The German That Confronted His Nazi Dictator | Günther Rall's Incredible Story | Full Documentary

May 1944. Allied bombers are reaching deep into Germany to attack war industries and transportation lines. Fighter aircraft of the German Luftwaffe a rise to meet the bombers in Furious air battles. On May 12th, 1944, American Eighth Air Force bombers pounded Germanys synthetic oil industry. P-47. Thunderbolts of the 56th Fighter Group applied new and aggressive tactics to destroy Germany's air defenses and to protect the allied. Bomber force. May 12th, 1944 a mission that changed the war. I'm Gary Sinise, and this is missions that changed the war. Luftwaffe group and commander Günther Rall, the third highest scoring ace in history, led his Me-109s and Focke Wulf 190s against the Allied bombers and fighters. For Rall. It would be a fateful day. On the same day, Colonel Hubert Hub Zemke, leader of the US Army Air Forces 56th Fighter Group known as Zemke's Wolfpack, led his P-47 fighters into battle protecting the Allied bombers. He was employing a new tactic for the first time, a tactic that would shift the tides of the Air war. Lieutenant Robert Shorty Rankin flew with the 56th group that day, and in that single mission he became a double ace, destroying 5 enemy aircraft. Was one of those enemy aircraft flown by Günther Rall. The Allied bombing raid on Germany's synthetic oil plants had devastating effects on the Nazis ability to wage war without oil. Germany's armies could not move. Its planes could not fly. Zemke's new fighter tactics against the Luftwaffe gave the Allies greater control of the skies over Europe. More and more allied bombers could reach targets deep inside Germany and return safely to England. According to Albert Speer, the Nazi Minister of Munitions, this allied bombing raid on German oil production was a turning point in the war in Europe. Hitler's armies would fight on for 12 more months. But, said Speer, it was the day that Germany technically lost the war. World War One when the fighting ended on the 11th of November 1918, nearly 10 million soldiers were dead. An estimated 13 million civilians had died as a result of the war, and millions more were displaced from their homes. The major empires of Europe had ceased to exist. The German, Russian, Austro, Hungarian and Ottoman empires were broken. Their far-flung colonies and much of their European territories divided among the victors. The Treaty of Versailles, signed in May 1919, annexed parts of Germany to Belgium, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Italy. The Treaty limited the size of Germany's army and Navy, outlawed a German submarine fleet, and prohibited Germany from maintaining an Air Force. Most of the fighting had taken place in Belgium and France. There the loss of property and the economic upheaval were catastrophic. The Treaty of Versailles called for huge reparation payments from Germany. France insisted that the treaty include a war guilt clause that forced the German nation to accept full responsibility for starting the. War. And to assume liability for all the damages the war had caused. The crushing reparation payments shattered the fragile German economy. German marks became worthless, personal savings were wiped out for middle class people and seven million Germans were left jobless. The treaty of Versailles. Imposed so many cruelties on this country that the outcome couldn't have been anything else but dictatorship. People were starving. The economy was down all the time because the reparations that had to be paid to mainly to France and to the other countries. That had won World War One were so immense that the economy couldn't economy couldn't ever recover. And if people starve, they are likely to fall prey to anybody who promises them better. And this is, in simple terms, the way that led to Hitler. The German people felt humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles. They were crushed by unemployment and hyperinflation. By the 1930s, political instability and economic depression left the German public disillusioned with the Weimar Republic. The Democratic government set up after World War One. With keen political skill. Adolf Hitler built the Nazi party into a mass movement that appealed to German traditions of nationalism, militarism, discipline, and the supremacy of the state over individuals. Once elected, Hitler renounced the Treaty of Versailles and began rebuilding Germany's military forces. Behind the scenes, he silenced or crushed any opposition and maneuvered himself into absolute power. He cut unemployment and that was the. Most important thing everybody wanted him to do. That was why he was elected finally. What people did not see was what happened behind the scenes. Where did all those unemployed go? They went straight into the arms industry. Or they went into the construction industry, building highways, autobahns in Germany, which were a first hand military infrastructure. They didn't see the obvious, the the unobvious, or what could be seen on the surface was this man kept every promise he ever made. So no wonder he had been elected and reelected again, and a fair election in fact didn't take place because he just thought we can go on better without elections anymore. And nobody opposed, of course. Günther Rall was born March 10th, 1918 in the Black Forest village of Gaggenau. His mother was a devout member of the Lutheran Church. His father was a merchant who was away from home much of the time. Like most of the German people, Rall's parents supported the Nazis economic programs. But did not join the Nazi party. Raw was just 14 years old when Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany and assumed dictatorial power. You know, I was a young guy also in those days, but I think their aim was how to by political measures. You know. Get an Improvement of the whole situation means primarily economically, politically. And no member of any other party was idolised like Hitler and his party, he was a great leader. You know nothing. No word against him, no critique against him. What he said this was right. No Doubt. First thing that was implemented by Hitler after he had taken to power was a Ministry of Propaganda, and under this ministry all of the information industry had been centralised within half a year. That is, there were there was only one radio channel that was completely controlled by the Nazis and all of the print industry, all newspapers, all magazines were under control of a sensor that. Set in the Ministry of Propaganda. It was strictly forbidden by law to listen to foreign radio stations to to radio stations, to radio stations outside Germany. You could get into prison if someone. Told told the authorities that you were listening to BBC London for example, or even to a Swiss broadcasting system. So the first thing they tried was to limit the Germans view on the outside world and make them think in the direction the Nazi Party had decided that people should think to. Hitler managed to reduce unemployment within two years to less than 1,000,000. So he was cheered upon like like. As if he had magical powers. And most of the people thought, ah well, this Jewish thing is really disgusting, but basically he seems to be the right man at the right place. They wanted somebody who who recovered the economy, who brought people back to work. He did exactly that. He he delivered on all of his promises. And most people thought, OK, once he is at, he is at power, and once he has it, he has to deal with these huge problems. He will forget about that Jewish thing. He did not. As a young man growing up in Austria after World War One, Günther Rall was an accomplished athlete in track and field events. He received a classical education in languages and science. In 1928, at age 10, Rall joined the German Christian Scout movement. Scouting became one of the main influences on his young life. When the Christian scouts were absorbed into the Hitler Youth movement in 1934, the scouts themselves saw little change. We change this shirt, you know, we had a Gray, blue shirt, as Christian. Boy Scouts and this blue when we were taken over 1934. And we got a brown shirt. And a plaque. We did the same as before, the same romantic things. In the Weimar Republic, established in Germany after World War One, there were many political parties, all fighting with each other. But there was one stable elite the German army, the Reichswehr. Reichswehr 100,000 men. Very selective. Even. This is challenging a young man, you know, to become an officer. They had applications from one hundred and they took two. And this gives you a feeling you are. uh. You are a. You have that quality, so I want to become an officer. To be in this area also in this elite. And then I made my when I made my application. At the regiment 13. I think we had 74 applications. They took four of them. And I was one of the most proud of them. But this had nothing to be with the party, you know, with the politic area. This was just. Your duty for your country. Right from the start of the so-called Weimar Republic that had been established after World War One in 1919 in Germany, this was the the first democratic system ever we had in Germany. We had a monarchy before for more than a thousand years, and then we were a democratic system. And this democratic system had in mind to separate the army from everything. That had to do with politics. So they made a law. The so-called reichsbürger is that that that forbade officers to become member of a political party or even join a political movement. Political discussions within a army housing area, for example, within the troops, were forbidden. You were not allowed to discuss politics. Once you are a uniform, you were not allowed to join a political party for good reasons, for good. Reasons, because the thought behind that was an army should always be educated. To defending a country and not be split up internally by political discussions between left and right and liberals and conservatives and the like. Rall spent two years in the prestigious infantry regiment No. 13. In 1938, he requested transfer to the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force, and entered the Flying service. After earning his wings and promotion to Lieutenant, he was assigned to JG-52, flying the Messerschmitt ME 109. I came to the wing. At that time the fourth Squadron 52. And then I was. I got my introduction on the 109 E model and this was two, three, four flights and that's it. And then you are in a. In the formation. I flew all the other ones. And I see the differences and there are some problems in 109. First of all, for young pilots, the undercarriage narrow and high and I recognized that when we trained the Romanian squadron, we had a lot of ground loops, you know, and then the it broke the undercarriage. secondly. You got slots. In the 109. The slots, increase the lift at low speed, but when you are up in a full flight rough turns, there was a chance that just by gravity the outer slot comes out and you can unsnap. You have to recognize that. The 109 had a very, very tight and narrow cockpit. Poor visibility to the back. The starting system with the mechanic outside. Eclipse starting. And this was very difficult in Russia, for instance. Temperature of minus 30 be you. We knew we have a good plan. The greatest weakness of the BF-109 was a design that put. Production ease ahead of use in the field. They designed it so that the fuselage was supported by the landing gear and you could attach and detach wings readily for repair and for assembly and so forth. But it gave it a very, very narrow tread and the tread was such that they lost some 3000 pilots in landing and takeoff accidents in in the airplane. So it's it's greatest defect was its landing characteristics in the air. It was fast, it had a good. roll wait. Not as good as as the FW-109 at a good altitude capability, not as good at diving capability, and not as good at turning capability as a Spitfire. On September 1st, 1939, without a formal declaration of war. Germany invaded Poland. Lieutenant Günther Rall was in flight school at Brandenburg, learning to fly the Me-109. On September 16th. Rall and his fellow flight students were assigned to an operational combat fighter unit. Rall was sent to Yogesh Fader 52, near the French German border. He had just two months of fighter training and 55 minutes of flight time in an Me-109. The war came, it was a shock for the whole nation. There wasn't Hallelujah. You know World War One they marched and sang songs, national songs, and they haven't lost the war. We are. Just 20 years after we lost the war, the next war, this was a shock. But throughout the nation. Hitler's goal was to look East to capture territory and resources from Poland, Russia and the Ukraine. He didn't want or expect war with England and France. But treaties and promises to come to the aid of Poland bound those countries. So they declared war on Germany. You know, another war is supposed not this was 20 years, about 21 years after the last war, which had a horrible consequences. So there was no enthusiasm for that, I will tell you. as an officer,if a war comes, that's your duty. Throughout the winter of 1939-1940, Ralls squadron flew uneventful defense patrols along the German border. When the Nazis invaded France and Belgium on May 18th, 1940, Rall finally entered enemy airspace for the first time. On May 18th, Rall and nine other fighters were sent to rendezvous with a reconnaissance He-111 over France. At the rendezvous, they spotted three Curtis Hawks of the French Air Force moving to attack the He-111. Rall, engaged one of the Hawks and shot it down his first kill. Seconds later, bullets smashed into his own plane. Rall snap rolled into a dive, leveled out on the deck and, short on fuel, headed home. I always say this was very educational, these things. The first event that I shot him down gave me the confidence; I can do it. And the second sensation that I was hit gave me a warning that said the next time this could be. You. In July, Ralls group was stationed on the coast of France near Calais. On one sortie, they were escorting a flight of Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers across the channel to England. We had to escort Ju- 87's. Over the channel to England, Ju-87 is a very slow aircraft. Dive Bomber And if a bomb hangs underneath it's even slower and we had to stay with them at the wing. And the Spitfires just upstairs waited, came down, we had tremendous losses. And then my my co-commander was killed and my squadron commander was killed ect. and so forth in their first missions. This being said, I was at the age of 22. First, battle over the channel taught Rall a lesson in fighter tactics. His squadron had been ordered to escort the Stukas by staying in formation over the slower dive bombers. The result had been disastrous. This was very important