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On the evening of Saturday,
May 18th 1940 a young Luftwaffe fighter pilot was part of a force
tasked to find, and safely escort back to its base, a German
Heinkel reconnaissance aircraft over French territory. The young
man’s name was Günther Rall, who would later become
the third-highest ranking fighter Ace in the history of aerial
warfare, with a total score of 275 confirmed victories.
Rall and his fellow pilots
took off from their airfield on this fateful late afternoon,
and quickly found the recce plane which was desperately trying
to get back behind the lines, with a whole pack of French US-built
Curtiss Hawk fighter aircraft in hot pursuit. Rall’s unit
immediately engaged, and a short but ferocious battle between
the Germans and the French flared up. Rall soon got a chance
to align his sight on one of the French fighters, which later
turned out to be flown by the exiled Czech pilot Otto Hanzlicek.
The rounds fired from Rall’s Messerschmitt Me109E almost
immediately sent the Curtiss down in flames.
So intensely focused on his first gunfight was this young fighter
pilot, that he had failed to notice Hanzlicek’s wingman
who had moved in from behind and was firing at him. Now it was
Rall’s turn to take the punches. His 109 was hit several
times and spun out of control, Rall had to use all of his exceptional
skills as an aviator to recover from the stall.
As quickly as the fight had
erupted, it was over. Günther Rall found himself alone in
the skies over France with an aircraft that was just barely flyable,
but he managed to survive and land at a German airfield that
night.
Thus began the career of one
of the world’s most exceptional military aviators. His long
and hard service career, first for his native Germany, and later
for NATO, could well have ended with his very first enemy encounter.
But Günther Rall, showing the world a first glimpse of his
outstanding qualities as a fighter and a leader prevailed, and
turned a near tragedy into triumph.
Each print in the edition is signed by Günther Rall. |