![]() ![]() ![]() He was able to return to friendly territory but his left leg, shattered by the hit, was amputated. He was wounded several times or injured in crash landings and in January 1945 his Stuka was hit by AA fire. By late 1941 he had flown 500 combat missions, by war's end this figure had grown to exceed 2500 combat missions in which he sank a destroyer and many landing barges, destroyed more than 500 tanks, plus about 150 artilliary positions and about 1000 military vehicles, almost all on the Russian front, In 400 missions as a single-seat fighter pilot he shot down 11 aircraft. When the German offensive on the Eastern front began he soon made his name as a dive bomber pilot by sinking the Russian battleship, Marat. He first saw active service as a reconnaissance pilot in the Polish campaign. Most of his service was on the Eastern Front, mainly flying the notorious Stuka dive bomber, in later times the cannon equipped tank-buster version. ![]() Hans Ulrich Rudel, a Lufthwaffe ground attack pilot, survived World War II as a highly decorated Stuka ace. ![]()
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