Palm Sunday Massacre
By Sir Ernie Hamilton Boyette
Aviation Art Store
This is another of the amazing stories from German Ace, Franz Stigler. This story was told to me by German Ace, Franz Stigler during many phone calls that I taped along with two days of interviewing both Franz and Charlie Brown with several hours of interview on videotape. Army Air Force B-17 pilot Charlie Brown is a personal friend of Stigler’s confirmed this story and made many additions. I also paid the airfare to fly in Franz and his wife to be the guest speaker at one of my art shows featuring "New Releases". B-17 Pilot was here with his wife from Miami. It was a great show and they both told their sides of this story to the audience. It was a great show. Charlie says that Franz is too modest, “This is what Franz really did…”
I
love the stories and then being the storyteller. Enjoy
Franz
Stigler was one of many Luftwaffe pilots and one of tens of thousands of Germans
and Italians who fought in North Africa. The North African campaign was a long
fought struggle for control of the northern half of Africa rich in history, oil,
labor and expansion territories.
The
potential territorial conquest was worth the investment. Hitler and his military
leaders agreed that North Africa was instrumental in future world affairs. The
problem was the distance from the Germany factory and training camp to Egypt.
Thus an incredible logistics story is born. But then again, even Robin Hood knew
that his enemy’s supply line was the most cost effective method of slowing and
even paralyzing an enemy.
Case
in point. The Allies made an effort in intervening in the long shipping and
aerial convoys to and from southern Italy to the armies of Rommel. During the
first part of the campaign, only England was warring with their ships in the
Mediterranean Sea.
These
are some statistics I have found in several readings. During November and
December of 1942 transport aircraft were landing at the rate of one hundred per
day. These were SM-79’s and other Italian tri-motors, giant Me-323’s, and
Ju-52 tri-motors. Over the next two years the number of transport landings would
grow to as many as five hundred per day.
By 1943 the Germans were now fighting the American and English forces, which included, Canadian, Australian, and other colonies of the English Crown.
These supply convoys either naval or aerial were prime
targets for American fighters. On April 5, 1943 P-38’s were patrolling the
Mediterranean between Sicily and Cape Bon, North Africa. The twenty six
Lightings intercepted 50 to 70 JU-52’s, 20 Bf-109’s, six JU-87 Stuka’s,
four FW-190’s and a FW-187. The ensuing action claimed the loss of eleven
JU-52’s, two Stuka’s, the FW-187 and two of the P-38’s.
This was a stinging blow. Fuel, medical supplies, food,
water, troops and aviators lost. The next great blow came when on April tenth
when another swarm of Lightings downed twenty JU-52’s along with eight of the
transports escort fighters. Then later that day B-25 bombers were flying low
over the blue green Mediterranean looking for German and Italian shipping when
they intercepted a flight of JU-52’s. Using the top torrent gunners the
B-25’s flew along side of the JU-52’s and shot down twenty-five of the
German tri-motors. Talk about pirates of the air that must have been an
incredible sight to witness. How often do bombers get the chance to actually
attack and shoot down enemy aircraft?
The next day the Germans were caught again by Lightings
loosing another twenty-six JU-52’s and five escort fighters. The Germans were
loosing planes faster than they could think of how best to stop it. They simply
had to send out another flight with escorts and hope for the best. And many
transports did get through. They could not stop the supplies.
Then the worst happened. On Palm Sunday, April 18, 1943
three squadrons of P-40’s assigned to the 57th Fighter Group along
with one squadron of P-40’ from the 324th Group were on patrol.
They were off Cape Bon flying with a top cover of Spitfires. They intercepted
the largest aerial convoy of transports to date. The Germans decided to try a
force in mass that could defend itself.
The accounts of the total lost on both sides differ except that the Americans did lose six P-40’s and one Spitfire. The German loss was staggering. The Americans claimed fifty-to-seventy of the German tri-motors were lost along with approximately sixteen to eighteen fighters, consisting of Macchi 202s, Bf-109’s, and ME-110’s. The actual German loss was 51 aircraft total. Still it is a blow for the supply depot in Tunisia waiting for them.