at the British Channel. You know. you cannot dictate to a fighter pilot where he had to stay in an air battle. He is looking for his airspace he uses to be, to get a chance to be successful. He loses, he founds it. You can give him an order, you say, you have to protect him, OK, from there on it's his business where he flies, what he does, you know? And and and that selection qualifies his also his capability. Ralls Squadron remained near Calais, France, and took part in the early weeks of the Battle of Britain, the air battle that Germany hoped would defeat the Royal Air Force, and opened the way for an invasion of the island nation. Was very quickly gained tremendous. Respect for the German side. They were the tactics, how they were led. And they had the good tactics, good equipment, Spitfire, Hurricane, so we this was, I think it was the best air force we first met. Rall scored no victories against the British in that summer of 1940. I had Spitfires, you know, where? In Russia. The Russians got spitfires from the Polish and my first Spitfire shot down. In Russia, in southern Russia near  I shot down and reported in my report, Spitfire. I got a call from the division, Are you crazy? Spitfires are from the West. I said, wait till tomorrow and the next day came 20 spitfires. You know the Russians in the South or in Russia, The Russian fleet. Air fleet. was one third Anglo-American. Over the next four years, Rall would fly more than 800 combat missions over France, the USSR and Germany. He would be shot down 8 times and he would become the third highest scoring aerial ace in history. He would destroy 275 enemy aircraft. The feelings are secondary you know you do your duty. hubert Hub Zemke was born March 14th, 1914 in Missoula, Mt, the only child of German immigrant parents Anna and Benno Zemke. He grew up in the outdoors, sharing his father's passion for hunting and fishing. Hub's mother, Anna, wanted her son to get a college education. Money was tight, so Hubert Panned Gold to get through college. In his. Senior year, the first half of his senior year, he was asked by the. ROTC commander at the University of Montana to see if he could qualify to go to flight school. Three people attempted to go. Ah dad was the only one that could pass the physical. Zemke elected to enter the Air Corps Cadet program immediately, instead of waiting until after graduation. He had no special knowledge of aviation and no real desire to fly. More than anything, what the Air Corps offered to young Hubert Zemke was the prospect of a steady job. In the midst of the Great Depression. Zemke displayed great skill. As a pilot, after earning his wings in 1937, he was assigned to the 36th Fighter Squadron at Langley Field, Virginia. He discovered a passion for flying and became a skilled pilot. Commissioned as a second Lieutenant, Zemke was assigned to Langley Field in Virginia flying. Curtiss, P-40. Fighters. In 1940, Zemke and his friend and squadron mate John Allison were sent to England to observe and analyze the tactics. Of British and German fighter plane units. When he arrived in England, the British had agreed to supply the Russians with P-40s. The British had no need for this aircraft. They considered it politely to be inferior to their Hurricane and Spitfire, and to diplomatically smooth things over and integrate the Russians into this war. Which the Russians were now in. They were to ship 300. P 40s via Murmansk to the Russians. Zemke and Allison spent the second-half of 1941 teaching the Russians to fly the P-40s. John Allison had to convince him time and again to not engage German aircraft that he was seeing and at one time, he said. I came head on with a Ju-88 reconnaissance plane coming straight at me and I was going to shoot him down, John pleaded with him. Hub. We're not at war with the Germans. You can't do that. And Dad told John they aren't going to know. Who it is and who did what, and he was unable to catch him. December 7th, 1941, the Japanese attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and brought the United States officially into the war. Zemke wanted desperately to return to the West and join the fight. With Europe cut off by German occupation, Zemke made his way South through the caucuses to Tehran, then to Cairo, across the South Atlantic and back to American soil. Arriving in February 1942. He was assigned to command the 56th Fighter Group stationed at Savannah, GA, the First Fighter group to fly the Republic P-47. He began training the group hard, preparing them for what he knew they would face in combat against the Luftwaffe. Zemke was unimpressed by the P-47, but he analyzed its strengths and weaknesses and began working out tactics that would make it an effective fighting machine. The P-47 could not climb due to its weight, but the P-47 could dive like a sewer, bender? This aircraft. Could out dive anything that the Germans had or that anyone wanted to configure against it. So he used high altitude. Understand the war was being fought at low altitude, they were turning fighters constantly in a turning configuration. At somewhere between. 10 and 15,000 feet maximum, often quite below that. Here's this guy stacked up at 25,000 feet, with the Germans approaching him at 15,000. It was a perfect setup. Well, P-47 was immensely important, not only in quantity but ultimately in quality. It was a design that really derived from a 1933 designed by Alexander Cordelli and and Seversky and a Canadian whose name escapes me for the moment. But. It was progressively improved when it rolled out. The original model was troublesome. It didn't have the performance that they wanted, but it was going to be available. And the Republic then had the manufacturing capability. We ordered a lot of them and we knew that it was part by this great engine, that's our Pratt and Whitney R-2800 engine. That was going to be a lead engine in the war. And over time it was improved. It had, it was improved with a better propeller, improved with the better turbo supercharger. Some improved with a better canopy. It had external fuel tanks applied to it it, and it became a very, very effective weapon. And you if you like to provoke an argument, just tell a P-47 pilot that the P-51 is a better airplane and you'll get a good argument. In 1942, America had no real Air Force to speak of. And they took these young men Cochran, Zemke. John Alison and they put them in strategic positions or positions to command. Here you are 25,26,27 years old, highly spirited, two years of college, three years of college. The cream of the crop physically, mentally, that the Air Force can sort out and we're putting through flying school starting in about 1940/41. Had about 300 hours flying time, cocksure of themselves, egocentric as hell. Instituting discipline among this group of people, building cohesion. And training them. Was a first class task. As an avid outdoorsman and champion collegiate boxer, Zemke had learned self-confidence. He believed deeply in discipline and cohesion, and he drilled into his pilots a philosophy learned in the boxing ring and honed by his observations. In England and Russia, use your wits, size up the opposition, keep hitting him where it hurts, and always keep the initiative. They had no combat experience. Understand, Germany has now been at war. Really. Since 1936, training pilots in Spain. Developing tactics being led by exceptionally good pilots. Transferred to England, the 56th Fighter Group saw its first combat in April 1943. It was obvious that they had much to learn. Zemke and his squadron leaders developed and refined their tactics, exploiting the strengths of the P-47 its diving speed, firepower and ruggedness. And Zemke drilled into his fighters the lessons of discipline and unit cohesion. He did not tolerate lone wolves or undisciplined Hotshots. The training, the discipline and the experience quickly began to pay off. By November 1943, seven months after its first combat mission, the 56th Fighter Group had produced 6 aces, including Zemke. And it was gaining fame as one of the elite fighter units in the European Theatre of war, and Hub Zemke was a full Colonel at age 29. He. Had a nature about him that I've watched throughout my life that attracted men to him. And it was more leading from the bottom up, not with a lot of words, but by mannerisms. By things briefly said and done, very unique man in this way. Robert Rankin was born in 1918 in Washington, DC, the youngest of six children in a close knit American family. He and his brothers loved hunting and fishing and playing sports. Rankin was a gifted musician and in March 1941 the Army drafted him and placed him in the Army Air Corps band stationed. In El Paso, TX. We were sleeping in tents. Well, I found myself in 95-100 degree temperature jumping off the cot at Noontime, running outside and watching these airplanes. They were ferrying in P-38s and P-39s through bitchfield. To Alaska and they were just barely clearing the tops of our tents because with 1000 feet above renage they peel off. That got my attention and I thought to myself, how come I'm doing this? How does it work? How come I'm jumping up to watch this? Rankin applied for the Army's Aviation cadet program and began training in July of 1942. He was one of the few in his class to be chosen to fly fighters. When I was in an advanced flying school, My instructor said we're gonna meet at a certain altitude, we do a 180 away from each other, fly for two minutes and then come back head on and rat race and see who can get on the other's tail. I was a young aviation cadet but I was in advanced flying school and all along I've been told the pilot who has the height advantage has the advantage. So as I was climbing away when I left. I was climbing the whole time and I was climbing on the way back, so I had him locked closed, I got on his tail. There's no way he'd get away from me, and that's the reason I was selected to be a fighter pilot, because I whipped his butt. Ranken checked out in the P-47 Thunderbolt in April 1943 and transferred to England in August of that year. After two months at a replacement depot, Rankin and ten other replacement pilots joined the 56 Fighter Group. On the same day. First it impressed me. I got there at the time when they were getting ready to schedule for a mission. And these pilots are standing around. Fighting to get their name. Hey, put me on. I wanna go, I wanna go, I wanna go in there, man. These guys here, they are fighting to get on the mission. So this. Got my attention right away. Of that group of 11 pilots, 10 completed their tours and some extensions and went home. Only one was killed in action. If we did what they told us, you had a good chance of surviving that war and only one pilot, and he was probably one of the best of us eleven. They put him immediately, flying with Hub Zemke, the group commanders wing, his name was John Roby from Texas. He was an excellent pilot, but we had a place called the Wash. The coast of England, it was a place where you could. It was a big cement block from what have you, where we practice dive bombing. And it was one of those days where there's no difference between the sky and the water. He dove straight down and just kept going straight in, and that's the only one we lost out of those eleven. Flying with the 56th Fighter Group, Shorty Rankin became the first Allied fighter pilot to shoot down five aircraft in a single mission. He would end the war a double ace with 75 missions, ten aerial victories and a deep respect for the leader of the 56th. It had to be that way if you didn't cross cover. And take care of each other. The game is lost. In 1939, as German troops swept across Poland, Germany and Russia signed a nonaggression pact that secretly divided up Eastern Europe between the two powers. Under a trade agreement signed in 1940, Russia provided Germany with raw materials, especially oil, in exchange for German military and industrial equipment. But German Chancellor. Adolph Hitler and Russian leader Joseph Stalin each remained very suspicious of the others plans. In Germany even as the trade pact with Stalin was being negotiated, Hitler and his military commanders began planning for an invasion of Russia to seize control of its oil reserves, land and other resources. Stalin and his generals believe the Germans would invade Russia, but not before mid 1942 and not. Before Hitler had defeated England. On June 22nd, 1941, Hitler's armies launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. It was the largest military invasion in history. More than 4.5 million access troops swept into the USSR along an 1800 mile front from Finland to the Black Sea. Stalin had been warned of German troops massing on the Soviet borders, but he did not believe the Germans. would attack and the Soviets were unprepared. The air battle in Crete ended on May 30th and Ralls Squadron was sent to Bucharest, Hungary, then to Measle Romania near the Ukrainian border, where they received replacements for their BF-109 E fighters. The BF-109F or Fritz was more aerodynamic. than the E model, with a new propeller and spinner, retractable tail wheel, redesigned wing and cleaner lines overall, the E models two 20 millimeter wing mounted cannons were gone, but Rall believed the Fritz's armament, a single centerline cannon and two nose mounted machine guns were enough. A skilled fighter pilot, he said, shouldn't need a battery of weapons. At the staffels usually quiet airfield near the sleepy. Little Gypsy village of Mizil, Rall and his pilots were surprised to see a lot of activity as planes and staff and supplies passed through. I came back from from Crete Island, which was a lousy battle. We came back to Romania. To Mizil it's a little Gypsy. Village at the foot of the Carpathians. And we were there a couple of days and got new airplane ones, the 109 F. And during that time there was build up and. Forces from the army, I said. What's going on to an officer, Do you know? We go to Russia. And we were shocked. Are they crazy? The war is not finished in the west. Now we start a two front war in the Russia. So we were set up, no doubt, but there's not very much thinking you are put in action and you do your job. Finito!  