Stuka Ace: Staffelkapitän

September 1940

Luftkriegsschule, Werder Luftwaffe Base

The anniversary of the start of the war passed quietly, the months in training consumed in books, written examinations and aerial exercises. It was immersive, interesting and rewarding work, but between classes Andreas read every scrap of news from France and the English Channel. The wireless reported ceaselessly of the pounding England was taking from the Luftwaffe. With his combat experience in Poland and France, Andreas was able to picture what that probably looked like.  He missed his comrades.

October 1940
Döberitz, Germany – near Berlin

The Lehrgang für Stabsoffiziere at Döberitz was a different world again — quieter, more deliberate, and colder in spirit than the Luftkriegsschule. Here the war was spoken of in graphs, ratios and logistics, not in flak, wounds and missing men. Lecture halls in grey stone buildings echoed with the voices of seasoned Obersts, some fresh from the front, others returned from years in staff billets. They taught with the sharp edge of experience, but Andreas still found himself growing restless.

He missed the noise. He missed making decisions that came fast and unrelenting, not weighed by adjudicators in war-games with chalkboards. Especially when he knew others were out there doing it in his stead.

Then the news came: a courier brought it to him personally during an afternoon planning an exercise Panzer support operation. It was from Milo.

Hauptmann Adler had been wounded in action

The note was brief. The Wing was hit by Spitfires over the Thames Estuary on the return leg of a bombing mission, with an emergency landing in the Pas-de-Calais. Initial care in Boulogne-sur-Mer, then airlifted to Berlin’s Lazarett am Urban, the largest Wehrmacht hospital in the city.

Andreas requested a weekend pass that same day. It was granted without question. 

Sunday Morning
Lazarett am Urban, Berlin

The hospital was clean, vast, and heavy with silence. Its courtyards still smelled faintly of antiseptic and burning coal. Rows of men moved slowly with bandages, crutches, wheeled chairs. Some without limbs. Some with eyes covered. Most without words.

Andreas was directed to the east wing—aviators, officers, the worst cases kept from the press. He passed through two guards and a nurse station before a young orderly guided him to the right room.

He stopped in the doorway.

Adler was thinner. Pale and drawn, his right arm bound in a thick brace and his face marked with burns that hadn’t yet fully healed. But his eyes were clear. Sharp. Watching.

And when they met Andreas’s, the old smirk returned—crooked and tired, but genuine.

“Andreas! Come to check I’m not malingering?”

Andreas stepped close, relieved and unsure all at once. “Hauptmann.”

“Don’t Hauptmann me while I look like this,” Adler muttered. “Sit. You’re making the place look too formal.”

Andreas pulled the chair close. “They told me you got jumped over the Thames.”

Adler nodded slightly. “Four of them. Spitfires. Quick bastards. We lost two Stukas, mine barely made it back across. Got clipped in the oil system—fire on landing. Most of this—” he gestured to his bandages, “was from that. Not the flak.”

“They say you’ll recover?”

“If I don’t catch gangrene or other infection. I’ll never fly combat again though. They’re already whispering about moving me to a training command in Vienna. There I can bark at green crews and fail physicals in peace.”

Andreas frowned. “You deserve better”

“I deserve exactly that,” Adler said, wincing as he sat straighter. “Men like us don’t fly forever, Andreas. We lead. And if Wotan sees fit to remove me from the cockpit alive, then maybe I’m lucky.”

There was silence for a time.

Adler looked him over again. “You look different. Straighter. Tighter. They turning you into a General already?”

Andreas smiled. “Just a Leutnant. But they’ve got me drawing arrows on maps now.”

“Good. We need men who know what those arrows mean.”

They spoke for nearly an hour. About old comrades. About what might come next.

When the nurse insisted Adler rest, Andreas stood to go. At the door, Adler stopped him.

“Voss.”

He turned.

“You’re ready for more than you know.”

Andreas nodded once. “Thank you, sir.”

“Now get out of here before they make you clean my bedpan.”

Döberitz, November 1940

The mess hall clattered with the sounds of cutlery and low conversation. Voss sat at the edge of a table, half-listening to a pair of Oberleutnants from a fighter unit chatting over coffee.

“—whole Gruppe’s being sent to Sicily, from StG 2. Heard it from a signals officer at Luftflotte 2,” one said.

“Sicily?” the other blinked. “To help the Italians?”

“Yes, and to hunt the Royal Navy,” came the reply. “Enneccerus's mob. Going after convoys and cruisers.”

Voss paused, spoon halfway to his mouth.

II/StG 2. His unit.

They were going to the Mediterranean, to hunt warships, to a new front.

He said nothing, but inside, something tightened. Pride. And a quiet ache.

He finished his meal in silence, the clatter around him suddenly distant.

