Good account of WW 2 air ground attack | Stuka Pilot (War and Warrior)

Fantastic memoir of a super-hero who fought for the wrong cause | Stuka Pilot (War and Warrior) | Hans-Ulrich Rudel

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	• Stuka Pilot (War and Warrior) Hans-Ulrich Rudel Legion for the Survival of Freedom, 1987 - 240 pages average customer review:based on 23 reviews
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highly recommended

Great View of One who was there

Not perfect, but close.

Highs - Historically correct and well told firsthand viewpoint of possibly the best ground attack pilot to fight in WW2.

Lows - Some things are a little bumpy in the stories and don't flow as good as say "Iron Coffins". British translation makes Hans seem "british" at times! More maps of where he was talking about would be helpful.

How did this guy survive!

Overall, excellent. 96/100.

Good account of WW 2 air ground attack

There are details in there in regarding the Luftwaffe. The prose is of a personal account, so don't expect anything mind blowing. However, he tells it like it is. And he includes lots of interesting stories and events that happen to him.

I'm not going to go into it over here, but it's a great read.

I can see why for the A-10 design crew, this book was required reading. And based off that success of that plane, lessons were kept alive.

This is a must for anyone interested in WW 2 genre ground attack aircraft, and I'd extend it to any military aviation buff.

The copy I got was new, and its getting harder to get them. Get this while you can before it starts creeping up into the $100 US range . . .

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Fantastic memoir of a super-hero who fought for the wrong cause

This book is terrific in terms of action as recounted by the most decoated soldier of the Third Reich. After an inglorious beginning, Rudel's star shined on the Eastern Front where he flew 2,530 operational sorties and destroyed a huge amount of enemy material. In this book he analyses many of his tactics, the conditions in Russia, the loss of many of his comrades and his narrow escapes from death and capture. He received his higher decorations from Hitler himself, thus he can also give his imrpessions about the dictator and the private conversations he had with him. Rudel was a real killing machine and he didn't stop flying even when he had his right leg amputated from a direct anti-aircraft hit. The book ends with his months of capture in England and France. Rudel states emphatically that he fought for his country and not for a particular Party, but many times in the book he repeats his horror seeing the "asiatic hordes" invading the German soil and his sorrow that the Western Allies didn't side with Nazi Germany to save the European civilization! Apart from this propaganda moments though, the book is an excellent first hand account of the colossal battles on the Eastern Front and the great carnage that experienced fliers like Rudel caused to the advancing Soviets. The only serious drawback of the book is that the English translation made a lot of errors regarding the Luftwaffe units nomneclature. Thus the Gruppe became a Squadron and the Staffel became Flight, which is absolutely wrong. The same applies for the highest command echelon, which became just Group. The ranks were also translated to their RAF equivalents (correctly this time) which is really absurd for most of the readers who are not familiar with this system. There are also some minor mistakes regarding aircraft types, which shows a lack of a good editing.

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hans :( asiatic hoards

the lines between hero, fool and lucky are often hard to distinguish and more often ignored. rudel's accomplishments, as he remembers them, are indeed extraordinary. imagine a single pilot sinking capitol ships, destroying hundreds of front line tanks and thousands of trucks and artillery pieces all while flying an aircraft that was obsolete at the war's begining. in addition to rudel's flying stories, he also shares with the reader the more 'traditional' views of germany's enemies and its leaders both of which the author openly embraces. rudel is strictly 'old school'. i first read 'stuka pilot' at the age of twelve, it being the first of dozens of books i have read by enemy combatants over the years. i have found the book an excellent primary source to life 'on the other side' and during subsequent readings of the rudel book over the years i am always as impressed with his skill with an airplane as with his skill with a typewriter. rudel should be remembered for his accomplishments as both writer and pilot along with such other heros of the sky as billy bishop or gregg boyington.

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Stuka Pilot

'Stuka Pilot' is an amazing read. It's the autobiography of German dive bomber pilot Hans Rudel in WWII. Flying the slow JU-87 Stuka he was the most successful and lucky military pilot in history. He survived over 2500 missions mostly against the Soviet military. He sank their battleship Marat, and destroyed hundreds of tanks. Shot down numerous times, once captured for an instant by 3 Russians, he bolted and was shot during the escape. He still made it back to fly again. Later in the war after getting his leg shot off, he continued to fly with a prosthetic leg.

Truly a story of extreme courage and even more incredible luck to have survived it all.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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