On June 22nd, 1941, Gunther Rall and the German Luftwaffe would begin to fly in a new and surprising direction. In support of Operation Barbarossa. The German Reichs undeclared war against the Soviet Union. It began in summer with 99 German divisions, beginning an offensive from the Baltic to the Black Sea. According to Günther Ralls autobiography, within a day the Luftwaffe destroyed 1817 Soviet aircraft, 1498 of them on the ground. Following these initial successes and victory at the Battle of Kiev, which began in August, Hitler declared. We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down. In fact, the exuberance of summer would soon give way to the bitter reality of a nightmarish winter of suffering and discontent. For Günther and his fellow Flyers, operation Barbarossa would initiate the largest military confrontation in history and the beginning of the end of the Third Reich. So I went down bellied in the snow, but the speed was too high and I jumped up again. Now was stalling Just above this. Ditch. And went down and then a wall came. And ah!, the big crash and there I was out. Then he came to my bed. The doctor. Forget flying, that's out. You broke your back three times. And then I stopped. And said, doctor, I will fly. Again, Zemke's Wolf Pack was so successful because of Hub Zemke and his leadership and what he instilled in the pilots and made them aggressive to carry on to get the job done. June 1941 the war in Europe is two years old. Much of the continent lies under the Nazi heel. America has not yet entered the war. Hub Zemke is in Russia assigned to teach Russian pilots to fly American Lend Lease P-40 fighter planes. Shorty Rankin has just joined the US Army Air Corps as a musician. Günther Rawls squadron, now flying the new Me-109F model, is assigned to an airfield near the oil refineries at Ploiesti, Romania on June 22nd, 1941. Without warning, Hitler launches. Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. More than 4.5 million Axis troops sweep into the USSR along an 1800 mile front from Finland to the Black Sea. It is a turning point in the war in Europe. Germany's Adolf Hitler believed that his nation was overcrowded. That the Germans needed more land to settle, to provide natural resources like metals and oil, and to feed the population. He envisioned the Ukraine as a German colony where his countrymen would live on large, well kept, irrigated farms. In August 1939. Germany and Russia signed a non aggression pact, but Hitler and Russian dictator Joseph Stalin deeply distrusted each other. Stalin expected a German invasion despite Hitler's assurances of peace. Stalin had reasoned that Hitler's attack would come in the summer of 1942 only after Germany had conquered England and France. But Germany desperately needed the oil, tin, grain and other resources of the Ukraine by the end of 1940. The Wehrmacht High Command was already preparing for an invasion of the Soviet Union to begin the following May its code name Operation Barbarossa. Moscow, Hitler said, would be the key. Take the capital city, and the Soviet Union would fall. Unaware of Hitler's secret plans, Günther Rall and the pilots of his JG -52 were shocked by the news of the Invasion of Russia. I came back from from Crete Island. This was a lousy battle. We came back to. Romani. To Mizil this a little Gypsy. Village at the foot of the Carpathians. And uh. We were there a couple of days and got new airplanes once the 109-F. And during that time there was build up and. forces from the army, I said. What's going on? Do you know, officer? You know? We are going to, Russia. And I said "Are they Crazy"? The war is not finished in the West, now we start a two front war in the Russia. So we were set up. No doubt. But there's not very much thinking. You are put in action and you do your job...Finito! The invasion force included three million men and 3,400 tanks. The Russians caught unprepared, were overrun and pushed east on the first day of the invasion. The. Luftwaffe destroyed 1,498 Soviet aircraft on the ground. Another 322 were shot down by German fighters or by German anti aircraft. Artillery. In the 1930s, Russia was a world leader in the design of military aircraft, including long range heavy bombers and fighter aircraft like the Polikarpov I-16, the world's first cantilever wing monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear introduced in 1933. But Stalin imagined plots and traders everywhere. In his purges of the 1930s. Millions of Russians were arrested. Imprisoned and shot for the slightest hint of disloyalty. The Russian Air Force was absolutely, totally demoralized because Stalin had purged the leadership of the Soviet armed forces, killed off about 70% of their top leaders from colonels on up. And the result was that not only were the people afraid of being purged and killed, they were afraid to even have a taxi accident. So training standards were very low. So for the initial months of the war. The Russians were flying essentially obsolete airplanes, no tactics, no training, and were was a killing ground from the Germans. We're in Russia. This was strange, when we came into Russia first. We hit a. not very well trained Air Force with with not very compatible equipment. You know the Rata1-16 they flew it in Spain and they you know tried the 50 and they didn't have tactics in the air and they lost tremendous number. But they. Took the lessons. And it took time. And the Russians switched into the MIG. LaGG and yak aircraft, modern aircraft comparable with ours and they changed their tactics. Also they changed to the four ship formation, so they changed very quickly, but at the beginning they were not. Certainly not that. That equaled it with us. Within six days, the Germans had captured Minsk, the capital of Belarus. As the Wehrmacht swept across the Ukraine in late June, Günther Ralls Squadron moved to Mamaia in eastern Romania, near the Romanian oil shipping port of Constanza on the Black Sea. Small had sixty in a step P. At Mamaia we are greeted by a large expanse of Meadow and 1 dilapidated hangar. No refueling facilities, a single telephone, no radar units anywhere. The commander of Constanza's flak defences is relieved to see us. He puts great hope in us, but without proper infrastructure. We too, are almost helpless. I would tell you this is different and even the the Air Force didn't understand that and they didn't care. I give you example. Take a a wing in France station three, four years flying against England. The air battle is everywhere. Very serious, but when they land. They have their white beds,they have their shower room, they have their officers club. This is a tremendous. We lived in tents From April to September, then, we are looking for bunkers or ?. You have a complete different thing. You cannot go somewhere. This had a psychological impact on you. This is different. This is a matter of the leader of that unit that he keeps his soldiers. You know, in good position. Mentally you live with your with your guys like your family, you know? But it was not that easy. As the German lines move eastward, their supply lines grow longer and more fragile. On July 3rd, Stalin declares a scorched earth policy to deny the Germans any chance of living off the land. Russian partisans fighting behind German battle lines attacked German supply columns and supply dumps. The German response is ruthless. But the fact filled up front is. Security in these areas will be sufficient only if all resistance is punished not by legal prosecution of the guilty, but by the spreading of such terror by the occupying power, as is appropriate to eradicate every inclination to resist among the population. The faintest protest or disobedience should be met with ruthless reprisals. Political officers and leaders are to be liquidated. In Romania, Günther Ralls JG 52 was busy through June and July 1941. (Gunther's voice speaking in German) By the months end, the oil port of Constanza had been attacked by a total of 285 Soviet bombers in 38 separate raids. Our group succeeds in shooting down 44 enemy machines without the enemy inflicting serious damage to the oil terminal. After that, the Russians cease their raids almost entirely in August. JG-52 moves North into the Ukraine from the small town of Bailey, Yazykov, Günthers, Stoffel Escorts, Stuka dive bombers to nearby Kiev. Opposing them are mostly obsolete Russian fighter planes leftover from the Spanish Civil War. (Günther speaking in German) Technically and tactically, the Russian fighter arm at this time is years behind the Germans, but its pilots display admirable fighting spirit. They usually fly in a completely disorganized manner, whole gaggles of them twisting and turning. Time and again we are able to slice through these and achieve quick kills, but our opponents are learning fast. On a Sortie in mid August, Rall is flying as wingman for a new replacement pilot. They attack a pair of Russian fighters from behind. (Günther speaking in german in background) At this instant, there is a tremendous bang behind my cockpit. The whole aircraft seems to explode. I can hear and feel shots hitting the back of my seat. Something crashes into my skull. Blood trickles from under my flying helmet. A headshot. I've been hit. Rall nurses his Me-109 to a forward airfield and learns that an oxygen cylinder exploding behind the cockpit had torn loose from the armor plating behind his head. The jagged armor gave him an ugly but superficial scalp wound. His Me-109 is a total loss. He is soon back in the air. His JG-52 flying two, three, sometimes four missions a day supporting the ground troops around Kiev. (Günther speaking in German) The skies above the Ukrainian capital are full of enemy fighters from early morning until late evening, and the score for JG-52 begins to rise rapidly. On August 4th, it totals 20 victories. Usually it is between five and ten. Shot down in late September, Rall bellies in in a forest clearing and makes his way back to the German lines. Others were not so. Lucky. German pilots who crash land behind Russian lines are often tortured and killed by their captors. Günther speaking in German On this front, there was no mercy. No chivalry, no Geneva Convention. September 1941 plans for a Lightning conquest of Russia are beginning to unravel. Victory is eluding the Germans at Kiev and Leningrad, and the infamous Russian mud is delaying the advance on Moscow. Hitler's plan called for rampant encirclement and destruction of the red. Army, but the Russians have fallen back. Buying time in exchange for territory. The men of JG-52, operate out of nine different fields in September alone. In late September, the group moves to Poltava, 200 miles further east. In Germany there was a newspaper Voklisher Beobachter and the editor, that Guy,was a high-ranking Nazi guy. Headlines. When the first snow falls, it's all over. The first snowfall fell, I was in Poltava in a tent. And then we got run down to minus thirty degrees. temperature. Unprepared, even for the mechanics, they had no gloves and it was horrible. It took a time to recover, no doubt, you got it, but it took time and this was very, very bad. (Günther speaking in German) All of a sudden, winter is upon us. Yesterday the autumn sun warmed us with a balmy 18 degrees. Today a cold wind whistles through every crack in the mess tent and we are freezing at minus 15 centigrade. The Meadow we operate from hardens into a thin sheet of ice. We are in no way equipped for such weather. The mechanics, least of all who dressed in their thin, inadequate overalls, strive to keep serviceable the machines parked out in the open, fully exposed to the elements. Our fighting strength is slowly but surely being whittled away. In the last three months, experienced men have been lost. Leaving behind gaps that cannot be filled by inexperienced replacement pilots. If a pilot is fit for operations, he spends two or three hours in the air every day against a numerically superior enemy at night. Our airfield is bombed regularly. We are weakened by poor food and diarrhea, plagued by lice, worn down by lack of hygiene. You know, we teach our children. We were not enthusiastic about thewar in Russia. We lived under very poor conditions. And we were really challenged. It was cold, it was lousy. We were in tents. We had air battles almost every day, you know, and this was a and this was a hard time. October 1941 the German Army is approaching Moscow's Hitler's primary objective, but the Russians halt the Germans a few miles from the city. While the standoff continues into November, Günther Ralls JG-52, is still fighting near Kiev. (Günther speaking in German in background) 28 November 1941 was an icely cold day. In the air. Everything around us fades into a Milky haze. Lacking all lines and contours, we spot two Ratas. And climb at full throttle to a position above and behind them. The Russian is now filling the ring of my reflector sight and he still doesn't suspect a thing. Edge in closer. Lift the nose a little. Now my tracer bullets strike the fuselage and wing of my opponent. And then he explodes in a brilliant fireball. I am completely blinded. For three or four seconds, I have to concentrate entirely on keeping my Messerschmitt under control. Then suddenly there is a crashing in front of me and bits of Cowling fly past me. I've been hit. He shot my engine off out and it was about 300 meters high. And the glide angle so I  went down bellied in the snow, but the speed was too high and I jumped up again and now was stalling just above this. ditch. So I had to push it down again otherwise, it went down and then the wall came. And AGH!, the big crash and I was out. The engine flew 40 metres through the air and the wings came off and I was down at the at the bottom of that. Completely right. Unconscious and bleeding from a wound that had peeled back his scalp. Rall was cut from his cockpit by a German Panzer crew and taken to a nearby field hospital. His scalp was stitched up. But the doctor could do little about the terrible back pain from the crash. After three weeks without X-ray or treatment, he was flown to Hungary. Handrick the senior officer He fixed that I came to with a JU-52 to Bucharest to normal hospital. And there I came up to the X-ray. And then he came to my bed. The doctor. When I say. Herr Oberleutnant I was a first Lieutenant at that time. Forget flying, that's out. You broke your back three times. And then I stopped. And said, doctor, I will fly again. In the spring of 1941, the United States Congress passed the Lend Lease Act, which authorized the president to sell, lease, or give war materials to allied nations. The Lend Lease Act ended America's pretense of neutrality. And lead directly to German submarine attacks on US merchant ships, but between 1941 and 1943, when America's allies did most of the fighting. That Lend Lease was essential. To the war effort. And to the Allies eventual victory in 1941. Hub Zemke and his longtime friend John Alison were sent to England to help the British assemble, test and train an American built Curtiss P-40 Tomahawks that Britain purchased under Lend Lease. Zemke and Alison also studied the Royal Air Forces Organization, training and equipment. Zemke was especially impressed by the RAF's early warning radar system and by its air control system, which kept track of all RAF fighters and bombers in the air. He flew RAF Hurricanes and Spitfires, studied reports on German fighters, and found them all superior to anything America was producing. Observing RAF operations in 1941, Zemke and Alison realized that the US Army Air Corps was totally unprepared for combat at high altitudes. The Curtiss P-40 was outmatched by British and German fighters. The RAF assigned its P-40s to low altitude roles. When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. The Russians desperately needed war materials, including modern aircraft. The RAF was only too happy to send nearly 200 of its P-40s to Russia. Zemke Allison and a few RAF mechanics were sent to Russia in August 1941 to help assemble the P-40s and to teach the Russians to fly. Them. The Russian pilots learned quickly, and Zemke was impressed by their skill and their fighting spirit. Lend lease was. Doubly important one, it showed them that we know we were committed and that showed the Russian population that we are committed. And Lend Lease was not only P-39sand P-40s, it was acres and acres of dodge trucks and and food and supplies that got down through the to the population because everybody was engaged in the war effort. So tremendously important in terms of the effect on the Russian public. On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Four days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. America was officially at war. In Moscow, Zemke and Alison could hear the artillery battle as the Germans approached the Russian capital. Eager to get home and get into the fight, Zemke made his way South to Tehran, then to Egypt, Brazil, Puerto Rico and finally the US after a journey of four months. Zemke was promoted to captain and given his first command, the new 89th Fighter Squadron. 