Döberitz Air Academy – Mid December 1940

The wind cut across the frozen parade square, stiff and unforgiving. Frost rimed the flagstaffs and clung to greatcoats as the assembled officers stood in formation, breath rising like steam. Snow threatened but held off, casting a heavy grey light over the assembled ranks of the modest graduating class.

It was graduation day—culmination of months of tactical schooling, war games, and aerial evaluations. At the centre of it all stood Generalleutnant Johannes Fink, Inspekteur der Kampfflieger. A lean, straight-backed figure with a hard, weathered face, Fink had served as an infantry officer throughout the Great War, earning decorations in the trenches before transferring to the Luftwaffe in the 1930s. Now, as inspector of the bomber force, he bore responsibility for the readiness, training, and tactical doctrine of Germany’s dive-bombers and level bombers alike.

He moved down the line with practiced severity, reading names, awarding citations, shaking gloved hands. When he stopped before Andreas Voss, his voice carried crisply.

“Leutnant Andreas Voss,” he said. “Cited as Student of Merit in dive-bomber tactics. Combat distinction in Poland and France. Recommended by instructors for field leadership.”

He raised his chin.

“Congratulations Voss. You are hereby promoted to Oberleutnant, effective immediately. Orders issued for reassignment to III./StG 2 in a Staffelkapitän role. Your former Wing I believe."

He offered a sharp nod. “Your new Gruppe remained in France when the others left, but you wont be there for long. Get them ready and lead them well.”

“Jawohl, Herr Generalleutnant.”

The handshake was brisk—approval earned, not given lightly. Followed by a salute.

Later, amid the warmth of the officer's mess and the hum of a coal stove, the news passed between cups of hot coffee and a modest celebratory schnapps. A week of Christmas leave with his family, then back to France. Back to Immelmann, but at a different Staffel. Voss folded his typed orders carefully and tucked them into his tunic. The war wasn’t over. It was merely shifting. 

4 January 1941 – Forward Airbase, Northern France

The wind on the airstrip had a milder bite than in Germany, but damp with Atlantic spray and the missed scents of fuel and scorched oil. Oberleutnant Andreas Voss stepped down from the staff car, greatcoat buttoned high, peaked cap angled just so, and approached the operations building that now served as HQ for III/StG 2.

Inside, the heat from a cast-iron stove battled against the winter draft. Files cluttered desks, flight charts curled at the edges, and the air buzzed with the sound of radios and typewriters. War, paused only briefly for Christmas, was ramping up again.

Voss was ushered into the office of Hauptmann Heinrich Brücker, the new Gruppenkommandeur of III. Gruppe, who had taken command as France fell. Brücker was in his late 20s, sharp-eyed and a legend from his time in Spain with the Condor Legion. He wore the scars of command not on his body, but in his weary gaze.

“Welcome Andreas” He extended a firm hand. “I’ve read your file. Decorations in Poland and France. Tactical school top of class. Great to have you back with us, just in time."

Voss nodded. “Ready for duty, Herr Hauptmann. Good to be back.”

Brücker gestured to the map-laden table beside him. “We’ve got replacements to fill the gaps the RAF tore through us. They are keen but green, though they are getting better after the last few weeks of drills and formation training. You’ll take one of the Staffels. They’ll follow you, and you'll show them how to survive so they can be effective. That’s the currency here—survival.”

“Yes, sir.”

"We've also been re-equipped with the new Berta-2s, so there is some familiarisation to be done."

Voss nodded. He'd studied the new model at Werder, and flown it a dozen times. The more powerful 211D engine and new propeller gave the nose a different shape, but allowed significantly more ordnance to be loaded, including the larger 1000kg bombs. That suited him just fine.

“You knew Adler?” Brücker asked, more softly.

Voss’s voice steadied. “He was my Staffelkapitän.”

“He spoke highly of you. Before he was wounded. Said you had a nose for battle, and the spine to hold a line.” Brücker gave a faint smile. “I've no cause to doubt his judgement. You'll be glad to know that he has been discharged from hospital and on convalescent leave.”

"Take a look around and let's catchup over dinner in the Mess. See you at 7."

With a nod of dismissal, Voss saluted and turned to leave. The door creaked open, letting in a gust of cold air—and a familiar voice:

“You took your time, Herr Oberleutnant.”

Voss blinked, then grinned as he recognized the speaker—Milo, bundled up in battered flight gear, leaning against the HQ hut, arms folded, the ever-present smirk on his windburned face.

“Milo! What are you doing here? I thought you were in Sicily!"

“I got myself reassigned.” Milo’s grin widened. “Filed the papers while you were still marching around Döberitz learning how to look clever. No one puts me in a Stuka with a greenhorn. Besides,” he clapped Voss on the shoulder, “someone has to keep your head out of the clouds.”

Voss exhaled, the tension of the return easing.

“Good to have you back, Milo.”

“Good to be back, Herr Oberleutnant. Now let’s go see what kind of mess they’ve left us.”