"Conversations with a Stuka pilot." Paul Werner Hozzel.

All this, and a super thick German accent.
A version voiced by Eve of the Daleks to follow at a later date.
Full transcript below,
Available at: Archive.org
https://archive.org/details/conversations-with-a-stuka-pilotada-164063
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If the German is a little too thick, here is the link for EveOfTheDaleks narrating the text:
Spoken Version by Eve:
https://ia601506.us.archive.org/4/items/conversations-with-a-stuka-pilotada-164063/Hozzel_ByEve.mp4
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"Conversations with a Stuka pilot."
Conference featuring Paul Werner Hozzel.
Brigadier general, retired German air force
At the national war college November 1978.

Disclaimer.
The views and conclusions expressed in this document by General Hozzel and others are their own and should not necessarily be interpreted as representing the views of the sponsoring agency or Battelle’s Columbus Laboratories.

Introduction.

As part of a program to evaluate the lethality of current airborne automatic cannon ammunition against threat armored vehicles, the Wayne H Coloney Company invited former Brigadier General Paul Werner Hozzel, German Air Force, to present some of his experiences in combat in the Second World War. General Hozzel presented his ideas and recollections in a one-day seminar at the national War College to members of the alumni association and other distinguished guests. Two days later, at the invitation of Professor R H S Stolfi, "Naval Postgraduate School, he gave a similar seminar to students and faculty at Monterey, California. The seminar participants and audience varied markedly and included officer students at the Naval Postgraduate School, active-duty Air Force general officers retired Admiral Arleigh Burke, USN, and the Director of Net Assessment for the Department of Defense.
General Hozzel is one of a few remaining German officers who fought in the Second World War and held position high enough to allow generalizations about the war and to extract historical genre for future operations. As such, he represents a perishable source for the defense of the West, who along with a dwindling band of German officers in their seventies and eighties, can provide insights into the war from the opposing side and present experience and lessons of combat against the Soviets. Hozzel also held several junior positions early in the war which were singularly varied and give further insight into the conduct of tactical air operations and guidance for present-day tactical and weapons development.

Due to special circumstances involving the eleventh hour sickness of his commanding officer, Hozzel, as a lieutenant, led a group of Stuka, J U-87 aircraft from East Prussia into combat against the Poles in 1939 in the first Blitzkrieg in modern war.
The Blitz, as a modern form of warfare, involves the special combining of infiltration tactics with tanks and aircraft to effect deep, fatal penetration against an opposing side at the beginning of a war. Hozzel led his Stukas against the heavy Polish fortification on the Narwa River line and is credited with breaking them with the most accurate tactical bombing technique of the Second World War, the classic high angle Stuka attack. Hozzel's attack helped to maintain the momentum of the German attack at a time when the Germans could ill afford to mass artillery, infantry, and engineers in a time-consuming, set piece attack against a disintegrating enemy. The present day application is that tactical aircraft may be used as a substitute for ground constrained artillery in the fire support role in order to maintain the momentum of an attack.
Hozzel continued on to direct Stuka operations in the first part of the Norwegian Campaign in April-May 1940, largely against British naval and merchant shipping. In June 1940, Hozzel arrived in France to conduct attacks with special ordnance against the Cherbourg fortifications. The Germans had no artillery at the time with their mobile formations which could master heavy fortification. Hozzel then went on to conduct Stuka attacks against targets in southern England, attacks in support of the Afrika korps in North Africa in 1941.

And massive strikes against British shipping in the Mediterranean and against Malta in the same year. In all of the areas described, France, England, the Mediterranean, he held commands far above what his rank would have allowed in peacetime. The lesson, along with the dramatic accuracy of the Stukas, their success in the face of powerful ground air defense systems, and the difficult maneuvering for any attack aircraft to become adequate fighter screening, was that the German military system emphasized the concentration of resources in elite units which achieved extraordinary results for their numerical strength and logistic effort.
Late in 1941, Hozzel moved to the Eastern Front where he had the distinction as a major, later in 1942, to command the famed Immelmann Wing. The Wing was reinforced to compose over 200 aircraft in support of the Sixth Army and its advance toward Stalingrad in August 1942. Using special tactics and weapons, young major led the Immelmann Wing in successful attacks against the Soviet tanks in the Kalalath region west of Stalingrad. Later in the year, he initiated the dive bombing operations against the heavy Soviet fortifications in Stalingrad through the dense air defense network screening the city. At the end of 1942, Hozzel conducted defensive air operations against the great Soviet offensive which drove the Germans back to the Central Ukraine. His last operation as a commander of Stuka units was during Operation Citadel in support of the southern prong of the German attack near Kursk.

In the period 1943 to 1944, Hozzel first organized the Luftwaffe Logistics Support Effort in the Ukraine and then, in late 1944, moved to the Northern Front where he ended the war as Chief of Staff of the Luftwaffe Air Fleet supporting the German army group backed up against the sea in the Kurland (Latvian) pocket.
These final experiences in combat against the Soviets are particularly instructive. Hozzel organized the logistics effort for the entire German Southern Front which was defending against massive Soviet attacks in late 1943 to 1944. In Kurland, he experienced massive Soviet offensives intended to crush an entire German army group. NATO forces in Central Europe will be subject to similar Soviet offensives, and the experiences of German officers like General Hozzel in resisting such attacks in Eastern Europe, represent lessons for effective counteractions that can ill afford to be ignored.

Introductory remarks.
Lieutenant General Maurice Casey, U S A F, retired.

I welcome and honor Admiral Burke who is with us here today. Admiral, would you stand up and be recognized please.
We have many other distinguished visitors here with us, but I'll let our moderator, Mister Wayne Coloney introduce those. In kicking off our first Alumni Association seminar, I want to thank you for braving the bad weather, particularly General Bruce Clark who came up from the milder climates to be with us and participate in our panel today. I would like now to personally thank the President of the National Defense University, Lieutenant General Bob Gard. Bob has been most helpful to me, most supportive and cooperative with the Alumni
Association. Of course, he gets a lot of this good judgment, he was in the class of sixty-six National War College. Bob, would you like to give us the official welcome, Sir.
Lieutenant General Gard:
I would just like to say that, on behalf of all of us at the University, we are very, very pleased indeed with this meeting. As you know, each college under the University umbrella maintains its separate identity and programs. There are some advantages in having the University umbrella over each. One of the activities in which we have been engaged is trying to make this University a National Defense University in fact as well as in name. Among other things, we have used this marvelous facility, and I speak of both buildings collectively to bring together high level officials from the Defense Department and other agencies of the Government with knowledgeable people from the private sector to discuss issues on their merits without the necessity of the public official having to defend an institutional position.