2 weeks later, he was given command of the 56th Fighter Group and was soon a Lieutenant Colonel. Promotions came fast in wartime. The 56th was a unique command. Not only did Zemke have to turn fresh flight school graduates into effective fighter pilots, he also had to test. And evaluate a radically new fighter design, the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. LP-47 was immensely important, not only in quantity but ultimately in quality. When it rolled out, the original model was troublesome. It didn't have the performance that they wanted, but it was going to be available. The Republic then had the manufacturing capability. We ordered a lot of them and we knew that it was part by this great engine. That's our Pratt Whitney R 2800 engine. That was going to be a lead engine in the war. And over time it was improved. It had, it was improved with a better propeller. Improved with the better a turbo supercharger system, improved with a better canopy. It had external fuel tanks applied to it it and it became a very, very effective weapon. And you if you would like to provoke an argument, just tell a P-47 pilot that the P-51 is a better airplane and you'll get a good argument. Overall, Zemke was not impressed with the P-47. In his autobiography, he wrote the pilots were all eager young fellows who thought the Thunderbolt was a terrific fighter simply because they had flown nothing else. November 1942. The US Army invades North Africa in Operation Torch. U.S. Marines are fighting the Japanese on the Pacific island of Guadalcanal. The Savage battle, begun in August, will rage on until the end of the year on Thanksgiving Day 1942. The 56th Fighter Group received orders transferring them to England, arriving in January 43. They began a long. Period of further. Training in radio work tactics, RAF protocols and instrument flying, Zemke knew that his pilots had a lot to learn. His job as commander was to Foster and encourage the aggressiveness that would make them killers, while imposing the discipline and the unit cohesion that would. Keep them alive in combat. The fighter pilots they begin to get. 20-21 years old. Highly spirited 2 years of college. Three years of college. The cream of the crop physically, mentally caught. Sure of themselves. Egocentric as hell. And being fighter pilots. On top of that thought, they walked on water and talked to God. Instituting discipline among this group of people, building cohesion. And training them. Was a first class task. The United States, and to use the term again, was an OJT Air Force. We were we. We. Were learning to fly and to fight, to build airplanes and to ship them overseas and to maintain them all all at the same time. And the guys who would have been a Lieutenant for eight years suddenly found themselves being captains and majors and colonels within a matter of months. And for the most part, that a terrific job they they they accepted their responsibilities and work. Bad luck, haunted. Dempsey and the 56th Fighter Group in their first months in England, missions were scrubbed by mechanical problems or followed up by inexperience. In its first 90 days in combat, the 56th shutdown only two planes, both RAF Spitfires and lost two P-47s. Finally, on June 11th, Captain Walter Cook shot down a Focke Wulf 190 for the unit's first confirmed kill. More victories followed quickly. By the fall of 1943, under Zemke's tough but fair leadership, the 56th had become one of the most effective fighter groups in the Eighth Air Force. First thing to say is that not every ace is a commander. For an ace to do that, it's very difficult. Aces don't want to subordinate themselves to anything but getting out and killing airplanes. I mean, when you get an ace who can not only be an ace, but lead a squadron and create a squadron of aces, then you have a Pearl without price. Shorty Rankin joined the 56th Fighter Group as a replacement pilot in August of 1943. He scored 10 victories with Zemke's Wolfpack. Later, during the Cold War, Rankin commanded six fighter jet squadrons. Zemke's Wolfpack was so successful because of Hub Zemke and his leadership and what he instilled in the pilot and made them aggressive to carry on to get the job done. Shorty Rankin was drafted in March 1941. A talented musician, he spent more than a year as a member of an army band before applying for flight training. I want to tell you how I became a fighter pilot and why was an advanced flying school. My instructor said we're gonna meet. At a certain altitude. We'd do a 180 away from each other, fly for two minutes and then come back head on and rat race and see who can get on the other's tail. Well. I was a young aviation cadet but I was in advanced flying school and all along I've been told the pilot who has the height advantage. Has the advantage. So as I was climbing away when I left, I was climbing the whole time and I was climbing on the way back, so I had him locked cold. I got on his tail. There's no way he gets away from me and that's the reason I was selected to be a fighter pilot, because I whipped his butt. That's how it happened. There was 400 in my pilot class. Only sixty of us got fighters. So I was very lucky the rest of them had to go to be copilots in 17th and 24th. After completing flight training, Rankin was sent to England to Shrewsbury, a replacement Center for 8th Air Force fighter groups. They were transitioning RAF pilots, US pilots who had been flying for the Rev, giving them transition into P-47. For those of us coming from the states, we had about 130 hours in the airplane and then finally they. Started your orders to go to fighter groups and fortunately for me and ten others we got to 56th. If you did what they told you, you had a good chance of completing the war. And of eleven of us, ten of us did, and two of us became masters?. In early January 1942. Gunther Rall is put aboard a hospital train and transferred to Vienna, encased in a full body cast that leaves him mostly helpless in Vienna. He is under the care of a pretty petite female ward doctor. (Günther speaking in German) The ward Doctor, Herta Schön, is a young Viennese, slightly older than myself, friendly, who makes every effort from the start to ensure that my recovery progresses smoothly and, moreover, is always a delight to see. When Rall's father dies a few weeks later of a burst appendix, it is doctor Schön who brings the news to Rall's bedside. (Günther speaking in German) Doctor Schön fully understands that I now need someone to talk to. She stays with me for a long time this evening. She will remain by my side for 43 years. On the eastern front, temperatures of minus 54 Fahrenheit have brought most of the fighting to a halt. But while the Germans freeze and run short of supplies, Russian fighting men and equipment pour into the Soviet lines from the east. In December 1941, the Germans launched a new push to take Moscow. But the Russians hold. Then counterattack. By January 1942, the Red Army has pushed the invaders back 200 miles to the West. The Soviets success sends a message. To the world. The German war machine and blitzkrieg are not unstoppable. Rall's, broken back, heals slowly, and his doctors are making no promises. But after five long months, the cast comes off and Rall begins rebuilding his strength. In mid-May, nearly six months after he was shot down, Rall climbs carefully into a trainer aircraft for some aerobatic maneuvers. It's a successful flight. (Günther Speaking in German) My back is holding up. It hardly hurts at all. Somewhat hesitantly, Herta rises from her chair and comes to stand alongside the Jungmeister. While I'm undoing my harness. Her eyes, her facial expression, reflect conflicting emotion. A mix of relief and sadness. In this moment, I realized that my life no longer belongs to me alone. I've got to return to my crowd, I say as I take her hand in mine. But Herta, I'm coming back. By early summer 1942. The Germans still have not captured Leningrad or Sevastopol, two of their major war aims. In May they defeat and capture nearly half a million Russian soldiers. But the Russians can afford even these grim losses. In less than a year, the Germans have lost a million men on the Eastern Front, a third of the eastern armies. Of the goals Hitler set for Operation Barbarossa, not a single one has been met. The Soviets continue to fall back as the Germans push deeper into Russia, trying to encircle an enemy that is no longer there. This deadly cat and mouse game is bleeding the Germans, exhausting their equipment, supplies, and men. But Hitler sees only German victories. In July 1942, Hitler divides Army Group South, sending half of that force toward the Crimea to capture the oil fields. The other half, a quarter of a million men under General Friedrich Paulus moved towards Stalingrad. The supply situation is now critical for the Germans. Paulus's Army runs out of fuel in late July and again in mid August. German tanks are stalled only 35 miles from Stalingrad. Günther Rall reaches his old unit JG-52 on 28 July 1942 for the next month. They are constantly moving. (Günther speaking in German) 200,000 German troops are lost on the Eastern Front in August 1942 alone. Never before has there been so many casualties in so short a time. True, over the same period The Wehrmacht captured 625,000 prisoners ,but the Red Army is able not merely to make good on these losses. It is constantly adding to the numbers of its frontline units. In September 1942, the German army reaches the center of Stalingrad. Heavy fighting continues in the ruined city. In the South, the farther the Germans advance, the harder the Red Army resists. Hitler now knows he cannot capture the huge oil refineries and oil tanks at Grozny. He orders their. Destruction. In early October, Rall's JG-52 is ordered South to escort the bombers. During a fighter sweep on 22 October, Rall downs three Russian aircraft in four minutes with a total of 100 aerial victories. He is awarded the Oak leaves to the Knights Cross, to be presented by the Fuhrer himself at the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's mountain retreat. There was that time there was Toshel Steinhoff was with me and some others, five or six. And this always, Hitler gave the the order. And then? We are sitting around the fireplace and he asked where you coming from, where are you come from. Then he developed his plans and ideas to us. At that time, Hitler had a very clear you could, you could say what it was with his target. But he had a clear. Plan. Whether you like it or not, but because this means watering the the the desert in Ukraine, you know, and settling farmers in their things and I'll never forget this lasted almost an hour. And then the middle I interrupted him. Steinhoff said are you crazy? And I said Mein Fuhrer. How long is this war in Russia going to last? The reason was was, you know, these headlines that I read when the first snow falls, it's all over. And I asked these questions. Hitler stopped. When he says first time, he addressed me, Rall? I don't know. The great leader doesn't know. Soon after Raul's meeting with Hitler, Günther and Herta are married in Vienna. In November, raw reports back to his unit. JG-52 was already the most successful fighter group in the Luftwaffe and its pilots continued to rack up victories. But they cannot change the outcome. All along the Eastern front, the Germans are being pushed back. In July 1943, British and American troops invaded Sicily. In the Ukraine, the Germans suffered a crucial defeat at the Battle of Kursk. The largest and bloodiest tank battle in the history of land warfare. Rall's JG-52, was engaged in an equally savage air battle in the skies over Kursk. When the battle began, the Russians had half again as many aircraft over the battle area as the Germans. By the battles end, despite huge losses, the Russians had three times the number of German fighters. There was a time when I said to my wife after Kursk. Hertie. The war is lost. We didn't believe anymore in the Victory or loss. We just waited. What's going on? Maybe diplomatic activities or what else? In September 1943. With 200 victories, Rall was awarded the Swords to the Knights Cross. He traveled to Prussia again. To receive the award directly from Hitler at the Wolf's lair retreat. And Hitler? And he talked to us. Not anymore facts. Settling farmers watering and so forth, no. Really dark suit, but strip on the horizon? That's bullshit, You know, (Rall speaking in german) I know I didn't want to fly the Pacific. I don't like water so I was real pleased when I got assigned to Europe and I was thrilled when I went to join the 56th Fighter Group and found out what they were all about. 1943 The tide is turning for Hitler and Germany. In January, Montgomery's 8th British Army pushes the Germans out of Tripoli. By May, Allied forces control all of Tunisia, and German and Italian troops surrender in North Africa. At Stalingrad, the Soviets began their final counter. Offense. The Germans are encircled and in February, 24 generals and 91,000 men surrendered. To the Russians. 