Marutfans

Courtesy Polly Singh who sent this interesting piece :

“The Marut brought together many great fighter pilots of the IAF, one of the little known pilots to have been touched by the Marut was Günther Rall of the ‘BundesLuft’  or the’ New Airforce’ of  then West Germany.  Rall was the third highest scoroing ace of the second world war after Erich Hartmann (352 kills), Gerard Barkhorn (301 ) all of the Luftwaffe.

The son of a merchant, Günther Rall was born in Gaggenau on 10 March, 1918. He entered military service as an Fähnrich in the Army in 1936. transferring to the Luftwaffe, he qualified as a fighter pilot in 1938. He saw his first combat during the Battle of France, and it was during this particular campaign that he began his personal victory score when on 18 May he shot down a  French Curtiss Hawk 75A from GC II/5.  Afterward, his unit was transferred to Calais to take part in the Battle of Britain. Shortly after beginning operations, he was given command of 8./JG 52 on 25th July and on 1st August he was promoted to Oberleutnant. By October, though, the Staffel had been withdrawn from combat operations in order to rebuild the losses suffered. After being brought back up to strength, the unit was sent to Rumania to defend the oil refineries and bridges over the Danube during the German occupation of that country in the spring of 1941. In late May 8./JG 52 took part in Operation Merkur, the airborne assault on Crete, providing support for the German parachute and mountain troops. By this time Germany and the Soviet Union were at war and so once the Creten operation was over 8./JG 52 was hurried back to Rumania, where Russian bombers were attacking the refineries. In five days Rall and his men destroyed some 50 Soviet bombers and were next sent to the southern sector of the Eastern Front. Here, however, Rall suffered a severe setback – after destroying his 36th enemy aircraft he himself was shot down by an I-16 and in the resulting belly-landing in a gully he broke his back in three places. He was paralyzed for a long time on the right side and the right leg. It was not until August 1942 that he was back in action, but in the first three months after returning to operational duty he raised his score to over 100 victories, being awarded by Hitler on November 26th the Oak Leaves to the Knight’s Cross. In April of 1943 he was promoted to Hauptmann and given command of III./JG 52 on 6th July. He scored his 200th victory on 29th August 1943 during his 555th mission, and on 12th September 1943, the Führer awarded him the Swords to his Knight’s Cross. In October 1943 alone, he downed over 40 Soviet planes

In the spring (19th April) of 1944 Rall took over command as the Gruppenkommadeur of II./JG 11 which was at the time on Home Defense (Reichsverteidigung) duties against the 8th American  Air Force. On 12th May while flying a Bf 109 G-5 he destroyed two Thunderbolts of this unit. However, he himself was attacked by another pair of P-47s from this same unit and was shot down and forced to bail out over Frankfurt / Main, in the process having his left thumb shot off. In the operating room he suffered a severe infection that kept him hospitalized until November. His last command was JG 300 operating out of Salzburg from 20th February 1945 until the end of the war. There he was fortunately taken prisoner by the Americans at the end of the war, other aces of the Luftwaffe were captured by the Russians and never returned from the salt mines of Siberia.

He flew a total of 621 missions, and was shot down no less than 8 times, being wounded 3 times during which he shot down a total of 275 enemy aircraft, including 3 on the Western Front to become the third highest scoring fighter pilot in history.

Rall lands after his 250th kill

After the war he joined the new West German Airforce and led his air force to convert to the F 104 and then retired as its second in command.  he died in 2008.

Rall in a BF 109 G 5 in 2003

In May 1973, as part of a West German delegation he was sent by the designer Kurt Tank to witness a demonstration of the Marut.  He was reportedly quite impressed by the machine even as he was saddened by the fact that it never achieved its original supersonic dream.

I came across these pics at the Defence PRO. I am not sure who did the demo but guess it must be Chu Chu Tilak!!”

Please click on the photographs to enlarge

This entry was posted on Friday, April 23rd, 2010 at 11:05 am and is filed under Flying Experiences, General, Personalities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.