I think that this is the kind of function a university of this kind ought to perform. We have at this time up in our conference center the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, members of his staff, and others in the Defense Department meeting with top-level industry officials exploring some of the issues involved in standardization and interoperability in our NATO Alliance. It is that kind of activity that has been sponsored by the University and the colleges. I feel that the panel we are holding today, sponsored by the NWC Alumni Association, is also especially appropriate because, among other trends in Senior Service College programs, it is an attempt to put the "war" back into the War College.
I would confess to you that our Senior Service Colleges, that is, the Army, Navy, and the Air War Colleges, are further along this trail than we are, but we are anxiously eager to deal with questions not just of national strategy but military strategy, questions of resources management at the military level as well as at the department or national level. So this is an especially appropriate conference to remind us that we are indeed still a war college, and the kinds of questions we are exploring here are very, very pertinent to the mission of this University. So, General Casey, thanks a lot for letting me get in my commercial, and I will look forward to seeing you throughout the day. Admiral Oarrelle, Commandant of the National War College, will be able to be with you throughout the proceedings.

General Casey:
I believe most of you have met Admiral John Barrelle, the National War Commandant, but for those of you who have not, would you please stand, John, and be recognized. This is Admiral Barrelle's first year as the Commandant, and he's not an alumnus of this school, so he's going to bring us a lot of new ideas. He has had considerable experience, Naval Aviator, Naval Line Officer, and I am sure he will give the Navy and the other Services a good indoctrination. John, it is a real pleasure, and we thank you for being with us today. As General Clark said, this is a first, and we are particularly pleased. I will not go into the full detail of the biographies of the people who are with us. I would like to introduce General Hozzel, who came to us from Germany. We are honored and pleased that he could take time from his various activities because, like the rest of retired people, he said there is no retirement, he is just going 100 miles an hour still.
General Hozzel was a leader and founder in the Stuka dive bomber tactics.
He was a squadron commander, a group commander, wing commander, and participated in many campaigns. He also was a general staff officer and found time to serve as a logistician. So he has a wide variety of experience and, not the least, and certainly not one we would like to participate in, he was a prisoner of war of the Soviets for eleven years. After returning from that ordeal, he joined the modern Luftwaffe and then rose to the rank of Brigadier General and since then retired. He now works in Karlsruhe with an administrative academy. So you can certainly see he has kept very active. We propose to keep this seminar very informal. We want participation.

The General will cite the various campaigns that he personally participated in, giving his personal views as well as what he considered factually happened at that time, and then the panel at the end of each campaign will have an opportunity to ask questions. To bring it up to modern times, General Russ from Tactical Air Command will present a little film of five minutes on the latest A-10 Army Hunter-Killer Anti-Armor Tactics.
I would like next to introduce Mister Wayne Coloney who will be the moderator of the panel. He will introduce the other members of the panel. Mister Coloney graduated from Georgia Tech with the very highest honors. He is one of the finest gentlemen I have ever had the opportunity to be associated with. He comes well prepared for this job. He was a Sergeant in World War Two, participated as a Tank Commander with General Patton, and received several commendations for his very fine work. He is a professional engineer, and has founded his own company which works in structural, civil, legal, and energy engineering, as well as mechanical.
He and his associate, Doctor Charles Benedict, invented a gun loader for the A-10 and were very successful in that operation. In addition to his other activities, Mister Coloney is a strong American. He belongs to many of the American defense organizations. He is a member of the American Preparedness Defense Association and serves on the President's small business committee. I would like now to present Mister Coloney.

Mister Coloney:
Thank you. Gentlemen, this morning I would first like to introduce members of the panel. Then, as we proceed, I am sure that there will be questions from the audience.

If you have a question, we would appreciate it very much if you would identify yourself so that we may prepare the minutes of the meeting properly, and also if you would indicate which member of the panel you wish to answer your question. With us this morning, on my extreme right is Major General Jasper A. Welch, who is Assistant Chief of Staff, Studies and Analyses, Headquarters, U S Air Force. Since each of you has a packet detailing all backgrounds and biographies of the panel, and since all of these gentlemen are very well known, I will not go into details. Just this side of General Welch is Captain Lon Ratley, A-10 SPO. Captain Ratley is the direct organizer, you might say, of this particular seminar, taking care of the details. You have just met General Hozzel. On my left is Professor Stolfi, who is presently with the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
Next to Doctor Stolfi is Mister David George Opheim, who is Manager of Marketing Air Warfare, Honeywell. With us also is Brigadier General Robert Dale Russ, who is Assistant Deputy, Chief of Staff Operations for Control and Support, Headquarters, Tactical Air Command. Gentlemen, with that, and of course, with us also is General Bruce C V Clark, who is one of the experts on armored warfare, one of the leading exponents of armored warfare in World War Two.
General Clark is sitting in the audience but will participate as one of the panel. With that, we might as well begin. General Hozzel.

Morning session.

General Hozzel:
First of all, I would like to thank you, General Casey, very cordially, for the invitation to today's seminar and the friendly welcome in which you have introduced me to the audience. I am very honored to have to the opportunity to talk about my World War Two experiences for the National War College. Late last year, the Battelle Institute of Columbus contacted me and asked me to summarize and write down my experiences. Meanwhile, this work has been done and was distributed to officers in your country. It may be that some of you have read it already. If not, at the close of the seminar copies will be provided to attendees. A few weeks ago General Casey contacted me and inquired as to whether I would be interested in presenting my manuscript to the seminar at the National War College. The end result is that I am before you today. I might add that I come to you with very warm feelings about your country, especially considering the position of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1945, totally defeated.
I feel confident in saying that I speak for the majority of Germans as I express my heartfelt thanks for your assistance in building up the Federal Republic of Germany to its high position in the Alliance today. During the last two years of my service I was appointed Chief of Staff of Allied Air Power in Denmark at the very sensitive point of the NATO front. In this position, I had under my command American, English, Norwegian, Danish, and German officers. With deep satisfaction at that time, I felt that we as soldiers from different nations nevertheless speak one language and very quickly we understand each other.