146,000 Germans have been killed or starved to death in a failed attempt to capture the city. In the Atlantic. German wolf packs are ravaging allied shipping. The Battle of the Atlantic reaches its climax in mid March when the Germans sink 27 merchant ships in four days. The Americans have entered the Air war in earnest. And in January the 8th Air Force strikes at the German homeland with a daylight raid on the port city of Wilhelmshaven. In January, American and British leaders Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet in Casablanca, and Roosevelt announces that the war can end only with the unconditional German surrender. The tide is turning for Hitler and Germany. But they will fight on for two more long years. I'm Gary Sinise, and this is missions that changed the war. The 56th Fighter Group arrived in England in January 1943 with Lieutenant Colonel Hub Zemke in command. The men of the 56th had ignored a long run up of training and organization in the states. They arrived in England eager for combat, still much in need of training in geography and navigation, British aircraft control networks, instrument flying, formation flying air gunnery and combat tactics. In early April 1943, after threee and a half months in England, the 56th Fighter Group moved to Horsham St. Faith Air Base near the city of Norwich and began flying combat missions. My dad looked at himself as a player coach. He recognized, just like in a pickup game of football, that when you're choosing your players, you go for the best players you can find in the crowd. And no matter what their rank was, he put them as flight leaders or his element leaders. He knew he had to teach men to lead, and he would stand down heavy combat missions to let Schilling or Gabreski lead the group. And he would stand down and wait for them to come back. Lieutenant Robert Rankin, nicknamed Shorty, graduated from pilot training on April 11th, 1943 at Luke Field, Arizona. My mother flew out there Arizona, with my my dad, and she pinned my wings on me. And a gold bar. And they didn't want me to fly. No, no, not not not our little Bobby Rankin was. I was the baby of the family and flying is dangerous. After I got my wings, I. They ask you what airplane you wanted to fly. And I picked the P-47. That's what I wanted to fly and. Then the first time I got a chance to be up inside one of it I thought, you must be crazy. who would want to fly this big thing for it looks so monstrous. The first time I walked up and looked at it. But I know just something about the P-47. I liked the way it looked. And the 850 caliber machine guns four in each wing, big radial engine R- 2800. The history proves the fact it could take an awful beating and get you home. And fortuantely for me, I never got a scratch of my airplane. I didn't want any part of scratches. And the 51, I have nothing against it. And I knew the people who flew it think it's the greatest thing since sex, but. I never found one could whip my Fanny. In August 1943, Rankin was sent to England and assigned as a replacement pilot to the 61st Fighter Squadron, 56th Fighter Group. I know I didn't want to fly the Pacific. I don't like water, so I was real pleased when I got assigned to Europe and I was thrilled when I went to join the 56th Fighter Group and found out what they were all about. Through the late winter of 1942-43', Gunther Ralls JG 52 Fighter Group is on the run, one step ahead of the advancing Russians. The Germans destroy what they cannot take with them planes, trucks and equipment. By early February, JG 52 is a fighter group in name only. Rall is its acting commander. Gunther Rall wrote. By the middle of March 1943, JG 52 has reached the stage where it can be returned to operations. It transfers down to the Crimea on a fighter sweep on 21 March. I claim my first two victories in almost five months. On March 28th, Rall claims his first American airplane, a Lend Lease P-39 Airacobra. Even in unfavorable circumstances. The Soviet fighter pilots were tough, courageous fighters. By the middle of 1943 they were approaching the same tactical standards as the German Luftwaffe, and now too the modern fighters produced by Yakovlev and Lavochkin were arriving at the front powerful, Agile machines. In April, Rall shoots down a British Spitfire flown by a Russian. His group sees B-25 Mitchell bombers in Russian, markings, a hint of the flood of Lend Lease materials that will soon flow into Russia from England and the US. April and May 1943 bring the most intense air combat that the JG 52 has seen. Günther speaking in German Our operational orders run the whole gamut of what can be asked of a fighter pilot. From escorting Stukas, Heinkel HE-111, and Junkers JU-88s to patrolling railway lines protecting shipping, making weather flights and fighter sweeps. Between one April and 23 May alone, I fly 64 missions and claim 37 kills. Individual pilots bring down his. As many as five opponents on some days. Such scores are possible only because the Germans face incredibly high numbers of Russian pilots, and inevitably, the German fighter groups suffer significant losses as well. (Rall speaking in German) Lameness in my right leg, a result of my spinal fractures, is now giving me constant trouble. I have to fly an increasing number of OPS with my left foot strapped to the rudder pedal. Using this alone to control all rudder movements. In late May. Rall returns to Vienna for rest and treatment of his lameness. His R&R is cut short by orders to return to his unit in the Crimea. (Rall speaking in German) One July 1943. I become commander of the JG 52, the most successful fighter group in the German Luftwaffe. In July 1943, British and American troops invade Sicily in the Ukraine. The Germans suffer a decisive defeat at the Battle of Kursk, the largest and bloodiest tank battle in the history of land warfare. Rawls JG 52 is engaged in an equally savage air battle in the skies over Kursk. As one Russian describes it quote, "there were furious aerial combats over the battlefield. Airmen on both sides tried to help their ground forces win the battle, the fighters, bombers and ground attack aircraft". swarmed and soon the sky was dark with the smoke of burning aircraft". un quote. The Wehrmacht lost 49,000 men at Kursk and 1600 tanks and self-propelled guns damaged or destroyed. The Russians lost five times as many soldiers and fighting vehicles as the Germans, but the Soviet war machine could replace even these grim losses, while the German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe were spread thinner and thinner. When the battle began, the Russians at Kursk had three aircraft for every two German planes. By the battles end, despite huge losses, the Russian fighter aircraft outnumbered German fighters by three to one. There was a time when I said to my wife after curse. Petty. The war is lost. We didn't believe anymore Victory or loss. We just raided what's going on, maybe diplomatic activities or what else. All claimed his 200th victory in September 1943. He was awarded the Swords to the Knights Cross. He traveled to Prussia again to receive the award directly from Hitler at the Furors Wolf's lair retreat. In 1941, on the eve of the invasion of Russia, Hitler told the German people. We have only to kick in the door. And the whole rotten structure will come tumbling down. But Russia's rotten structure had survived in its armies were pushing the Germans back toward Germany. At Rall's. First meeting with Hitler, the Fuhrer spoke in detail of a bright future for Germany and the German colonies in the Ukraine. Now Raw meets a Hitler who barely resembles that man whose visions he had listened to 10 months earlier. (Rall speaking German) The Fuhrer? As anyone entrusted with leadership can see, no longer leads. He has hardly any facts about friend or foe at his fingertips anymore. Instead, he murmurs mystically about a long, deep, dark valley through which we must stride. But at whose end? The silver lining can already be seen. And Hitler? And he talked to us. Not anymore. Facts. Saddling farmers watering and so forth, no. Really dark suit, but strip on the horizon those bullshit. You know,  (Rall speaking in German) Another surprise awaited Gunther in Germany. Six months earlier, with his unit in the Crimea, Raul had had an unexpected visitor. My wife helped Jews to get over to England 38'. You know, there was a the. The Austrian intelligence in Vienna. Where 80% were Jews. So doctors, professors, lawyers, Journalists. Theater people, and she had good friends in England. They were Jews, they always came over for skiing, very high ranking Jews and she went over to England and they managed that the doctors a couple of doctors six, eight, ten. Could go to England. This was then known and she was called by the Gestapo. And I didn't know that in those days, you know. But in the in the war when I was in the Crimean Peninsula. The the Justice officer from the Justice officer came. And he interrogated me. I said Are you crazy? I risk my head every three times a day and you come with such a bullshit. They Investigated on and on till I got the swords. That I heard the report Hitler gave me the Swords, and after that we have to go to Göring in his house castle. And it was in the line. I said Herr Reichsmarshall, Major Rall reports the oak leaves and Swords Hitler. Then he said. Aahh! The really loud. Mein Liber Rall , (my dear Rall). I'm happy. Two to forget what was. You know, then he said. Forget it, it's all over. I cancelled it. The process. In other words, he couldn't risk. That a man with swords and this was the reason why they quit. And from there on it was silence. In World War One, 1914 to 1918, the technology of aerial bombing advanced rapidly from artillery shells dropped from fighters to huge four engine bombers by 1918. Many in the Royal Air Force believed that strategic bombing of industries and rail lines could be decisive and could bring Germany to her knees. But the war ended before that idea could be proven. Sir Hugh Trenchard, head of the RAF, predicted that in the next. War. Britain's best defense would be the destruction of enemy industries and the demoralization of enemy civilians by strategic bombing. But in 1919, Trenchard's next war seemed like a remote possibility. And the British military chiefs argued that the value of strategic bombing was very much unproven. The debate and the policies it drove would shift back and forth through the 1920s and 1930s. In the United States, General Billy Mitchell was arguing for a doctrine of strategic bombing. Testing the bombers effectiveness against land targets was impractical at best, but German ships seized by the Allies in 1918 offered an opportunity to demonstrate the bomber's worth. the US Navy doubted that. Aerial bombs could sink a capital ship, but they were not exactly eager to put it to the test. Mitchell was finally allowed to stage a demonstration in 1921. In June 1921, off the Virginia Capes, flying boats of the US Naval Air Service sank a German submarine, a destroyer, the cruiser Frankfurt, and the battleship Ostfriesland using bombs weighing from 200 to 2,000 pounds, despite Mitchell's Success British and American navies still were not convinced that bombers could destroy large warships. Mitchell would ultimately face court martial for pushing his views too aggressively at the high command. Britain and France used aerial bombing effectively in their colonial wars in the 1920s and 30s, especially in Iraq, Somaliland and Morocco. The Colonials had no anti aircraft defenses and no one really knew whether the bombers could succeed against a well defended industrial nation. Still, by 1930 there was a growing belief that the bombers would always get through. In Britain that belief led military planners To ask how could bombers be beaten? A Commission was set up to find answers, and the result was Britain's early warning system, revealing the enemy's altitude and course, and often its numbers. In the mid 1930s, as Britain awoke to the rising threat of Germany and began to rearm aircraft development and production, air crew training and airfield construction focused mainly on bombers as a deterrent force. This was based on the belief that tight formations of bombers could defend themselves and could deliver their bombs with precision in daylight raids over Germany. Under this doctrine, radar and short range fighters would protect England from the feared knockout. blow by enemy bombers while formations of British bombers broke the back of German industry and shattered the will of the German people. The Spanish Civil War gave Germany a chance to test and develop its doctrine of aerial warfare. The bombers that Germany sent to aid the nationalists caused serious damage, and the fighter planes sent by the Russians to defend against the bombers were only partly successful, like the British. The Germans concluded that the bombers would always get through. The Spanish Civil War, which ended in 1939, offered three lessons that nearly everyone failed to see. First, the bombers faced small numbers of inferior, mostly obsolete fighters. How they would fare against a modern, well equipped fighter force was unproven. 2nd, bombing civilians did not always break their will to fight. On the contrary, it tended to increase their resistance. And 3rd although the bombing raids were very destructive, victory still seemed to depend on the land. Battles. On the eve of World War Two. The leaders of the world's air forces believed that aerial bombing could be decisive, that bombing civilian targets would break the enemy's will to resist, and that bombers would always get through. These beliefs and the doctrines they fostered would have tragic consequences in the war to come. In the first two years of the war, British bombers caused little damage to the enemy, often missing their targets entirely. And bomber losses were higher than expected. Bombing raids against Britain produced similar discouraging results for the Germans. The Battle of Britain in the summer and fall of 1940 should have alerted leaders on both sides to the fact that bomber formations were highly vulnerable to fighter attacks. And in the fall of 1940, German bombers pounded London for 68 straight nights. But it was not a knockout. Blow. Britain fought on. By that time, British ground forces had been pushed out of Europe. The British War cabinet concluded that the only way left for Britain to fight on was a massive bomber offensive against Germany, and in particular against the German oil industry. But there were mixed messages and diversions. It was proposed that one of the primary goals of the bombing campaign should be to break the morale of the German people and as German submarines destroyed more and more allied shipping. The British bombers were diverted to attack the submarine pens on the French coast, but in 1941. A British panel concluded that of the bombers that claimed to have hit their target, only one in three got within five miles of it. The Brits attempted to go after U boats. They destroyed not one U boat. Not one bomb ever penetrated. The U-boat pens. But they exhaustively lost approximately 400 aircrews in that attempt. Now, I don't believe the intelligence was as good as one would think, but understand the British were listening to all of the German transmissions at the time. They understood what the Germans were talking about. And they switched their tactics to go after the vendetta Of now fire bombing, area bombing. German cities. And that tactic was based upon the fact that they couldn't accurately bomb. At night. A German target, so they proceeded to burn Hamburg. And Dresden and Frankfurt and Berlin and endless missions were spent against brick and mortar that, significantly, did only one thing motivate the Germans to fight even harder. Motivate the general public to support Hitler's war effort. In the War Department in Washington, DC. The emerging doctrine of strategic bombing assumed as the British. Did. That the bombers would always get through introduction of the B-17 bristling with machine guns reinforced the theory that a tight formation of bombers could protect itself from enemy fighters. America's strategic bombing plan was developed in 1941, before the US entered the war. Under the American plan, while the British carpet bombed German targets at night, the Americans would carry out precise attacks on key targets first Germany's electrical power grid second, Its roads, rails and canals, and finally its oil industry. 