PCScipio42
Airman 1st Class
"I Flew For the Fuhrer" by Heinz Knoke. Introduction by Jack Pudney, who couldn't quite figure out Knoke in his interviews with him after the war. Book is based on Knoke's diary during the war and originally published in 1953. Quite an amount of detail with some of his missions and victories. Tough to decide how "likable" Knoke was, a man who definitely was indoctrinated in Nazi beliefs and his hatred of communism is evident. Knoke took great pleasure in strafing the Ivans during the beginning of the Soviet war in 1941. Knoke was briefly with JG 52 before being transferred to a unit on the North Sea coast in July, 1941. Knoke remained in the west for the duration of the war. He successfully hit a B-17 or B-24 with a bomb that intrigued some of the Luftwaffe high command, although he later wished he had never had done that with all the hoopla that followed it. Knoke does a great job of telling how difficult it was to attack the bomber formations and his description of how the P-47's and P-51's were on him following his attacks on the heavies shows the superiority that the Allies enjoyed from 1944 to the end of the war. After the war, Knoke was elected to the legislature of Lower Saxony as a member of the Socialist Reich party in 1952 before the party was outlawed. Good book, great detail on combat with the heavies and escorts. Recommended.