Such is my feeling today, gentlemen. Facing you here is to be among men who have formed an international Atlantic Alliance that protects the free world against the worldwide threat by the Soviet Union. The United States of Europe will not be born in the near future. But one thing has, thank God, at least been done on the way. That desired union, the military integration in the frame of NATO without which Europe would have been lost long ago. And now I would like to give you an overview of my personal experiences in Stuka operations in World War Two. After this, I will address questions from the audience. I may have some difficulties understanding your questions and expressing myself in your language. For this reason, it was necessary for me to engage the services of an interpreter in Germany for my manuscript who could express nuances in German as well as in English.
For the seminar today, Captain Ratley has agreed to assist me as necessary with interpretations that may be required, as he is fluent in German, and I am told he is seemingly conversant in your language as well. Please bear with me if we encounter some language turbulence. I feel that it is important that you understand a few terms to which we will be referring throughout the course of the conference. In your information packets you will find a list entitled "World War Two Luftwaffe Unit Strengths". The second sheet is called "Luftwaffe Unit Designations and Missions, 1939 to 1943 and 1943 to 1945".

Doctor Stolfi:
The first case that the General is going to talk about will be Poland, I assume, or perhaps some of his experiences just before the war. The Polish case I point out to you. Poland is not very modish or fashionable at the present moment for studying. It was supposed to have been a walkover by the Germans, and so on, but there are some interesting things that might be considered generally. The General, for example, had been a peacetime pilot for many years before the Polish campaign developed, and then, all of a sudden, there was a transition from being a pilot in training to going into the first campaign of the war. So there is probably some general merit in asking questions about Poland and what the initial impact was and the difference between training and actual combat for the Germans. The General had some particularly interesting experiences, because in directing Stuka operations out of East Prussia in the north, the timing of the opening of the campaign was pitched to aerial operations relative to the amount of daylight that was available, and so on, to begin the support operations. Let me give you just a quick example. The whole campaign in the West after the Polish campaign was contingent on the drop of gliders on the Belgian fortress of Eban-Emael. The entire German timetable was pitched to the gliders coming down when it was just dark enough to obscure the gliders coming in. Something like 2,200 German troops moved just as the gliders went in with just enough darkness so the Belgian defenders could not see them.
There was a similar type of operation relative to operation in Poland where there was some very sensitive installation that had to be taken cut.

This, to a significant degree, pitched the beginning of the campaign.

General Hozzel:

Gentlemen, I intend to give you some examples of the sorties in the individual campaigns I was involved in. My first contact with the Stuka, the J U 87, began at the end of November 1938, when I was promoted to Stuka captain, to squadron captain, as we say in Germany. This is the level of a company commandant of a company the first Staffel of First Stuka 1 in East Prussia. This group had been formed from the H S 123 group, which was a one-seater. It was the first aircraft in Germany which I began to dive, but it was not the type we needed. The right type was the J U 87. Since a commander of that Stuka Gruppe had not yet been appointed, I was to take over the command for the present.
Having taken over the Gruppe at its operational airport in Silesia, I ferried it, with all planes, across the "Polish Corridor", separating East Prussia from the rest of the Reich as a result of the Versailles Treaty. We touched down on Insterburg air base, the place where I had previously served as a reconnaissance pilot.
Now the "cold homeland" had me again, a region had come to like very much because of the charm of its scenery. Here a new task waited for us. We were to transform our Group into a real.
"Sturzkampfflieger Gruppe flying J U 87 B’s. We were informed that the first Gruppe of J U 87 dive bombers would be ready to be picked up from the district air base in the Reich.

Having handed over our H S 123’s, we received our brand-new Stukas which made a most martial impression on us. We first concerned ourselves with the details of instrumentation and with the hydraulic system, especially developed for dive bombing, finally with the bomb release.
After a few short briefing flights the crews soon felt at ease in their closed cabins. We still had to learn how to control the J U 87 in nose-diving. There existed no Stuka school at that time, but there was the Barth air base in Pomerania where a Stuka training Gruppe was being built up within the Luftwaffe's training wing.
The instructors first had to get familiar, in test flights, with the new weapon before they could pass on their experience and skill to the other Stuka Gruppe. We, therefore, helped ourselves as well as we could. We first singled out the crews. The pilot and his back seater, the latter also acting as gunner, had to be a real team. One that had to depend on each other, for better or for worse. Hence, each pilot chose his back seater. If after a while it was found that the two did not harmonize, the men were replaced until pilots and their back seaters had found themselves. Some of the crews stuck, or crashed, together throughout the war.
As for myself, I can say that my back seater and I have remained friends to this very day. After all our pilots had got used to the J U 87 and learned to have complete command of the plane in starting and landing operations, we practiced diving. In the vast forest regions around Insterburg a bombing ground with target cross and spotting tower was soon installed for us.

We approached our target at an altitude of 5000 meters, extended the hydraulic speed brakes shortly before the target, then making the target move into the bottom window in the cockpit below our feet. When it disappeared at the back edge, we turned the plane down at a dive angle of 70 degrees.
With the gas shut off, the plane quickly gained speed by its own weight, whilst the diving brakes kept it at a steady pace of 450 kilometers per hour. We aimed through a reflector sight keeping the whole plane in the center of the target and allowing for velocity and direction of the wind, with the aid of the right lead angles. A continuously adjustable rea marking arrow was mounted on the altimeter, set to local altitude above mean sea level, whereby the required bomb releasing altitude could be set. When passing that altitude in the dive, a loud and clear horn signal was sounded, warning the pilot to press the bomb releasing button on the control stick and to pull out the plane.
By pressing the releasing button, we also automatically actuated the hydraulic recovery device which aided the pilot, under the heavy G-load encountered in steep dive recoveries, in pulling out of the dive. The normal bomb releasing altitude was close to 700 meters. Experienced pilots would also venture down to 500 meters in order to increase the bombing accuracy. This, however, was the absolute minimum pulling out radius to clear the ground in time. Below that there was no hope left as shown by the sadly remembered Stuka disaster of Neuhammer where a practically complete J U 87 Staffel crashed into the ground because of late recovery.