8th Air Force Combat operations began in August 1942. Their first target was the railroad marshalling yards at Rouen in France. A dozen B-17s put roughly half of their bombs on target. There were follow-up raids on French airfields, ports and railway yards. And General Carl Spaatz, commander of the 8th Air Force, concluded that the bombing plan was correct. Major Curtis Lemay, commander of the 305th Bomb Group, developed the combat box formation, which gave bombers overlapping concentrated fields of defensive fire. But losses to German fighters were still higher than expected. I don't believe Spaatz bought into Harris's. City bombing. Terrorism of the German public. But Spaatz bought into attacking German industry because he had a vendetta to fight too. That was a German fighter production. He did like damage that the Luftwaffe was inflicting on his bombers. And the fighter protection he was given these puny little 3 fighter groups in England. They were getting no place. Why? Because they couldn't escort the bomber more than a third of the way to the target. Spaatz ordered a raid on the German aircraft industry. On August 17th, 1943, bombers were to hit the Messerschmitt factories at Regensburg and the ball bearing plants at Schweinfurt. Both targets laid deep inside Germany. Far beyond the range of the bombers, little friends, the 8th Air Force fighter planes. 56th Fighter Group together with the 4th took off. And supported the escort as far as they could go. They had no way of going any further than halfway and then coming back on what fuel was left and they stretched it to the drop. And particularly, Zemke stretched it to the drop. The P-47s escorted the bombers to a point 100 miles short of the German border, then had to turn around and go home to refuel. And the Germans were no damn fools. They could read radar. They knew where the fighter escort turned back. And they flooded the bomber formations at the German border. Of the 376 bombers sent on the mission, sixty were lost. Another 50 damaged beyond repair, 55 crews and 552 crewmen were listed as missing after the mission. Understand four missions and you don't have an Air Force. This is dire. By the end of 1943, the 8th Air Force had 13 fighter groups instead of three. And two of them were flying the new long range P-51, with wing tanks extending the range of its fighter escorts. The 8th Air Force could once again send its bombers into Germany to targets in the industrial Ruhr Valley. The fighters were protecting the bombers deeper into Germany, but losses were still high. It's a funny thing how how often we fail to learn from anything in in the Battle of Britain, Herman Görring insured his own loss by insisting that his fighters. fly close escort on the bombers and sacrificing their speed and their mobility against the advice of all this fighter commanders, well, it turned out we were doing pretty much the same thing, not quite as close escort. We weren't playing in close formation to the bombers, but we had our fighters flying close enough and in speeds that we we could not intervene as effectively when the Luftwaffe attacked. The first three fighter groups in the Eighth Air Force were the 4th, the 78th and Hub Zemke's 56th. And there was stiff competition among them to see who could score the most kills. The 4th Fighter Group had the advantage in experience. Many of its pilots had been flying with the RAF's Eagle Squadron since 1940 or 41. The 56th was well trained, well led and well equipped, but success did not come easily. Through the spring of 1943, the 56th Fighter Group simply couldn't find the Germans. The Luftwaffe chose not to risk its planes in fighter to fighter combat. It was waiting for the Allied bombers. By early May, the 56th had shot down just two airplanes. Both friendly Spitfires and lost two P-47s, the group's luck finally turned on June 11th. Captain Walter Cook shot down a Focke Wulf 190, and the group's score immediately began to climb. By the fall of 1943, the 56th was one of the leading fighter groups in the eighth air. Force. At first, the men of the 56th were unsure of their commander. Hub zemke could be supportive and open to ideas one moment, then stiff and unyielding in the next. My father at the time I believe trained diligently. I mean not just to occupy the pilots mind but to try and get these people to transition into a combat situation they are going to come into. To his superiors, Zemke was often confrontational. Hub Zemke spoke his mind and if he thought he was right, it did not bother him that he was telling his superior that he was wrong. He felt that it was his duty. He was not being obstreperous. He is not being self seeking. He was saying what he thought and in most instances he I'm sure he was correct because he had the experience that that as many of his superiors did not. The Germans had learned how to optimize a fighting formation in the Spanish Civil War. The Germans developed a formation. Which we now call the finger four. And in this formation you have a element leader. And a wingman and the element leaders objective is to attack and the wingman's objective is to defend the element leader. If they are engaged from the rear. Early enough, the element leaders objective is to turn on. The attack that is both of them together to turn on the attacker and go into head-to-head combat. The British at the time had used the Vicker B and they had and they would stack. In that formation, four of them. Four Vicker B's behind themselves, formation of three, sometimes four. And when they peeled off, they would pull peel off in a string. This type of combat. Had four aircrafts doing the attack and no one doing the defense. Unlike many of his superiors, Zemke had studied British, Russian and German fighter tactics up close, and he began to work out his own tactical solutions. He adopted the German Finger 4 formation, and he arrayed his squadrons in a new way. He would STACK three squadrons in the 56th, one on top of the other. One squadron would do the attack. And this this, this attack was meant to cause the enemy. To make a mistake he would try and break him up as you would have covey of quail and then your reserve group on top of it would come down on top of this broken up cubby and pick them off one by one and then you had top cover on top of it. A group always looking out that you're not going to get jumped. This tactic was adopted. By the 8th Air Force, and it began to show his development as an individual, as a tactician. At first, Eighth Air Force commanders tried to rein in Zemke's unorthodox tactics, but his tactics succeeded for two reasons. First, they made good use of the P-47s greatest strength, its ability to out dive every other fighter, and second, zemke demanded the highest. Levels of discipline in combat. Zemke's Wolfpack became the most successful fighter group in the Eighth Air Force, with twice as many kills as its nearest rival, and the 8th began stealing pilots from the 56th to lead other fighter units. In his heart, Gunther Rall believed the war was lost. But he continued to do his best, leading JG, 52 in combat against the Russians. We are that philosophers. Yeah, we had the daily, the daily engagement. Here's the enemy. Here are you and this we we thought from one mission to the other. That's it. Flying three to five fighter sweeps a day during October and November. Rall makes his 250th kill on November 30th, 1943. The next day he heads home on leave. (Rall speaking in German) The news that has been reaching us at the front. Has been meager and often distorted by propaganda. But now it becomes tangible. The British come at night, attacking the larger towns and cities. The Americans come by day, striking at the center of the armaments industry. Soon the Luftwaffe doesn't have very much left to put up against this offensive. It's wearing itself down on the eastern front. While the Reich is protected by far too few squadrons now, German pilots are going into action with scarcely more than 50 hours of flying time in powered aircraft. Most of them will be killed before their 10th mission. In early January 1944, Rall is summoned a third time to Hitler to receive another. Award and again the Hitler talked sitting next and saw him. I I was surprised about the medicine he has around his his plate, you know. He did take, and then he talked about only the invasion. This was a problem. Where is he coming to be? When will he come to be? What can we do against it is that this was a subject. By early 1944. The pilots and airplanes had begun pouring into Eighth Air Force bases over Europe. The battle for air superiority was at a fever pitch. The Luftwaffe fighters and Flak were inflicting heavy losses on Allied bomber formations, but the bombers were getting through, laying waste to German cities and factories desperate to block the Allied bombing raids. Hitler demanded that all of Germany's fighter production be converted. To building anti aircraft cannons, Speer convinced the furor that the light metals used in aircraft production would be useless for building heavy guns. Instead. The Germans stripped the Russian front of 88 millimeter anti tank guns and used them as anti aircraft guns. Eventually the flak defenses guarding German cities would number 10,000 cannons and nearly a million men from the Eastern Front. The best fighter pilots were sent to Germany to protect the fatherland. Every group in the in the East had to give up at least. A successful fighter pilot as a commander to the West, and then I went to Germany and became commander of 2nd group JG 11. Rahul arrives in Germany in mid March 1943. By early May, he has a total of 275 victories. There I shut down P-38 and some others, and then I became commander of the German final leader school. In August 1943, American bombers had tried to knock out the German held oil refineries at Ploiesti, Romania. A fuel situation is absolutely crucial to the Germans. They they didn't have, they were rationing fuel to everybody that to tanks, to airplanes, to training. And when it gets down to it, if you have a choice of diverting fuel to a interceptor squadron or a training squadron, it goes to the Interceptor Squadron. They were always short of fuel. The bombers flew without fighter escort. The raid was one of the costliest in American Air Force's history. The Ninth Air Force lost 53 aircraft and 660 crewmen, a loss ratio of nearly 30%. And the Germans repaired the damage within two weeks, with no loss of overall oil production. Most of Germany's petroleum came from imports. Before World War Two. Synthetic oil made from coal supplied about 1/4 of the country's petroleum. By 1943, synthetic oil plants were providing half of Germany's oil. And the Germans had. Very smartly. Put their synthetic oil. Manufacturing out of the range of any American fighter, considerably out of it, essentially on the Czech border. By the end of 1943, the 56th Fighter Group's P-47s were finally being fitted with wing tanks. The tanks gave them the range to escort the bombers into Germany. This was a massive task of which nobody had realized the P-47 was not configured with hardpoints. On the wings and they did not have a system by which they could pressurize the tank and pump the fuel to the engine. And on top of that, they couldn't get tanks. There were no tanks. They made tanks out of paper and epoxy resin which leaked at altitude. 8th Air Force directives called for the fighters to stick close to the bombers. Zemke knew the 8th Air Force orders were wrong. He was sure that the best way to protect the bombers was to attack the German fighters before they reached the bomber formations. In the 56th, Zemke began taking the fighters farther and farther out ahead of the bombers, trying to catch the German fighters as they were forming up. To ignore 8th Air Force Directives was to risk court martial and loss of his command, but Zemke's insubordination was tolerated because his tactics got results. With improved long range fighter cover for its bombers, the 8th Air Force was pounding industrial targets in Germany. But the bombing raids were not achieving the results the commanders hoped. For. Their principal target, German aircraft production, was widely dispersed and quickly repaired. Despite an intense allied bombing campaign, German fighter production actually increased. In January 1944, Major General Jimmy Doolittle was given command of the 8th Air Force, and he changed the mission of the fighter groups. Instead of escorting bombers, the American fighters would seek out the Luftwaffe attacking. German fighter planes, wherever they were found, while Eighth Air Force bombers attacked targets critical to Germany's air forces. These two directives would intersect on a fateful day in mid-May. Albert Speer. Hitler's Minister of Armaments wrote years later in his memoir. That May 12. 