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Dudley somehow found my site, liked it, signed the guestbook, came back, signed again to ask if I would do a painting of his plane. I was surprised, told him casually about my father's time as pilot during WW II, and he was right away fascinated.

So I told him some more, then Dudley urged me to send him some pictures, hence I scanned three pictures from one of my father's war time albums. After some time, he came up with the idea to put up a page on the net. I did that using the pictures I sent him, but he kept urging me to do some more, so I am busy upgrading. I really do it for him, but also for me, of course, as he gives me the opportunity to think about my father.

When I visit him on Sundays, he tells me the one or other thing, so I found out new facts about him and learnt a lot, too. He wrote down many stories of his life, a lot from his war time, I have read most of them, but I would not know what to tell about his life. Dudley keeps me going. I wonder where this will lead to in the end.

As said, I started with the war time, added pictures from the training, then recent ones. I still did not make it to shoot one showing him now together with me - I'll have to do it some day. Dudley wanted me to change the order, but I hesitate. Don't exactly know why. (By now the pictures should have been loaded.)

My father Alfred Missbach, born 12-20-1920, December 1941

A note on the back in Sütterlin script:
"As pilot in a Stuka-squadron Ju 87"

All the equipment he is wearing here he managed to save after the war; he probably did not have anything else to wear. I wore the jeans jacket with the mock fur collar with pride during my Berlin student years 1966-1969 until it fell apart.

The rubber in the flight goggles had deteriorated by 1966. Otherwise I would have used them with my motorbike. The cap was far too small for me.

Father is a bit taller than I (192 / 190 cm), so I am a smaller son, quite unusual for our times (my mother was also tall, 178 cm. Father is considerably taller than his father, which follows this rule), but I have a bigger head and broader shoulders.

Father's height bothered him a lot. It caused a problem with soaring and joining the air force. Also, he wore glasses, but somehow he overcame these obstacles, probably because he was so dedicated to flying.

He saved a report from an air force school. They did not rank him very high. In fact he was rather low. However, he managed not only to survive, but also to distinguish himself.

Note on the back:

"my old Dora, which carried me on 40 missions, has been rolled out to guard the base. Our things have been taken off, but already new bombs wait
My air gun is hungry and my mechanic sees work"

"covers taken off, but we fly nevertheless
Turbia July 1944"

Poland / White Russia

"Studying the map"

Type A, School at At. Raphael, Southern France

Note on the back:

"freshly decorated"

Note below:

"Freshly decorated with EK II and bronz. Frontflugspange"

Note below:

"From today on EK I adorns the chest"

He saved this leather jacket, too. When I became student, I tried the jacket, but my shoulders were too broad for it.

Note on the back:

"This DB 2 does not fly any more March 44"

Note below:

"This machine does not fly any more"

They did not shoot down this Russian airplane, they just found it near their base and took the picture of it. My father is in the center.

Note on the back:

"Happy evening in Polensk"

Later "Polensk" corrected in "Minsk" and added:

"It was only me that reached Bavaria in 1945"

Remark: the others fell.

My father at right. Presumably it was xmas.

Emblem of the squadron:
gnat with lamp on a bomb with number 3 on wing during the full moon at night

"3rd order night battle group II"

At this time my father did not belong to a Stuka unit. The night battle group had to fly to disrupt the Russian enemy and, drop pamphlets for the civilians. Bombs were dropped by the rifleman by hand over the side, "it was all very primitive", they had biplanes of type Go145 and He72. The Commander was General Ritter von Graim. Later it was too dangerous for the Stukas to fly in the daylight so they decided to take them up at night. The planes were not equipped for night flight.

What year* was this? The unit was retrained in the Stukas in Stubendorf / Schlesien. There my father met my mother. The emblem is to show how single bombs are distributed at night like mosquito's bites.

Ljubysch, village in White Russia

Trude stands for Gertrud.

* What year was this?
My father has filled some A4-sized business books with memoirs, page by page with short articles (rejects, books he used to print numbers into during his work years). The war years occupy very much space there. This time sure has been the most formative for him.

In one of these books he describes how times in Russia got worse, where he flew the Arado 66 and Focke-Wulf Weihe for 21 months. By this time they were shot at by German flak and machine gun also (remember, they flew at night). The holes from shots were simply repaired with patches.

The stukas became battle pilots then, he recalls, changed from Ju 87 to Fw 190, the 2 motor Henschel 129 did not prove to be good. New duty for the stukas was looked for then. In mid April 1944 they moved to Stubendorf (near Oppeln). Only one comrade did not make it, he landed near the airfield at night.

war time | training period | old age

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