After we had obtained some mastery in diving the J U 87, we practiced dive bombing during dives, first with cement bombs, finally with live ammunition until we found our bombing accuracy was satisfactory. This meant that our bombs had to be within the 10-meter circle. A high bombing accuracy in diving was, in fact, the criterion of the Stuka weapon as compared to bomb dropping over wider areas from level bombing. The Stukas were, therefore, predestined for fighting pinpoint targets, preferably hangars, aircraft boxes, I barracks, arms and ammunition factories in the enemy's back country.
Also bunker lines, artillery positions, tanks on the battlefield, and the like. Diving with and without bombs was part of our daily routine. Besides, we also began our unit training in Staffeln, as combat flying practice with the whole Gruppe. We drilled after the model of the Schleissheim Fighter Training School, going through the whole fighting program described before. This increased the
maneuverability of our pilots. They had to become part of the
plane. This included starts and landings on short, bumpy emergency airfields. Occasional crash landings could not be avoided.
This preliminary training provided experience useful in anticipation of risky landings in unknown regions in the following war.
That training phase was followed by combat fighting practice in squadron units and in given tactical situations as were to be encountered in wartime. This included directing the crews to the target, briefing them about weather conditions, the around and the air situations, AA emplacements, replenishment of ammunition, fuse setting, the way of taking off, single or in formation, starting order, unit leader, code designations, forming-up altitude, approach route, approach altitude, signal of attack, direction of departure, forming-up during return flights, altitude of return flight, landing order, subsequent discussion, preparation for new sorties.

In this way we welded our Gruppe, now renamed First Stukageschwader 1, into a unit always ready for action.
In between, I was assigned, in rotation with the two other Staffel kapitaenen, to the Stuka training Gruppe of Barth, in order to exchange our experiences with the Barth commander and his captains, and to evaluate them in practice. This was done by lessons, and by flying in tactical situations, with extensive air moves within the Staffel unit. All Stuka commanders and captains were thus steered through the Barth training lessons with a view to reducing to one common denominator the entire Stuka arm, increased to 11 Gruppen in the course of the year.
Audience:
May I ask one question at this moment? The German dive bomber training was very complete and the General just pointed out that it was felt necessary to have dive bomber pilots actually also be fighter pilots, and go to the fighter schools. In addition, something that's hard for me to believe, and maybe the General will perhaps comment, that they actually practiced some dive bombing attacks which were 90 degrees. One mentioned that in his attack on the battleship Murat he did not come in at 70 degrees, he came way over, he actually practiced knocking out the battleship Murat

General Hozzel:
I will try to answer your question, from your remarks. To go into a 70-degree dive it was necessary to press the plane nearly into a back position, into a negative, about 100 degrees, pulling it by and by into a 70-degree dive. But experienced pilots could dive with 90-degree dive bombinc. This increased the velocity in the dive. Now about Stuka training from Barth.

In between, I was assigned, in rotation with the two other Stuka kapitaenen, to the Stuka training Gruppe of Barth, in order to exchange our experiences with the Barth commander and his captains and to evaluate them in practice. This was done by lessons, and by flying in tactical situations, with extensive air moves within the Staffel unit. All Stuka commanders and captains were thus steered through the Barth training lessons with a view to reducing to one common denominator the entire Stuka arm, increased to 11 Gruppe in the course of the year.
In the summer of 1939 the political situation deteriorated. The decision with Poland kept on increasing. Dark clouds gathered at the horizon. In anticipation of an armed conflict with Poland, First Stuka 1 was given an important order from general headquarters.
We were to protect in combined action with an engineer unit of Oberst Medem, Elbing the Polish bridgehead of the large railroad bridge across the Vistula near Dirschau, against destruction by the Poles. To this end the five blasting installations at Dirschau railroad station, reconnoitered by our forces, and the firing wires on the bridgehead were to be deactivated.

Oberst Medem would at the same time advance with his engineers in an armored train from the Marienburg area in order to destroy the explosive charges.
The combined action by Stukas and engineers was to be a surprise attack, giving the Poles no time to blow up the bridge. This was the reason why the attack was planned at three minutes before the beginning of the general Wehrmacht offensive, viz, on the first of September, at Zero 4-42 hours. The operation had to be most carefully prepared to be successful. We received detailed data of the targets and could thus pass on our orders to the crews. Everyone was fully acquainted with his target.

On the first of September 1939, at zero 4-25 hours, first Stuka 1 started from its jumping-off base, Elbingen, for its first sortie with 45 J U 87’s.
The approach to the Vistula bridge lasted just under 15 minutes.
Weather conditions were unfavorable, with a visibility of 1 kilometer only and a practically closed fog layer at 50-meter altitude.
It was planned to destroy with two Ketten (six planes) in low-level flight the lead wires running along the railroad embankment to the bridge, then to blast the detonators in Dirschau railroad station by the mass of the Gruppe, in a dive bombing attack. Much depended on how the weather would develop at the target point within the next 15 minutes. The latest weather report given out by a German observation post on the west bank of the river told us that the target was almost completely covered with a fog layer which had a slight tendency of breaking up.

It was therefore doubtful whether we could, after all, make the planned high-altitude attack. Time pressed. We decided to climb through the fog layer so as to be able to form up the Gruppe which, in view of the small range of vision, we could not have done below the clouds. Above the clouds there was sunshine, below us we saw a widespread layer of fluffy clouds extending toward the target area. Through small loopholes in the clouds we could see the ground. Considering this situation we had no choice but to push down again through the openings in the clouds, in successive flight formations, for a low-level attack by the whole Gruppe. This would, of course, reduce our bombing accuracy considerably. The mere thought of it did not make me feel too easy.
When forcing down we unfortunately suffered the first loss of one of our crews by a crash fire. The plane, having pierced the clouds in blind flying, had struck a hill. We were just passing that place again when we saw the six planes having started immediately behind us and which had been ordered to fly the low-level attack against the railroad embankment, disappearing in the haze.
Visibility had slightly improved. The Ketten could join up behind me. When we flew across the Nogat River near Marienburg, still in low-level flight, the weather changed miraculously. It cleared up, we gained in altitude and caught sight of the bridge. Below me, on the double-track railroad line Marienburg Dirschau, I caught sight of an armored train and a freight train, both steaming along in parallel, at high speed in the direction of the bridge. It was Oberst Medem with his engineers. Having mean while climbed to an altitude of 2000 meters, we approached our target from east to west, exactly above the Vistula bridge.

