this. Many motor vehicles are also of American origin.

Deasy  posted on  2014-07-16   0:26:34 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

On the years-long (and failed) effort to secure an armistice on the western front.

A real soldier is seldom likely to make a good diplomat, and this meeting with von Ribbentrop is rather intriguing. It is an opportunity for conversations which shed light on the other side of the war which is being conducted without weapons. He is greatly interested in my opinion of the strength of the east front and our military potential at this particular moment. I make it clear to him that we at the front hope he is doing something through diplomatic channels to loosen the strangle -hold in which we are caught on every side.

"Cannot the Western Powers be made to see that Bolshevism is their greatest enemy and that after an eventual victory over Germany it will be the same menace to them as to us, and that alone they will no longer be able to get rid of it?" He takes my remarks as a gentle personal reproof; no doubt I am only playing over a record he has had to listen to many times. He at once explains to me that he has already made a number of attempts which have failed, because every time the necessity for a fresh military retirement on one or other sector of the front shortly after he had opened negotiations has encouraged the enemy to continue the war in any case and to leave the conference table. He cites instances and says some- what reproachfully that the treaties which he had brought off before the war, among other things those with England and Russia, were surely no mean achievement if not a triumph. But nobody mentions them any longer; today people see only the negative aspects, the responsibility for which is not his. Naturally even now negotiations were still going on, but whether with the general situation such as it was the success he wished for would still be possible was problematical. This peep behind the scenes of diplomacy sates my curiosity and I am not anxious to learn more. A real soldier is seldom likely to make a good diplomat, and this meeting with von Ribbentrop is rather intriguing. It is an opportunity for conversations which shed light on the other side of the war which is being conducted without weapons. He is greatly interested in my opinion of the strength of the east front and our military potential at this particular moment. I make it clear to him that we at the front hope he is doing something through diplomatic channels to loosen the strangle -hold in which we are caught on every side.

Deasy  posted on  2014-07-16   6:51:23 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

On fighting in the air over one's own home country.

It is a dreadful thing to be flying and fighting above our homes, the more so when one sees what masses of men and material are pouring into our country like a flood. We are no more than a boulder, a small obstruction but unable to stem the tide. The devil is now gambling for Germany, for all Europe. Invaluable forces are bleeding to death, the last bastion of the world is crumbling under the assault of Red Asia. Of an evening we are more exhausted by this realization than by the incessant operations of the day. Stubborn refusal to accept this fate and the determination that "this must not happen" keep us going. I would not like to have to reproach myself for having failed to do everything within my power till the eleventh hour to stave off the appalling, menacing spectre of defeat. I know that every decent young German thinks as I

Deasy  posted on  2014-07-16   6:53:53 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

#14. To: All (#13)

On the reeducation and reindoctrination of a veteran of the eastern front.

Early in the morning I receive a message that I am to come to the H.Q. of the 9th American Air Army at Erlangen. I refuse until all my pilfered belongings have been returned to me. After much persuasion in which I am told that the matter is very urgent and that I can rely on getting my things back as soon as the thief has been caught, I set off with Niermann. At Air Army H.Q. we are first interrogated by three General Staff officers. They begin by showing us some photographs which they claim to have been taken of atrocities in concentration camps. As we have been fighting for such abominations, they argue, we also share the guilt. They refuse to believe me when I tell them that I have never even seen a concentration camp. I add that if excesses have been committed they are regrettable and reprehensible, and the real culprits should be punished. I point out that such cruelties have been perpetrated not only by our people, but by all peoples in every age. I remind them of the Boer War. Therefore these excesses must be judged by the same criterion. I cannotimagine that the mounds of corpses depicted on the photographs were taken in concentration camps. I tell them that we have seen such sights, not on paper, but in fact, after the air attacks on Dresden and Hamburg and other cities when Allied four-engined bombers deluged them indiscriminately with phosphorus and high explosive bombs and countless women and children were massacred. And I assure these gentlemen that if they are e especially interested in atrocities they will find abundant material-and "living" material at that-among their Eastern Allies.

Deasy  posted on  2014-07-16 06:59:44 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest

[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help]