My friend Franz was one of those German escort fighter
pilots shot down that day. He was flying along the transports. Forced to zigzag
to fly slow enough to tag along. His Messerschmitt was purring along when he
told me he looked out and saw in between his formation and Cape Bon a large
formation of fighters. Another pilot in his flight had alerted Franz over the
radio.
At first Franz noticed that the enemy had not spotted
them yet. Franz was shocked at the size of the formation. He estimated at the
time there must have been four squadrons in flight and he was right. Franz also
noticed the flight of top cover flying overhead by the reflection of the sun in
their canopies.
He told me and another that interviewed him in the past
for Air Classic magazine that looking at the formation of enemy fighters was
like “looking at a snake that you knew would strike.”
Stigler had been outnumbered he said in the past but he
knew that his fighters would never be able to protect the slow flying JU-52’s.
They were far out numbered. Being in command Franz called on his radio to his
pilots to join up but to keep space between them. He then called for the
JU-52’s to fly close together and defend them self’s. If the JU-52’joined
together flying low they could put up a fight with their combined machine gun
defenses.
Franz called for his men to gain altitude so they would
have some advantage before they were spotted. As Franz was climbing he looked
down in horror to see that the JU-52’s had broke up and scattered all over the
water. Individually each transport was a sitting duck.
Franz told me that he was screaming at the transport
pilots to join up, but now the Germans had been spotted. Franz said that he was
looking at the American fighters at the exact moment they spotted the
transports. Franz said that every American fighter tipped his wing over a little
to get a look at their target at the exact same time. In perfect formation
flying Franz could see how excited the Americans were by they way they flew. The
snake was about to bite.
This was not to be a “lets protect the transports”
kind of ordeal. Franz said that this was a fight to stay alive. Some of the
P-40’s went after the transports while some of the fighters came in on the
escorts to tie them up from protecting the lumbering JU-52’s. There were sixty
P-40’s against eight Bf-109’s with a squadron of Spitfires overhead.
The Messerschmitt 109G that Franz was flying was superior
to the P-40 and Franz knew he could account for several of the incoming P-40’s
but the others would get past him onto the transports. Four of the P-40’s went
for Franz and his wingman. The attack was head on with the four P-40’s
jockeying around firing head on at the income firing Messerschmitts. Franz
passed a P-40 by ten feet his flying affected by the slipstream of the other
fighter. He said he lost his wingman in the ensuing tumbling air battle.
Franz started to climb to come back down on a P-40 he was
eying when he felt his aircraft real from the slugs from another P-40 that had
happened to turn inside him and track him perfectly. In an endeavor to foil his
flight to thrown off the tight turning P-40 Franz said he looked over his
shoulder to see his nemesis when bullets shattered his canopy with one fifty
caliber slicing into the bridge of his nose and another bullet shooting the pipe
he was smoking out of his mouth. Franz said he had only the stem of the pipe in
his teeth. I asked “did you do something to piss this guy off Franz”, he
laughed and said he must have.
Franz said that the P-40 was just 50 meters behind and to
the left of him. “It looked like the front of his plane was on fire” with
all the guns blazing. Franz snap rolled and came out to fire a deflection shot
at another P-40. Franz said he saw his bullets strike the P-40 in the wing along
the root when bullets came sailing past his canopy again.
Franz skidded to the right snap rolled again and was on the verge of a black out. As he looked out the sight was dismal. He witnessed a JU-52 explode and hit the water. Wreckage of others were burning or floating on the water. Of the other JU-52’w that were flying many were on fire or smoking with a hive of bees swirling around attacking them. Franz saw a lost cause, now he just needed to stay alive. His aircraft had been hit and everywhere he looked he said he saw a Curtis fighter.
Franz started to climb. Looking out he saw another Bf-109 going down trailing smoke. The pilot bailed out but Franz was climbing and did not see if the pilot’s parachute opened or not. The Messerschmitt Franz was flying shuttered. Franz never saw his attacker. The P-40 must have been behind and below rising in the climb with Franz in his blind spot. Franz was going to skid, split-“S” and try to get away when he realized that he did not have the altitude for this escape.
