Oh, ok. Are you sitting confortably? Then I'll begin.
From "Kampfgeschwader Edelweiss" by Wolfgang Dierich
The question that confronted a German soldier on May 8th, 1945, the day of the surrender,
not "What shall I do?" but "Where shall I go?" For Leutnant Wilhelm Batel there was only
one answer: "Home if I can; and if I can't to an airfield in British hands"
This is the story of his flight.
He took off from Zatec at 14:30 on May 8th in 9K + FB and headed straight for Lueneberg.
It was wonderful weather with excellent visabilty. He flew at about 10,000 ft. He remembers
his flight to this day, and not without reason. Overnight things had changed in a way that
he could not at the time envisage. The dangers of war were past. His aircraft was fully
armed, but to what end? The scene was completely unfamiliar - no flak, no fires from
air-raids, no steaming railway engines; on the airfields at Dresden, Leipzig and Magdeburg
the allied machines stood drawn up as if on parade. Just after 15:00 he reached the
Lueneburg airfield, which was obviously in British hands. His parents lived about twenty
miles away. His intention of buzzing them to show he was alive was frustrated by navigation
problems: he had learned the country round his home mainly on foot and not in a cockpit.
His Me 262 spoilt his feel for the ground, but he soon managed to adjust to this.
As he flew over the small estate he saw that in the village and on the main roads round it
there was heavy military traffic - jeeps and trucks. To land right by it would be stupid.
With this in mind he spotted a field about two miles away on the edge of a wood; there
were no troops or people around. At 15:28 he swept in for his last landing. He made a
perfect belly landing in the field of wheat and his aircraft came to rest about ten yards
from the edge of the wood. With his briefcase and his parachute he quickly got under cover.
He then started to walk towards his home; but quite near where he had landed, as he was
crossing a rise, he met a farmhand who did not recognise him. So he asked him the way to
somewhere on the other side of the spot where he had landed. This turned out to be a
good thing, for later the British embarked on a very intensive search and the information
the man passed kept him clear of this. About 16:30 he reached Weissen Berg which gave
him a clear view over his parents village, but not the part where they lived. So he lay
down in the sun and watched what was going on in the village and the roads around it.
When it started to get dark, using trees, hedges and fences for cover, he made his way
across the half mile or so of open country to the other end of the village and reached
his parents house without being spotted. The barking of his parent's Alsatians announced
his presence.
The reunion was a happy one but very subdued, for there were a lot of refugees living in
the house. After a few days Wilhelm Bartel came out of hiding and gave out that he had been
officially discharged.
If you are going home do it in style. In an Me 262.