1944. Was a day he would never forget. It was the day. Germany lost the. War. I could tell you the the numbers, the battle when we were. Got the alarm on against them. There were 800 bombers, B17, B-24. And 8,000- 9,000 meters. And about 1,000 fighters from the Hartz Mountains down to Stuttgart. Always four four four. the so called Wolf Pack from Hub Zemke, whether that you know. And we were 75, we had 54 Focke Wulf down there and I have 25 109s up there as a top cover. But it's not comparable with these numbers possible. January 1944. Hitler's dream of conquering Russia lies in ruins. The Soviets have entered Poland, and in the Ukraine the Germans are being driven back. In Italy, the Allied armies push up the peninsula toward Rome. British and American forces attempt to flank the Germans with an amphibious landing at Anzio in the Pacific. Intense fighting is pushing the Japanese out of Tarawa, Macon, Kwajalein, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. In Germany, British nighttime bombing raids are hitting the German capital Berlin, while massive American daylight raids pound industrial and military targets in Germany and occupied France. By the fall of 1943, Colonel Hub Zemke's 56th Fighter Group was among the most successful fighter units in the European theater. But the bombing campaign was in trouble. Lackluster results and heavy losses caused some leaders in Washington to question the aims and value of the American bombing raids. And on May 12th, 8th Air Force bombers attacked Germany's synthetic oil plants in his memoir of the Third Reich. Albert Speer wrote that he would never forget May 12th, 1944. He called it the day that Germany lost the technological war. I'm Gary Sinise, and this is missions that changed the war. The 56th Fighter Group arrived in England in January 1943 with Lieutenant Colonel Hub Zemke in command. General Ira Eaker, head of 8th Bomber Command, rounded up his best unit commanders and sent them to the United States to win over the US Army, Air Force leaders and the public. Zemke was part of that team. Zemke arrived home on November 20th, met with the military chiefs, went on a lecture tour, and visited his parents in Missoula, Mt before returning to Washington, DC for transit back to England. There he learned that new orders were being prepared to assign him to a stateside post in New York. He desperately wanted to return to the 56th, as he had been promised, before leaving England with his original order still in hand. He jumped on a transport plane for England and went to Fighter Command headquarters to plead his case there. General William Kepner told Zemke to disappear for a few days. While matters were sorted out. After five days of cooling his heels in Edinburgh, Scotland, Zemke was told to return to the 56th and reassume command. He arrived back at Halesworth on January 19th, 1944. Zemke never learned exactly what happened. At headquarters. He knew only that he could have faced court martial and loss of his rank and command, and that the incident almost certainly ended his chances for promotion. Lieutenant Robert Shorty Rankin joined the 56th Fighter Group as a replacement pilot in August of 1943. He flew 27 missions without firing a shot. Not all pilots were that aggressive. My flight commander when I first got there flew with him, we were we were always top flight, top cover. No matter what went on we still stayed to top cover. We didn't do anything and eventually I got that flight. I changed things around but. I was a go type I I was conservative and I didn't want to go. Somebody's right on me but. If I had the opportunity. I'm going down to do what I got to do. Because I enjoyed flying and I if you didn't have to worry about the Flack, it was kind of a fun thing to do. On February 6th, 1944, Lieutenant Rankin got his first aerial victory. By January 1944, Günther Rall met for a third time with Adolf Hitler to receive an award from the Fuhrer's hand. This time the Fuhrer did not talk of victory. Or of Germany's bright future. This time Hitler spoke only of the coming Allied invasion, though German leaders denied it. Raw was certain that Germany had already lost the war, but he would do his duty as a soldier. Of course. Yeah, we have the daily, the daily engagement. Here's the enemy. Here, you and this we we thought from one mission to the other. That's it. In the Ukraine, roll and his pilots were holding out against long odds in constant retreat from Soviet infantry, tanks and ground attack aircraft. Finally, on March 13th, 1944, his Staffel is ordered to fall back to Lemberg in Poland. (Rall speaking in German) And so we leave the USSR. A good two and a half years after the insanity of Operation Barbarossa was launched. By early 1944, new drop tanks meant that Zemke's fighters could escort the bombers much farther into Germany. The 56th Fighter Group had expanded from 75 to 108 P-47s, and on January 11th it put up two escort groups of 24 fighters, each hit by more than 100 bogeys. The Wolfpack shut down 10 of the enemy with no losses. The British Royal Air Force included several squadrons of Polish pilots who had escaped the German invasion in 1939. Several members of the RAF Polish 315th Squadron asked to join the 56th Fighter Group and were taken in in early 1944. They were able pilots with a passion for killing Germans. Colonel Zemke believed strongly in leading from the front. But he also believed that it was his job to train other men to lead as well. The 8th Air Force set the policy for fighter escort. The American fighter stayed with the bomber. Most fire groups edged in tight to the bomber configuration. Knowing this, the German fighters would form up ahead of the bomber stream and attack head on in Waves, trying to force bombers out of the formation where they could be picked off individually. And Dad went to Kepner. And told Kepner look I believe. We can reshape the air war over Europe by using fighters in a different manner. Zemke had been quietly disobeying orders and sending his P-47s farther and farther ahead of the bombers, hoping to catch the German fighters as they were forming up. And he saw that it was working. Destroying the Luftwaffe was a prerequisite for the Allied invasion of Europe planned for June. In February 8th, Fighter Command issued a new policy. It allowed the fighters to range away from the bombers to seek out enemy aircraft. It was the go and get them order. The fighter groups had been waiting. For. And the 56th lost no time getting into the act. Returning from an escort mission on February 11th, Zemke led his flight down to attack the enemy airfield at Juvencourt, where they destroyed an ME-109, the group's first ground. Kill. In late February, the US Eighth Air Force in Britain and the US 15th Air Force in Italy launched a series of massive raids against the German aircraft industry. The combined bombing campaign of February 20th to the 26th would become known as Big Week. American bombers flew more than 3500 sorties and dropped 10,000 tons of bombs on German cities. The purpose of the bombing campaign was twofold to disrupt German fighter production and to provoke the Luftwaffe into decisive air battles. Losses were heavy on both sides. The Americans lost 226 heavy bombers and 28 fighters. The Germans lost nearly 600 fighter planes. The Americans could replace their losses. The Germans could not. The 56th Fighter Group tallied 59 aerial kills during big Week. And only two losses. On February 22nd, Zemke's 61st Squadron became the first Fighter squadron in the European theater to reach 100 aerial victories. The bombing raids of big Week did not stop German aircraft production. The industry was widely dispersed and in spite of intense Allied bombing, German aircraft production increased throughout the war. Germany's greatest loss during Big Week was the hundreds of experienced fighter pilots who failed to return. They could not be replaced. After big week, the Luftwaffe gave up its full scale attacks on Allied daylight bombers. Germany's fighter forces were now rationed to protect key German cities and installations. Air superiority now belong to the allies. In August of 1943, eighth. Air. Force bombers had attacked German ball bearing factories at Regensburg and Schweinfurt. And the losses were unacceptable. I think there are 60 bombers lost out of us, something like a 290 bomber force plus another 30 or 40 or 50 bombers that reach return safely. But we're no longer usable. And it became apparent you could not conduct operations against Germany. uh in in daylight without a fighter escort. Luftwaffe at that time was still strong. They had drained them fighters from the Eastern Front. They had good pilots, they had a good radar system, early warning system. We we were in effect defeated in 1943 in the air over over Germany with with our bombing thing. But they did draw the conclusion OK, we need an escort fighter and so they the the bombing was diverted to shorter range missions until an escort fighter became available that could take them further into Germany. In early 1940. . The new long range P51 Mustang was coming online and drop tanks were increasing the range of the P-47. General Carl Spaatz, commander of US Air Forces in Europe, now had the long range fighter escort that he needed for his bombing missions. Spaatz was being pressed by Arnold. And the people in Washington, you better get on with prosecuting this war. And as he got range, he began to get into the rural valley and he was left with the option of attacking German industry. He wasn't given the option to reach out and attack. There oil production. Germany produced synthetic oil from its vast reserves of coal. Synthetic oil factories supplied most of Germany's oil and all of its aviation fuel. And the Germans had. Very smartly put, their synthetic oil. Manufacturing out of the range of any American fighter. Armament Minister Albert Speer understood that if synthetic oil production was cut off, the day of Germany's defeat could be calculated with mathematical precision. But in February 1944, Eighth Air Force fighters could not reach far enough. The Luftwaffe still had claws and spots could not send his bombers unescorted into that cauldron. The synthetic oil plants would have to wait. The 56th Fighter Group ended the month of February with twice as many aerial victories as its nearest rival, the 4th Fighter Group, and fewer losses. Dad named the 56th Zemke's Wolfpack 4th Fighter Group is known as the Eagles. Dad was called the werewolf for the 4th Fighter Group. There was a a rivalry similar to baseball scores. OK, the Yankees versus Boston, this sort of thing, and the press began to pick up on it and it was known as a rivalry. Zemke encouraged the rivalry to motivate his pilots. With the P51 and with drop tanks on the P-47 Spaatz had the long range escort he needed to launch a daylight raid on Berlin. On March 6th 1944, more than 700 bombers escorted by 800 fighters attacked the German capital city. The German Air forces fought savagely in what was possibly the largest air battle of the war. The 8th lost 69 bombers and 11 fighters and many of the aircraft. Did return were too badly damaged to ever fly again. The Germans lost 160 fighters that day, 1/8 of the fighter force that rose to defend Berlin. Two days later, the 8th returned to Berlin with over 600 bombers. The 56th Fighter Group destroyed 30 German fighters. Five of its pilots were lost. Lieutenant Robert Rankin of the 61st Squadron claimed his second and third victories that day. In all, the 8th Air Force flew 23 bombing missions during the month of March 1944. Its losses were heavy, 349 bombers, but German losses were heavier in February. The luftwaffe lost 18% of its pilot strength, 225 killed and 141 wounded in March, the Reich Defense Force lost 22% of its pilots, 229 killed or missing, and 103 wounded. The Americans could replace their losses. The Germans could not. When these big bombraids came eighth Air Force or the 15th from the South. We had tremendous problems already because we were in war already 3-4 years and just to give you the numbers to receive the the the more Germany trained and the German Air Force trained and put in in operation 20,000 fighter pilots throughout that time 2000 returned on tenth the survivability let's say from 1944. Onwards. We knew exactly. If you have to go on mission or alert every second pilot will not come home. Günther Didn't you tell me that in those early spring and summer of 44' they were sending people up in the one in the 109 who had a total of 100 hours flying time? Sure Sure sure. Not in the 109, total flying. Sure, right, we had to by that time we had no pilots anymore. People were experiencing people that came on later. They're like taking candy from a baby. On April 17th, Günther Rall arrived at Wunstorf, Germany, transferred from the Eastern Front to command number two group of JG 11. His Me-109s are charged with engaging the fighter planes that escort the American bombers. In these battles, the German fighter arm will be outnumbered by 7 to one or even 10 to 1. The fiercest battles are fought above Ruhr Valley, West of Berlin. American fighter pilots call this area the Happy hunting ground. (Rall speaking in German) The situation doesn't alarm me unduly. There are around 1000 missions and 273 victories in my logbook, a balance that's got to be worth something on any front. The Americans launched bombing raids almost daily, but JG 11 does not see any action until April 29th. On that day, JG 11's Focke Wulf 190 shoot down eleven B-24 liberators, Ralls's 109s tangled with groups of P-51 Mustangs and P-38 Lightnings. His group shoots down six American fighters but loses five of its own, four killed and one wounded by the end of April. The Luftwaffe has lost another 395 fighter pilots killed, missing or seriously wounded. We got young pilots, they had one or two. Sorties on the 109 and they were put in the operation. The survivability, the chance for survive with three missions and then he was dead. As Germany's air defenses weakened, the Allied High command turned its attention again to German oil production. Oil fields at Ploiesti, Romania provided 1/4 of Germany's oil supplies. Bombing raids on Ploesti and the mining of the Danube river drastically cut the flow of Romanian oil to Germany and on May 12th. 8th Air Force bombers attacked Germany's synthetic oil plants. Germany's 13 synthetic oil plants provided 3/4 of its petrol and all of its aircraft fuel. Bombing raids in May cut fuel production in half. By July, every synthetic oil plant had been hit and production was cut by 98%. From May 12 to the end of the war, German oil production averaged 9%. Of its capacity for lack of fuel, the Luftwaffe cut training time to the bone and, through novice pilots, into the meat grinder of the air. War. Hitler's final counteroffensive in the Ardennes in December 1944 failed when his panzers ran out of gas. Three months later, 1200 German tanks waited at the Vistula river to block the Soviet advance, but the Panzers ran out of fuel and were overrun. The May 12th Air battle also saw the first use of a new fighter tactic that would accelerate the destruction of the Luftwaffe and help give the Allies. Undisputed control over the skies of Europe. Zemke had proposed a new fighter tactic that might offer greater protection for the bombers. Kepner named it The Zemke fan. The basis to this tactic was to go out ahead of the bombers and intercept the Germans while they were forming up, never letting them get to the bombers. Zemke led three. Eight plane squadrons, 20 minutes ahead of the bombers to a prominent Riverbend near Koblenz, Germany. From there, the three squadrons fanned out in a 180 degree arc to sweep the Frankfurt area for