Below us, half left, our brave Oberleutnant Dilley, Staffelkapitaen of the thirrd Staffel, swung on with his two Ketten from the south, then hedgehopped in the direction of the railroad embankment. While nosediving we saw him rushing through below us. We observed his six exploding 500 kilogram bombs tearing up the railroad embankment on the Polish bridgehead. Then, while pulling up, we watched the rising mushroom-shaped explosions from our own bombs which had apparently hit their targets. The bridge had remained intact.
I dismissed my Staffeln to a new operational airfield in the south of East Prussia. I myself stayed near the target in order to observe further developments on the ground. Much to my consternation I noticed that Oberst Medem's trains had not succeeded in advancing to the bridge. The surprise attack had failed. Obviously the Poles had smelled a rat. They had, after the last train had passed the bridge during the night, barricaded the access to their bridgehead, brought antitank guns into position behind it and had waited there in ambush. When the engineers in their two trains steamed toward the bridge at high speed the Poles fired at the locomotives, setting them afire.
Thus they brought the attack to a halt. Later on we learned that a combat ensued which lasted for hours. This gave the enemy time to patch up the destroyed blasting installation and firing wires. Then, roughly four hours after our air attack, the Poles succeeded in blowing up the bridge after all.
Our well-planned operation had been in vain. But how did the Poles know of our intentions? It resulted from subsequent interrogations they had no definite information but had simply suspected an attack.

A ridiculous omission on the German side was responsible for the failure of the operation. It had been customary, with the German and Polish railroad personnel on duty to wish each other "good night" after the last scheduled train had passed, via the railroad telephones installed at both sides of the river. They had known one another for years. In the night from 31 August to first September there was no such call from the German side. When the Polish personnel tried to ring up their German colleagues, the line was "dead". The Germans had switched it off. In view of the extremely tense situation this was a danger signal, and the Poles acted accordingly.
I brought this up intentionally because you should see that the devil is in the detail. Who could think that such would happen, and so the whole thing was in vain. After Dirschau had been taken the bombing efforts Sand had been investigated, First Stuka 1 was given the satisfaction that the attack was successful, and that the failure of the operation was due to unforeseen circumstances.
Moderator:
Are there any questions from any of the other panelists? General Russ, Mister Opheim, General Welch?
Reply:
Not at this time.
General Hozzel:
Now I will present you with a sortie of my group against a fortification line which prevented the first German call to break through and take the city of Mlawa in North Poland.

Two days later, 2 September, I was called up by the Chief of Staff, Territorial Air Command, East Prussia, Oberst Holle, my former Anklam Commander who declared to me that the attack of the First Army Corps against Mlawa had been held up by the bunker lines in front of the town. I was to take up contact in the evening of the same day with the Chief of Staff of the Army Corps to discuss with him the question of close air support by my Gruppe.
On reporting there I was received rather ungraciously. The Chief was obviously irritated by my subaltern rank, setting little hopes in discussions with an Oberleutnant of the Luftwaffe. I was shown an aerial photograph of the fortifications in which I could recognize a long line of smaller and larger bunkers. I stated that we, as Stuka fighters, were specialized in such pinpoint targets and that I thought we could clear the way for Corps I, by three attacks with 40 planes each, each plane loaded with a 500 kilogram bomb.
The faces of the Commanding General and of his Chief brightened. We then fixed the time of the attack in three different operations.
At the same time I entreated both officers not to start their own attack before the sorties were completed, to prevent us from dropping bombs on our own troops. Having rushed back to the air base about midnight, I reviewed the action planned against the bunkers with my comrades. Early in the morning of 3 September the weather was clear. Forty minutes after our take-off for the first attack we found ourselves above the target at an altitude of 4000 meters.
We nosedived, then released the bombs at altitudes between 700 and 500 meters for better bombing accuracy. We were over level country without any ground obstructions.

This enabled us to descend to such a low altitude. As far as I could observe, we scored a number of close hits. Then we returned, refueled, bombed up, and started for the second attack. The same results. Ready for the third attack. I was about to take off when the starting sentry, with a telephone receiver in one hand, raised the red flag. At the other end was the Chief of Corps. "Do not start. Troops about to attack. Great success. We thank you." Well then. As we later learned, we had made some direct hits. Even our close hits, having shaken the bunkers, had put the gunners out of action. This was to show you it is possible with such a Stuka group to make a Corps, which was prevented to break through, to break through a bunker line. Have you any questions?
Doctor Stolfi:
This Mlawa operation just to the south of East Prussia was particularly interesting. The Germans got themselves very badly bogged down in front of the Mlawa fortifications. There was some kind of a loss of nerve and loss of some kind of aggressive development among the ground forces. Generically what happened, and that is why this operation is particularly important, is that the Stukas, and it was mentioned that there were 120 planes in this flight, were literally the weapons that were responsible for the breakthrough of the Mlawa fortification. This is a rare generalization. In almost every place in the campaign in the Second World War the ground forces got a lot of support from air, but it is a very rare case when you can really credit air for being responsible for decisive action on the ground, really completely responsible.

And the Mlawa operation I think is one of the few cases where after the ground forces had failed, the Stukas came in for a short but very intense bombing, 120 of these aircraft coming in, in a short period of time. These aircraft were literally responsible for the breakthrough at that point. This generalization is hard to make. You can support your local air force as much as you want, but it is very hard to say that the air force is going to be decisive, especially in pretty tough ground action.
But I think the generalization, and what is important about this is that the air force, the Luftwaffe, in that short series of operations actually opened up the Mlawa fortifications. When General Hozzel said, for example, that he got the congratulations from the Corps, I do not think he said it quite strong enough. The was saying, "You allowed us to break through, your Corps were responsible for that breakthrough". You cannot find very many cases like that. But that is at least one if somebody is looking for certain types of ammunition relative to air forces and what they can buy for you.
Moderator:
Are there any more comments from the panel?
General Welch:
In this particular case I guess it is surprising if the army is bogged down and they knew where the fortifications were. They presumably had some artillery support, and I was curious as to what was the technical factor which made it appropriate or necessary for the dive bombers to do to the fortifications what presumably the artillery tried and could not do.

