STUKA PILOT (Hbk)

Hans-Ulrich Rudel’s story is a remarkable one: he began the Second World War as a near-failure in pilot training and was actually barred from combat training – yet ended the war as history’s most highly decorated soldier. During his outstanding military career on the Eastern Front, Rudel flew an incredible 2,530 operational sorties, most in a Junkers Ju87 Stuka. During the Stuka combat missions he destroyed 150 various artillery pieces, 519 tanks, over eight hundred military vehicles of all types and seventy landing craft. He sank the Russian battleship Marat, two cruisers and a destroyer; he also destroyed hundreds of bridges, railway lines, military installations and bunkers. Flying a Focke-Wulf Fw190 fighter he accounted for nine aerial victories. Rudel flew more than 600,000 kilometres and used more than five million litres of aviation fuel. He dropped over one million kilogrammes of bombs; fired over one million machine gun rounds, over 150,000 20 mm rounds and 5,037 37 mm rounds. Because Oberst Rudel was responsible for such huge materiel losses to the Russians, it is said that Josef Stalin himself put a price of 100,000 roubles on his head! Rudel was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oakleaves, Swords and Diamonds – the only recipient of this award, created specifically for him by Adolf Hitler to mark Rudel’s incredible achievements. In February 1945 Rudel was seriously wounded: his right thigh was shattered by anti-aircraft fire above the skies of Frankfurt-am-Oder. He managed to land in German-held territory, whereupon his leg was amputated. Despite this, he continued to fly on combat missions. During the dying days of the war, Rudel volunteered to fly his Stuka into war-ravaged Berlin to rescue his Führer from the fast-approaching Red Army. On 8th May 1945, the day Germany capitulated, Rudel was in Bohemia-Moravia and flew his last mission in his trusty Ju87. He managed to surrender to the American forces. In 1946 Rudel was repatriated to Germany and started work as a haulage contractor, and in 1948 left Germany for Argentina where he worked for the state aircraft works. In Argentina he organised, along with other ex-Wehrmacht officers and former Nazis, a National Socialist-like structure. Rudel eventually returned to Germany in the early 1950s, and in 1953 published his war memoirs. It should be noted that his memoirs were going to be banned by the German state because of his right-wing beliefs. His funeral, in 1982, made headlines world-wide as many of the mourners made the Nazi salute. A remarkable man – and a remarkable war career.