How A P-51 Ace Shot Down An Me 262

Col. Joseph Peterburs was a P-51 ace who flew 49 missions and 269 combat hours aboard his Mustang during WWII. He was the one who shot down German ace Walter Schuck, flying his ME-262, on April 10, 1945.

Origins

Peterburs grew up in the suburbs of Wisconsin, and after graduating from grade school, he went into the seminary. But fate had other plans for the P-51 ace. When Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese, he knew he had to leave the seminary and join the military, particularly, the Air Corps.

He eventually graduated as a second lieutenant fighter pilot in April 1944 at 19 years old.

An Important Mission

On April 10, 1945, Petersburg’s group was escorting more than 450 B-17s in Oranienburg,  an area near Berlin. As soon as the bombers unloaded, a swarm of Me 262s came swarming in.

Petersburg was flying high cover when he saw a 262 slicing through the B-17s, and destroying two B-17s before he could latch on to the enemy plane. At this point, he had a significant altitude advantage, so he pulled into the 262 at six o’clock, his six .50 caliber machine guns blazing. He then saw smoke on the 262’s wing and engine but lost sight of the plane as it entered a cloud bank.

60 years later, Peterburs found that the Me 262 he damaged that day caused the engine to disintegrate and the pilot had to bail out. The pilot was German ace Walter Schuck, with a total of 206 confirmed air kills under his belt.

Bailing Out, Becoming a POW

After breaking off with the 262, Peterburs strafed an airfield but after a couple of passes, his plane was severely hit by ground fire. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to make it to friendly lines and bailed out in Burg, Germany where he was captured and became a POW.

He was then forced to march with British soldiers to the  POW Camp (Stalag III) at Luckenwalde near Berlin. A week later, he managed to escape because the camp was lightly guarded, managing to escape at night. He was then picked up by a Russian Tank column and fought with the Russians from the Berlin area to the battle of Wittenberg.

An Unlikely Encounter

In 2005, Peterburs finally met Walter Schuck who told him that his plane disintegrated after he went to the cloud bank and had to bail out. While he would hurt his leg in the process, he credited Peterburs for saving his life.

According to Schuck, it’s likely he would have been killed in future missions as Germany was already losing the war at that point. The two became close friends in the end.