General Hozzel:
I cannot answer this. I do not know. We were called to help the first Corps, obviously, because they actually could not do the work, otherwise they would not have called the Luftwaffe.
General Welch:
Three or four possibilities come to mind. For some reason, the artillery was thin. Second, I gather, unless they had some difficulty, that your accuracy and their accuracy was about the same in that period of time, as I remember. But of course the fortifications could have been of such a character that the larger explosions were critical.
General Hozzel:
This could be. I must honestly confess I have never had in mind why the artillery of the Corps could not do the work.
At that time, I had no idea to ask the Commanding General or the Chief of Staff.
General Welch:
It was not your place.
Question:
You mentioned accuracy many times. Could you give some idea of the accuracy of the Stuka with bombs?
General Hozzel:
The accuracy depended on the training of which I have spoken before. We had the goal at the time of training to drop our bombs within a 10-meter circle around the target's middle point. I must honestly confess that this was not achieved every time in the course of the war. It is another thing, dropping bombs in a training time without fear of being shot, or doing this in war.

It depends on the individual pilot and how his nerves were. Was he strong enough to keep the target in sight up to the last second before dropping the bomb. It is natural in humans that some pilots, I couldn't observe everybody, dropped the bomb too high, and their accuracy was not as high as it was expected to be.
Moderator:
In response to the question on an overall basis, could you give some estimate as to how accurate your efforts actually were?
General Hozzel:
As I told you, we had soma direct hits on some bunkers, and some near hits. Today, it is impossible to say what percent of the bombs we dropped did this.
Audience:
In setting up the pass, he would dive in, actually go beyond 90 degrees sometimes when the aircraft would go back, but that is only in establishing the dive angles. Then he would pull it back up.
Moderator:
Excuse me, Captain, for the record the question was whether or not they were actually making an attack pass at a negative angle. As I understand the response, that was simply a transitional phase. Are there any other questions? Mister Opheim?
Mister Opheim:
Were delivery tactics exclusively dive or did you in some cases, due to weather, use lay-down or flat delivery tactics at low altitude?
General Hozzel:
No horizontal or level attacks ever. Slant angle, yes.

Mister Opheim:
What was your typical slant angle?
General Hozzel:
An angle of 30 to 40 degrees.
Mister Opheim:
With what accuracies could you deliver the bomb?
General Hozzel:
I will refer to this topic later on. But I can tell you now, it depends on how near the pilot approached the target in dropping the bomb, for example, into the belly of the tank. If we would have achieved a near hit, it could tear the tracks from the wheels, you see. This could happen and it happened several times.
Moderator:
Doctor Terry had a question. The question was at the extreme dive angles, the point was made that the aircraft would sometimes go over negatively 110. In some cases, however, to clarify this point, the actual dives were at 90 degrees for the attack, that much. How much the aircraft would go over for the person to maneuver it to 90, I am not certain. We do know that when Rudel hit the Murat he came down at a 90-degree dive. The question is, at a 90-degree dive, how does the bomb clear the screw? There was a fork that lifted it out. That was handled technically.
So that the bomb did not go straight out, it moved forward on this fork but underneath the screw.
General Hozzel:
The normal dive was 70 degrees, normal dive. But it was necessary to pull the aircraft into a 90-degree dive first in order to then put it in the 70-degree position.

Question:
I gather that you were not in radio communication with the front line. If not, did you have any other signals, smoke or some panels, or any communication other than when you got back to l your own airfield?
General Hozzel:
Not in the first phase of the war. We had no communication with ground troops. But if we wanted, they could give signals, by flares or by other means. I will refer to this topic later on.
Haskell, Army Ballistic Research Lab:
General, would you be able to describe the type of bunker and the type of fusing, super quick or delay?
General Hozzel:
Attacking a bunker line, we needed delay fuses, a quarter of a second delay.
Question:
Did I understand General that you said you were dropping 2,200-pound bombs?
General Hozzel:
500 kilogram.
Moderator:
1100 pound, that explains part of the superior effect over artillery, l,000-pound bomb coming down, delayed fuses, maybe even armor heads.
General Hozzel:
This may be.
General Russ:
Did you have any problem with fragmentation damage from the bombs?

Starting at 700 meters, pulling out, I am sure that there had to be quite a few G's that had to be pulled on the aircraft, and at those steep dive angles, it seems that you would have a fragmentation problem.
General Hozzel:
We could clear at treetop level. Not in this case.
When we attacked their tanks we had to approach the target very near, and drop the bomb in the 30 to 40-degree angle into the belly of the tank, and to have a direct hit it was necessary to fly over the tanks at a few meters' height and then it happened that we were in danger of our own bomb exploding. This happened, but not in those sorties which I described just now.
Moderator:
Are there any other questions from the audience, or any further comments from the panel? If not, General, would you like to proceed.
General Hozzel:
After Poland, there was some time of interludes.
I will report about changing our series of J U 87’s. This happened in about March 1940. I was called to the air base of Goettingen.
After we had landed, I reported to the commander of the Regional Aircraft Park, a logistic unit where all technical equipment, from the spanner to the complete plane is sorted, maintained, and held available for delivery. The commander handed me an order of the Luftwaffe High Command, informing me that First Stuka 1 was to exchange all of its J U 87’s at the Park for a new series of the same plane type, then transfer these to Delmenhorst-Bremen air base. When the hangar doors were opened we saw, greatly amazed, 50 brand new J U 87’s lined up for us.

They differed from our old planes in that they were equipped with an additional fuel tank below the wings.
The tanks, having about the size of a 1,000-kilogram bomb, had a capacity of 300 liters each. This meant an increase of the operating radius by 100 percent, with a flying time of roughly six hours.
What were they going to do with us? Where would be bound for?
What came up was the campaign in Norway. I will report about this campaign and given two examples of sorties in which we were involved. I will report about an attack against a British bridgehead at Namsos. This is north of Trondheim. We were coming up from Oslo having helped a German infantry division. Taking up a northern direction to Trondheim, we were called up to Trondheim air base. Hardly had we landed at Trondheim when the first operational order was issued, one hour after our landing.
The British had gained a footing in Namsos, north of Trondheim.
They were supplied by transport ships passing through the deep cut along Namsos Fjord with Namsos port located at its end. There the transports were discharged under the guard of warships. The First Stuka 1 was then the only available operational unit to be put into action against the British base and its supply vessels.
The following day we fully concentrated on those targets. With the exception of the first Staffel, the mass of our pilots were not experienced in dive bombing attacks against moving marine targets. During our first sorties many a bomb missed its target but soon we learned it. We finally succeeded in sinking several transports on the high sea and inside the Fjord.

