Lippisch P.13 a in operational service – the story of Oberleutnant von Strumpffenhosen It was the beginning of August in the year 1948. Over three years had passed since the Götterdämmerung, the demise of the Third Reich as it was known in the years from 1933 to 1945. Oberleutnant Hubertus Graf von Strumpffenhosen, native of Austria, or Ostmark, now disowned proprietor of castles both in Böhmen-Mähren and Südtirol, looked up at the blue African sky as he strapped himself up in the narrow cockpit of his ramjet fighter, the diminutive Lippisch P.13a. As the war in Europe had not ended in the favour of Germany, the new Führer, General der Flieger Reitsch, had turned her eyes towards the south, to the African continent and its vast resources of sugar canes, and, for the Italians, wonderful Kenyan coffee beans. Only a small european enclave had remained in Axis hands - consisting of eastern Bavaria, western Austria and the very north of Italy. From there, Axis forces still defended themselves with scores of Vergeltungswaffen, like the V-1 and the V-2, and were still able to hold on against the Allies coming on from all sides. Thanks to good relations with officials of the Ploesti oil fields in Romania, and bribes to the russian managers in the form of several crates a month of Jägermeister, "saved" from Wolfenbüttel, Niedersachsen, in front of the advancing allied armies in 1945, fuel supply seemed to be sufficient at least for the defence of the enclave. The liquor crates and the oil drums respectively were transported via a nightly air lift between Salzburg and Ploesti, operated by Lufthansa and its camouflaged Junkers Ju-352 "Herkules" transports. However, a large part of the Italian and German troops had been diverted towards North Africa, where they first had retaken Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, invaded and conquered Egypt, and finally turned south to attack Sudan, Ethiopia,Kenya and Tanganyika. With the help of the Italians, Germany managed to get a foothold on the East African coast. They were seriously challenged, though, by British and Commonwealth forces based in South Africa and Rhodesia, not to mention the French and Belgian troops in the Congos, Rwanda and Burundi. The Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique remained neutral, but secretly helped the Axis. As the Wehrmacht retreated back from the Eastern front in 1944 and 1945, some Luftwaffe elite units were diverted to take part in the operation to the African continent, codenamed Donauerübung. One of those units were II./JG 54. This Gruppe, originating from the Austrian Jagdgruppe 138, and also the whole Grünherz Geschwader, was well known for its ingenious camouflage scemes. Arriving in the savannahs of East Africa, the ground crews were fast to adept to the new conditions. Many planes were for instance painted up with the usual Hellblau or Himmelblau lower surfaces, but with a giraffe-like pattern on the top surfaces. In the case of II. Gruppe, an extra touch was added in the form of a large zebra on the tail. As most non-Austrian scale modelers could not refrain from fighting about if the background colour of the Gruppe's lion badge should be white or yellow, the Gruppenstab simply decided to revise the badge and take away the background! As the Gruppe had lost its famous "Ski-hütte" in Aspern outside Vienna to the Russians, the white, snowy background was anyway no longer relevant. Graf von den Strumpffenhosen was appointed Staffelkapitän of 5./JG 54 in June 1946, as the unit was fighting its way through North Africa. They were then flying the Messerschmitt Me 262 and later on also the Focke-Wulf Ta 183, equipped with Ruhrstahl X-4 air-to-air rockets. His promotion to Gruppenkommenandeur was now long overdue, mainly because of his tendency to crash his aircraft, often without any influence of the enemy. In the winter of 1946-47, the II. Gruppe was withdrawn to their home base of Kitzbühl in the Austrian Alps, trained on and re-equipped with the Lippisch P.13a. In an enourmous logistic operation, including 10 Messerschmitt Me 323 "Düsengigant" jet transports, the unit and its new aircraft had been safely transferred back to African soil. The small, extremely fast interceptor had proven to be a powerful weapon, taking a heavy toll on the allied escort fighters, in the form of Rhodesian and South African Meteors and Vampires. The heavy bombers, however,had to be taken care of by Zerstörers like the Messerschmitt P.1099. On this clear, sunny morning at the airfield outside the harbour town of Mtwara, the air raid alarm had gone off at 5 AM, and the pilots had raced to the dispersal hut. They were briefed to take off as fast as possible and immediately ascend to 10,000 metres height, to assist the heavy fighters of ZG 76 trying to intercept a formation of Rhodesian B-45 Tornado heavy jet bombers. As von Strumpffenhosen's Kette closed in on the bombers, the attack still looked like child's play. The bombers seemed to be unescorted! But suddenly, from the unexpected direction of six a'clock high, from the east, a squadron of fast jet fighters, strangely resembling the Messerschmitt P.1101, approached. In seconds, they had closed up on the formation of P.13a fighters and were shooting of rockets. the Graf heard a loud thud and was for a short time blinded by an intense light. As he regained his eyesight, he saw that his port wing was severly damaged and the aircraft went into a spin. At 2,000 metres, von Strumpffenhosen managed to get control of the fighter and he glided in over a lake, where he landed on the wet sandbank. The aircraft slided dangerously close to the crocodile-infested water, but came slowly to a halt in the sand. The Graf quickly got out of the plane and scrambled for steady ground. As he shot off his emergency flare, one of the enemy fighters passed above, pursued by von Strumpffenhosen's wing man and likewise old friend, Erich von Stahlhelm. von Strumpffenhosen could clearly see the French roundels, and the rockets hanging under the wings. Unknowingly, the Graf had been the victim of a French Armee de L'Air Bell X-5, equipped with french AA-100 missiles, pirate copies of captured German Ruhrstahl X-4. The Bell X-5:s first (official) flight took place only in 1951, but those french fighters were secret pre-production examples, basicallyre-built P.1101:s, flown off a, likewise secret, Lafayette-class French aircraft carrier based at the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. von Strumpffenhosen pulled his revolver and put it in his lap, lighted a Juno cigarette and barricaded himself against the crocodiles. On the other side of the water, he noticed some native Africans getting into canoes and heading his way, with long spears pointing up towards the sky like masts. It was probably the much-feared warriors of the Makonde tribe, which meant he had landed close to the Lake Nangade, at the border between Tanzania and Mozambique. He started to sweat as he opened the safety lock on his gun, and he was hoping and waiting for the rescue in the form of a Flettner helicopter from one of the Kriegsmarine ships, or perhaps even an antique Portuguese Arado floatplane landing on the lake... http://www.luft46.com/mess/mess.html http://www.luft46.com/lippisch/lippisch.html http://www.jg54greenhearts.com/iijg54.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhrstahl_X-4 http://users.dbscorp.net/jmustain/x5.htm http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/france.htm.