JG2 Richthofen (2) 1942-1943

A short while ago they were sitting at a small table, playing a game of skat. Espe­cially Fw. M. had a good hand, and he laughed saying he would let his comrades leave the ta­ble with only parachutes on their backs. But the sound of the alarm was enough to immediately send the pilots to the cockpits, and to fill the airfield with the roar of engines. In a matter of minutes they were in the air, and flew their world's best fighters north. Only the scattered cards left on the table...
The ground engineers came back to their reg­ular tasks. Everyone had a job to do but a tension could be felt at the base. Nervous looks at watch­es, few words, nobody's smiling. One of the head­quarters Unteroffiziers comes shouting. They got a Tommy, they're fighting, they're winning! The entry to the racliostation is not admitted today even to me, a war correspondent. There's no point in arguing. So I wait along with the others for the pilots to return. The tension becomes unbearable and soon everyone is moving around the runway. <\11 are waiting, pretending to be calm. More and more often "the black men" raise their heads, gaze