We then attacked the small cruiser which had annoyed us all the time with its fire.
We flew a number of feint attacks until the cruiser had apparently up most of its ammunition. Then we attacked with the whole Gruppe, sinking it by two direct hits. As we learned later, it was the 4,500-ton torpedo cruiser "Mogador".
On the morning of 3 May we made an astounding discovery. The British, having left Namsos at night, were said to be on the high sea, returning to England under strong protection of escort vessels.
The idea suggested itself to pursue and attack them. A contact plane was close to the enemy, a pilot plane guided us to the target area in. the same way as on our recent operation started the Holtenau base. As a naval patrol plane had reported, the formation consisted of one battleship, one cruiser, several destroyers, and a number of transports, one of them 14,000 or 15,000 tons. The convoy was, by now, about 300 kilometers away from the Norwegian coast.
It would thus take two more hours before we could attack it. We were given quite a tall order, considering that we had to fly in single-engine land planes without radio navigation aids over a total distance of 700 kilometers across the open sea. In case of engine failure, the crew could hardly be expected to survive. We had, true enough, a rubber boat on board but would hardly be able to make use of it as, with our fixed landing gear, our plane on touching down would inevitably nose over and sink with the crew at once.

Flying at an altitude of 4,000 meters we spotted the convoy after 90 minutes and found it as described by the observer plane. Both planes were manned with four experienced naval officers who could now witness the exciting battle, to begin instantly, away from the AA fire as if they were seated in a theater. I myself picked out the most lucrative targets, the battleship, the cruiser, and the largest transport. By radiophone I allotted the remaining targets to the three Staffeln, diving myself on the battleship with the Stabskette, staff flight, and the first Staffel.
Even before we were directly above the naval formation we met with the fire from all barrels, as we had never experienced before. While we dived through a dense barrage of fire furiously spitting against us from below, we aimed and relased the 500-kilogram bombs at an altitude of 500 meters, with their armor-piercing heads. Every pilot was guided by the hits scored by the plane in front of him and had to adjust his point of aim accordingly.
The first six bombs failed their target; the seventh hit the forecastle of the second front turret. When I was about to pull up, having just reached an altitude of 1,000 meters, a vehement explosion blast threw my plane up so strongly that my head was flung against the cabin roof. For a moment I felt stunned. When looking down again, I saw the battleship had disappeared under a dense cloud of smoke.
The cruiser and the transport vessel were sinking. All this happened within a few minutes. It was high time for us to break off. We had lost sight of our two Heinkel one-eleven planes. In the haze of the battlefield they had lost sight contact with us.

We flew alone again. I joined the group for our return flight in an eastern direction. All we had lost were two crews. However bitter the loss of each single comrade was to us every time, we had survived the fireworks fairly well, not to speak of our success. We flew at low level above the waves in the direction of the Norwegian coast. Somehow, a happy feeling came up between the crews. Pressing the button of the radiophone I heard my men singing. They sang the song of the Navy because all of us felt so close to the sea now. "Wir sind Kameraden auf See", We are comrades at sea.
Thus the tension of this strenuous operation relaxed. I still had to guide all of them safely back to our home base. I did not know how far we had been displaced to the north or to the south by the wind. By comparing the map with the coastline, I hoped I could make out whether Trondheim was north or south of the point where we would reach the coast. I was lucky. We sighted land north of Namsos, turned south, then landed safely on our planked runway in Vaernaes. We were received there with great rejoicing about our success which had hurried ahead of us by the radio report of reconnaissance aircraft. This, however, did not restrain the Chief Pilot from launching us for a second sortie against the convoy.
The "Wooden Cross" of the Iron Cross" was his device when he dismissed us for the new combat mission. We, however, never saw our target again. The enemy had eluded us after so many hours had elapsed after our attack. I had to break off our second mission as I had to guide my Gruppe safely back before nightfall. The following day all pilots and gunners of First Stuka 1 were solemnly awarded the Iron Cross First Class for their engagement.

Moderator:
Are there any questions or comments from the panel?
General Hozzel:
May I add a short sentence. It was later on contested by the Navy Supreme Command that we had sunk a warship. They said it was only a small cruiser. No comment. The British never gave any comments to this attack.
Doctor Stolfi:
I think that there is a moderately interesting comment to be made. The amphibious operation have obviously been tremendously important for the West and particularly the U S during the Second World War. They were the monumental operations characterized by Western, not German, Allied operations. When you take the Africa landings, Sicily landings, Salerno, Anzio, Normandy, and the business in the Pacific, we have immense experience in the U S, Britain, and so on, in supporting amphibious operations.
What I think is unique about what General Hozzel is talking about is that the British and the French made an amphibious landing at Namsos and the Germans were in fact attacking an amphibious force coming in. None of us have had the experience, or very little experience just at the beginning of the Pacific war, and that went very fast, of actually the problems of resisting an amphibious force coming in.
This, what is particularly intriguing about that too is it's a shame that Major Kelly is not here today. The
Marine Corps may possibly somehow or the other become a partial strategical reserve for NATO. Certainly one of the more intriguing things would be the possibility of landings in Norway. The kind of interesting thing in General Hozzel's experience and the German experience is resisting the British and the French amphibious force, for example, which was attempted during the Norwegian invasion by the Germans to support the Norwegians.

So there is a kind of unique thing there. We do not have anybody who has the experience of resisting, for example, an amphibious invasion. We do not think that way. When we think of aerial operations, we think of supporting amphibious operations and going in someplace, and it is very interesting looking at, or potentially looking at, the problems of resisting an amphibious operation which the Germans were doing in this operation.
General Hozzel:
After this Norwegian campaign of which I have reported two sorties, I will switch over to the last phase of the campaign in France. From Norway we transferred from one day to another to Evreux about 120 kilometers west northwest of Paris. On arriving above the area said to be our "landing grounds" all we could see below us was a grain field in the midst of hedgerows and shrubs. We could not discover any landing strip. On looking more closely, we recognized some excellently camouflaged planes the shrubs, a number of J U 87’s. We had reached Sunder our destination. Now a landing cross was placed on the grain blades as in invitation to land. This was new to us.
We never had landed on a grain field before but managed it quite well. The braking effect of the blades made us roll to a stop more quickly. On the other hand, we needed more time for the take-off. We were put under the command of General von Richthofen of the Eighth Air Corps.