German fighters. five minutes behind zemke, Gabby Gabreski led a reserve force of 24 fighters. Colonel Zemke's own after Action report tells the story, Zemke wrote. Three of us had moved out to an area. North of Frankfurt. When we were bounced from above by seven Me-109s, my two wingmen were shot down. My escape was by out spinning and diving the enemy as I flew westward toward home. Another four Me-109s jumped me over V Spotton. I was again just able to elude the enemy alone. South of Koblenz, Zemke spotted another group of four enemy aircraft 5000 feet. Below him. Others joined up, and soon there were about 30 German fighters forming up and climbing. Zemke orbited above them, calling for help to bounce them. In his report, Zemke wrote finally, Lieutenant Rankin and his wingman, Lieutenant Thornton, moved up to within half a mile, and I told them to give me top cover while I bounce the enemy below. In the melee that followed, Zemke shot down one Me-109, and broke up another flight of four. Rankin shot down another Me-109 that had gotten on Zemke's tail. Low on fuel, zemke headed for home in all. The 56th Fighter Group shot down 19 German fighters during the mission, losing just three of their own. Lieutenant Rankin was especially successful. We were in flights. And we flew a heading so 15 minutes and then turned around and came back and we recovered the wide area, big area and. As I recall, I was only. about halfway back on my track and it sounded like everybody's brother had encountered fighters, German fighters, and it wasn't Shortly after that I'll look up. I've got 26 to 30 109s in tight formation, still carrying your tanks. And so I take my flight of four and press the attack. They saw me coming and they're all dropped the tanks together. The German fighters broke and dove in all directions. Rankin followed one in a vertical dive. We had been told as they were vertical to 5000 feet they couldn't pull out. Well it helped save me because I'm screaming that joke that nothing could out dive it and I'm gaining on him and all of a sudden. As we started to vibrate and shake and shuttle and he splashed went straight in and I was able to pull out and I remember seeing 575 indicated it was approaching suppressed ability because it felt like it was in concrete when I grabbed it stick cut the throttle back and. Both hands to pull up and get out of there. Climbing back up, Rankin spotted another lone German. Down I'd go splat what can crash into field. That was the second one. That was so easy. He didn't do anything. So many times when you're shooting at an airplane, they don't do anything. Rankin and his wingman then flew to Zemke's aid. Diving into the maylay, Rankin shot down two Focke Wulf 190s. Then turned to pursue the Me109 that was on Zemke's tail. Rankin told Zemke to break. He said. Where is it? and like a dummy and I said. It's climbing up right under your ass. I figured, oh boy, he'll get me when I get home for that. So I'm climbing and I'm heading over there and I got on this guy's tail and gave him a short push and I ran out of ammo and I didn't think I had him while he stood off to the right and popped the canopy and bailed out. If he hadn't done that I couldn't have claimed it but. That was number 5. Shorty Rankin was the 1st P-47 pilot in the European theater to score 5 victories in a single mission. On May 12th, 1944, Günther Rall was commanding 75 fighters of JG 11 based at Wunstorf, 250 kilometers north of Frankfurt. Early in the morning we got alert because the Chairmans head out in the North Sea ships and they were on the same frequency like the 8th Air Force bombers. But when they tune their radios they could figure out we have to expect an attack and when and how. You know we we are a group of 75 airplanes, two Focke Wulf 190 and I was a top cover with a 109. Patrolling at 33,000 feet rolls, Stoffel bounced a group of P-47s flying top cover for Zemke Squadron. Rall shot down one P-47, then his 109 took hits and his wing man was hit and bailed out. Two of us alone and all the other ones they gagged with all different aircraft up there and then they chase me on. This must have been the 2nd. I atacked Hub Zemke's. Leading group.  Only years later, did Zemke learn that his two wingmen were shot down by Germany's third highest scoring ace. Zemke dove to escape Rall's guns and Rall himself was jumped by P-47s. And  they chased me and I mean we we knew exactly the P-47 is much faster as the 109 in a dive and had a much higher structural strength as a 109. But what can you do? I was chased by four almost line abreast. and I turn left, I turn in the bullets, I turn right, turn in the bullets and pull up. So there was no other choice thanI went down and bang, bang, bang and all of a sudden bang and the thumb was. Off. So I pressed the stick between my legs because I I want to know how high I was and the bottom, you know? At treetop level, Rall pulled up until his battered plane stalled. Over there on the aircraft turned upside down. I was hanging out. Of my cockpit and made some. Instinctive movements to get rid of that airplane because it's not that easy to get out of a of a cockpit of the 109, even not if it's upside down. At first, roll was tumbling wildly and could not reach the parachute release. And all of a sudden it was quiet, I was looking how high, and I pulled until I was on the parachute, and then I recognized, I said. Shorty was my thumb? I came down and was hanging in a tree and landed in a wood. And that was good. There's no impact on the on the bottom because one year earlier I had broken my back three times and this was a dangerous and I thought my my harness fell down another bother was steep slope you know bump bump bump bump nor the hard impact but this is then with the farmers came and I said. I am a German. Conflicting combat reports from May 12th make it impossible to determine who shot down Günther Rall. The evidence suggests that it was probably Lieutenant Rankin or his wingman, Lieutenant Cleon Thornton. It was the 8th time Raul had been shot down. I get used to it and I like that. But this was my first bailout. My first and the last one. The mission itself tactically was extremely successful, whereas the bombers were losing 10, maybe as high as 15% of their aircraft on one mission, making it very hard to resupply 8th air force with new. Crews. The fighters. Were so successful in intercepting the Germans and breaking them up it fell to 4%, a  4% loss, of which half of that is estimated to have been anti aircraft. Colonel Zemke was not entirely pleased with the mission. This fan he felt, failed. His generals thought it was just brilliant. He couldn't apply top cover. The first group, A group he escorted out on the fan. They broke up and done. Radiuses. And there were down elements of two. And when he got jumped by Günther Rall there was just two of them there and he was screaming for help. But he had staggered Gabreski five minutes behind him and Gabreski was overwhelmed with the amount of Germans they had. I mean, they were breaking up German cubbies and they were going in all directions and he could get no help. The 56th employed the Zemke fan again on May 22nd as it's three 16. Plane squadrons fanned out ahead of the bombers. Each squadron this time had its own top cover. The group shot down 12 Germans. Zemke's squadron saw no German fighters at all. Colonel Zemke continued to innovate and refine tactics for bomber escort, ground attack and dive bombing with P-47s. We flooded Germany. With tactics. This man helped shape these tactics. It needs to be pointed out. He didn't do it alone. It was the genius of many of his men coming up with these ideas and applying them to it. Eligible for reassignment in late May, Lieutenant Rankin opted for a 50 hour extension with the 56th Fighter Group. I wanted to do this because I thought something was going to happen. I figured D day I didn't what they were going to call it, but I wanted to be a part of that. Well the 50 hours went by so fast. Just like that. You'll fly two or three missions a day and I didn't see it most of the time. I didn't have any action. I didn't get, my last victory was the day after D-Day. I flew three missions on D-Day and didn't see a German fighter. Lieutenant Rankin rotated home to the states in July 1944. After 75 combat missions and 10 aerial victories. Günther Ralls mangled hand was a long time healing. Continued infection kept him off flight status until November 44, when he took command of the Germans new Fighter unit leader school. We had this. Unit. With with Allied aircraft. And certainly, I flew them all P-51,P-47, 38, Spitfire.. as target for my own pilots, which I have to train. That's what's fantastic. And I'm still this comes to my. Opinion that the best fighter airplane was the. Touching all the characteristics and criteria, the P-51 was the best one. In August 1944, Colonel Zemke left the 56th to take command of the 479th Fighter. Group. He gave command of the 56th to Dave Schilling. Zemke called all the men together. He said he knew what he wanted to do and he knew how he wanted it done. He expected from the lowest rank to the highest rank, full compliance with everything there. Zemke applied the tactics and discipline that had made the 56th a success. The 56 had a record of eight to one. Nobody in the at the Air Force was even close. And he told Dave. I will beat that eight to one record your tenure against mine. That was a challenge and he let the 479th know that. The 479th began flying missions deep into Germany under Zemke's leadership. They began to rack up scores and produce aces during the airborne invasion of Holland in October 1944. The 479th had 27 victories and just one loss by late October. Zemke had flown 153 combat missions and had 17 3/4 confirmed victories. Zemke was a highly effective yet enigmatic leader who was unable to motivate and manage those above him nearly as effectively as he did those under his command. He was reassigned to the 65th Fighter Wing as chief of staff, but first he would fly one last combat mission with the 479th. On October 30th, while escorting a squadron of B-24, ZEMKE'S fighters were caught in a huge thunderstorm. Zemeckis P-51 went into a spin and broke up. Zemke was thrown clear, still strapped in his seat, and parachuted into a swamp. He was captured, interrogated, and sent to Stalag Luft one in northeastern Germany, where he assumed command of more than 9,000 Allied POW's. His leadership improved. Conditions and morale and ultimately saved the lives of thousands of POW's. Colonel Hub Zemke retired from the military in 1966 after several other successful commands, but it was the werewolf of Zemke's Wolfpack that has left his indelible mark on history. When the war ended in Europe, Gunther Rall returned home. Packed a suitcase, kissed his wife and walked into captivity. After a brief stay in England, he returned to Vienna and faded into civilian and family life. In 1954, Rall joined the new Luftwaffe as a major and flew jet fighters. He served as a chief of staff for NATO air forces before his retirement as a Lieutenant General in 1975. A chance meeting in 1991 brought these three old adversaries together again, the beginning of deep and lasting friendships. Günther Rall is coming over for Germany and Hub Zemke is coming down here to the Costa Mesa, CA from his almond ranch in California. We would like you to come out here to be with them. We're going to do a a painting of that particular mission, which, well, May 44. All right, senator. Fine. I'd love to come. So we'll pay your way. We'll do all that good stuff. So that was the first time I met Günther. We spent five good days together. We became friends immediately, and we have been friends ever since. And now? A couple of years back I said Shorty, I'll never shoot at you again. A fighter pilot has a personal relation to his enemy. He sees him, his man to man, whrere we had the real dogfights in Russia, because you could see his face. So we we respected each other. He fought for his country. I always said, and we had personal contact in the air. So you have a personal relationship and this is that the fighter pilots after the war became friends. It's typical. I'm a very emotional guy for a fighter pilot, I'll tell you. But. I love this country and every young person who lives here to be blessed, to know that they've been so fortunate to be born here. And when the time becomes if you have to do your thing for your country, you better damn well step up to the bat and do it. The you anybody so fortunate, He feels the same about his country. Three wars and I'm still here. I'm 88. I feel fine. I'd go to tomorrow and fight, but I wouldn't fight against Günter. Colonel Zemke's attitude toward his enemies was shaped by his interrogation and imprisonment. When he came out of that camp and it was liberated, my father. Who's of German parents hated Germans. He had suffered and I think for a long period of time he held that. Grudge. He went back to Germany. And he met Bär, pur?,Gunther Rawls. A number of the German fighter pilots that he knew he fought against and he opened up more and more to them, and my father's whole view of Germans and the Luftwaffe slowly changed. In 2006, Günther Rall published his autobiography, My Log Book. Kurt Braatz was his editor and publisher. I remember one evening after a hard day of work when we were working on the biography and we sat right here on the under the porch. Both of us with a glass of whiskey in our hands. And didn't speak for a couple of minutes. And suddenly into the silence, he said. You know what? I looked into the faces of most of the guys I had to kill and tears ran down his face. And I said, why so? And I said, you know, the Air War on the Eastern Front took place in altitudes below 5 thousand 10 thousand feet and nobody wore an oxygen mask. And when you engaged you came across the guy before you turned in. And I could see them, and a minute later they were dead. And that was something that surprised me really, because at first glance he's just a cold cut warrior, you know? But. If you get to know him a bit better. And not only him, this might be true for most of the World War many of the World War 2 veterans. It really bothers them and will bother them till they do their last breath.

Channel: DroneScapes

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Keywords: germany's last ace, günther Rall, gunther rall, gunther rall aircraft, gunther rall wife, gunther rall german ace, german ace pilot ww2, gunther rall bf 109, ww2 stories, pilot aces ww2, me-109, fighter aces, military history, luftwaffe aces, me-109 aircraft, history documentary, Ww2 history, fw 190, ww 2, ww2 aces, last german ace, luftwaffe ace, german ww2, military documentaries, war stories, bf 109, luftwaffe documentary, ww2 documentary, wings of the luftwaffe

Id: Wlu6lS0-WgY

Length: 173min 35sec (10415 seconds)

Published: Mon May 23 2022