At time moment Franz was upside down or inverted. He
pulled hard on the stick and experienced a “red out” form the intense
negative G’s. Franz then pulled back up out of the dive into another climb. A
P-40 flashed past and Franz skidded onto his tail. He poured at least three to
four seconds of machine gun fire into the belly of the fighter. Yes, airplanes
can skid right and left just like a car on wet pavement. Pilots explain it as
sitting on the top of a flat rock that had been spun out across the top of a
lake. Only you are always facing head on and not spinning with the stone.
Sometimes the skidding is smooth, and other times it’s just like going over a
bumpy road in a pick up with no shocks.
As Franz was watching his bullets hit the P-40 his instrument panel exploded when gunfire ripped through the side of his cockpit just an inch from Stigler’s knees. He pulled up and let his 109 tilt over in a stall, let the fighter spin once and caught control and dove away. Finally he was alone.
Looking down he saw wreckage from many JU-52’s. Men
were in life rafts below and his engine was running poorly. Africa was close but
he would be shot down before he reached a friendly field.
Franz headed toward Sicily. There was a hole in the side
of the cockpit, holes in both side of his canopy, his left wing was full of
holes and he knew his fuselage was damaged also. His oil pressure gage was
working but little else. And the oil pressure was low but held steady.
With his engine losing power along with a drop in oil
pressure the coastline of Sicily came into view. As each second pasted his
altitude dropped. Finally it was too low to bail out. Finally the engine quit.
Franz said that it was a relief because now he didn’t have to worry about when
it would fail. Gilding in Franz tried to let the plane land flat by pulling back
on the stick at the last second so the nose would not plunge straight in. Franz
didn’t want a sudden straight in impact because he could get killed. The tail
hit and the Messerschmitt flattened out but the nose hit the base of the next
wave and suddenly the cockpit was underwater.
Stigler quickly released the straps that held him in place saving his life. But he had forgotten to open the canopy before hitting the water. Now free in his seat the pressure of the water was holding down the canopy. With water filling the cabin from bullet holes, Franz opened a side panel that freed the canopy to open easily. At that moment Franz inflated his life vest. It filled with air and lifted Franz upward, quickly. Franz said that he broke free of his sinking aircraft fifty feet under water.
When he inflated his vest he shot up and popped out of
the water like a cock. Franz always laughs when he tells that story. He did
shoot right out of the water. Its funny now but here he was five miles off the
coast of Sicily in the water and having much difficulty getting into his life
raft.
With the wind and current with him Franz was ashore in a
few hours and headed back to his base. Every escort fighter had been shot down
and every pilot got back to base unharmed. Some took longer to get back than
others. However every one of these pilots except Franz would loose their lives
in the struggle we would later call World War II.
Franz laughs at the claims made by the P-40 pilots. There
were no ME-110’s or Macchi 202’s flying with them that day. And it would
seem that a whole flight of ME-323’s flew by the melee and escaped. But Franz
never saw any confirming information to their fate.
Franz would be shot down seventeen times before the war
ended. He shot down eleven four engine bombers and was shot down eleven times by
four engine bombers. Franz only bailed out of his aircraft six times. The rest
he would ride the plane in like a glider.
He ended the war flying with JV44 as the squadron technical officer. Franz was an instructor teaching pilots to fly the ME-262 when Adolph Galland invited Franz to fly with his “squadron of experts”. Franz was credited with a total of 28 aerial victories and damaging many others. He did not file a claim for the two damaged P-40’s on Palm Sunday. He shot down two more four-engine bombers while flying the ME-262 but the paperwork never reached Berlin. The war ended.
All research, writings and artwork are by Sir Ernie Hamilton Boyette.
No one is permitted to republish any part of this story with out my personal permission.
Please call or e-mail me for any use of this story.
I do not mind sharing, just call or e-mail and ask for permission.
Sir. Ernie Hamilton Boyette
1-904-406-5791
Posted 2-8-07