I had not met him personally before but was to meet him soon. While we refueled, the order was given for the attack against the mole forts of the naval port of Cherbourg. The forts, with their heavy zone fire, guarded the city against the German troops at its western periphery. Having loaded our 500-kilogram bombs fitted with armor-piercing heads, we took off. As we had received aerial photos of our target, I could allot the targets before our start. Near Caen we took course for the Seine Bay, flying at an altitude of 4,000 meters, then while sighting the coast we headed for the port of Cherbourg. Halfway to our target we noticed a large warship moving parallel to the coast, obviously ready to intervene in ground fighting with sweeping fire. We regarded it as an enemy ship because we had not been notified of the presence of German units in that Channel area.
The Staffelkapitaene called me by radiophone. "A warship, isn't it? Quite a fine catch. Wouldn't it be better to crack that one than those forts?"
It was a most tempting thought. The "steamer" down there kept quiet, did not fire. It was like a challenge, but I was bound by my orders. I followed my intuition and continued on my course to Cherbourg. I could well imagine that many an officer flying behind me must have shaken his head. Our operation was a great success. After a classical dive bombing attack on the forts, the enemy fire was silent. Cherbourg was stormed and captured. When, later on, I reported to the Chief of the Corps my moral dilemma about the battleship, his laconic answer was, "You surely would have had to face a court-martial". This operation was followed by a few more close-air supports, then France capitulated.

Moderator:
Are there any questions or comments from the panel?
Mister Opheim:
You described your bombs as having armor-piercing warheads. Could you describe those more in detail in terms of type of warhead and the fusing?
General Hozzel:
I must honestly confess I cannot Mister Opheim. The only thing I remember is that the attack was with armor-piercing bombs. We had them, but what the technical details were, I cannot answer.
Moderator:
Any other comments? Anything from the audience?
General Hozzel:
About being involved in the air battle of England?
Audience:
Before the air battle of England, I would like to hear your impressions of the British withdrawal. Was this what you were talking about?
Moderator:
This is Colonel Dilger. His question is to General Hozzel asking for his impressions of the British withdrawal from France.
General Hozzel:
I was not involved with this phase of the war in France, but I heard of it. I cannot say anything other than I have read about this. You know, Colonel, that the English 300,000 man corps had their back to the sea at that time. It is a miracle that they could escape. Up to now nobody has understood it. I remember that Reichsmarshal Goering at the time had promised that he could destroy the bridgehead of the English alone with the Air Force, without involving the Army in this operation.

It did not work because of the weather situation as you perhaps know. The English could escape because there was a period of three days of bad weather. So I think that the calculation of the real situation was mistaken. It was an error of the Supreme Command of the Luftwaffe. The Army could not proceed. It was forbidden by the Supreme Commander of the German Wehrmacht. This was Hitler. There was another idea I may report. Hitler had a special feeling toward the United Kingdom, to the British Empire. He loved it. Maybe it was in gesture to Chruchill, "Here you have your 300,000 men. Make freedom and peace." This is an idea, it has never been proved, although possible. This may explain why we attacked Poland after we had taken Czechoslovakia. Hitler did not imagine that England at any time would enter the war between Germany and Poland and make a broad war out of this. He had not believed it. Otherwise he would never have done it.
Doctor Stolfi:
I think that General Hozzel has just talked about, you might say, generic attacks with aircraft against what would have to be called major fortifications. I sense that there were special difficulties throughout the Second World War and those same difficulties would occur today relative to heavy fortifications. Normal mobile field artillery, let us say, going up to 155-millimeter guns or howitzers or even bigger, 208-millimeter or 8-inch guns, are not much against certain types of fortifications including a lot of concrete and steel. There was a tendency during the war for the Germans, when they were pressed and had to operate against heavy fortifications, including heavy field fortifications, to go to the aircraft which had the big bang, relatively big bom.bs which they could get on them.

So at the fortresses like Cherbourg, Tobruk, and them maybe a classical case in the Second World War, Sevastopol, the aircraft were called upon because of the relatively large fortifications. For example, at Sevastopol the Germans felt it was so important that they used large Stuka formations Mannstein had specially assigned to him for the fortress. But in addition, they found it necessary to bring a gun called "Dora" which had a 36-inch bore. This was brought on a double rail line all the way from Germany. The gun mounted on the rail line, this is going to be mind boggling, weighed 2,600 tons of 36-inch cannon.
It fired an armor-piercing projectile which was 12 feet high and weighed 6 tons with a muzzle velocity of 2,000 feet per second.
That special kind of ordnance the Germans brought all the way from Germany to reduce the Sevastopol fortifications. The only other thing that would have made a dent in the fortification would have been Stuka, maybe even with a bigger bomb than 500 kilogram, perhaps a special 1,000-kilogram bomb. But it is the kind of generic factor that you get here and that is that aircraft against big fortifications are one of the few things that are really useful.
Moderator:
Thank you Doctor Stolfi. I believe there were some questions from the audience.
Question:
My name is David Keener and I am from the “C-I-A”. I have two questions that are related.

First of all, was the Stuka aircraft used only for preplanned attacks on point targets, and secondly, was there at this time any technical means of communication between the Stuka pilots, or at least the commander of the Kette, and the ground forces?
General Hozzel:
To answer the first, we had preplanned targets as for exawple, to attack the forts. This was a preplanned target, or to attack the Mlawa bunker line was a preplanned target. But, in the battles of the Eastern front, we as a Geschwader, if we had no preplanned targets were fully free to attack in the field whenever we saw a target. This was only at the Eastern front. I have never experienced this at the Northern front. It was all preplanned, as had been at the Mediterranean or in North Africa, in Greece, Yugoslavia, these were preplanned targets.
Only in the Soviet Union were we free if we had no preplanned targets.
This was, so to say, a fighter bomber controlled sortie. "Hurry up, targets, attack, and report." We had a very poor communication set in our plane. It was able to contact us to connect us over a range of about 80 kilometers with a ground station. We could reach the guard station within 80 kilomerters, and he could hear us and we could hear them, but more than this was for us not possible.
If we were 100 kilometers away, no contact, but the ground station could reach us up to 200 kilometers, however, they never knew whether the message had reached us. So we had no navigation possibility in bad weather situations. The only thing we could do was to fly through a bank of clouds about 1,000 or 2,000 meters.

Questio