Otto Schulz - Luftwaffe Service

Luftwaffe Service

Otto Schulz joined the Luftwaffe in 1934 and served as an instructor until January 1940, when he was posted to the newly formed 4./Jagdgeschwader 27 (JG 27—27th Fighter Wing). He participated in the French Campaign and the Battle of Britain, scoring his first victory on 31 August 1940. By the end of 1940, he had four victories to his credit. Schulz also participated in the brief Balkan Campaign in April 1941, scoring two victories, flying out of airbases in Bulgaria then Greece. His unit, as with most of the Luftwaffe, was then withdrawn for the imminent invasion of Russia. Despite II./JG 27's very brief 9-day participation in Operation Barbarossa, he scored three victories. Two of these were some of the 25 bombers shot down over Wilno by II./JG 27 on 25 June, however most of that short time the Gruppe was tasked with fighter-bomber missions.

The Gruppe was then withdrawn back to Germany to re-equip on the new Messerschmitt Bf 109F fighter, before being sent to join I./JG 27 already based in North Africa late in September. Once there, Otto became far more successful. On 6 October 1941, 20 October and 28 November, he recorded three victories on each day. Otto's score-sheet is slightly unusual in that many of his victories can be positively identified with specific Allied pilots: On 30 November, his 23rd and 24th victims were aces Sergeant Alan Cameron (6.5 victories) and Pilot Officer Neville Duke (27th v.). He claimed another 'ace' on 15 December (30th v.), when he shot down and killed Pilot Officer Geoffrey Ranger (5 victories) of No. 250 Squadron RAF and shot down the P-40 of Australian ace Flying Officer "Nicky" Barr (11 victories) of No. 3 Squadron RAAF, who crash-landed, wounded, on 11 January.

Schulz received his nickname Eins-Zwei-Drei Schulz (One-Two-Three Schulz) in January 1942 when he took off in an emergency scramble at 7:01, shot down two bombers at 7:02 and landed again at 7:03. An alternative version is that it was an elderly Bombay transport on 27 November 1941. The plane was from No. 216 Squadron RAF, and carrying men from the new SAS unit heading off on their first large-scale raid behind enemy lines.

On 25 January 1942, in claiming two P-40 fighters for his 34th and 35th victories, he overtook his Staffelkapitän (squadron leader) Gustav Rödel as the top scorer in II./JG 27. On 15 February 1942, he took off on his own and chased after 20 aircraft of Nos 94 and 112 Sqns that had just strafed his airfield at Martuba. He shot down five more P-40 Kittyhawks in ten minutes, including the top 17-victory Royal Air Force (RAF) ace Ernest "Imshi" Mason. This put him on 44 victories, just behind the 48 of the then top-scorer in the Desert, Hans-Joachim Marseille. In recognition of this success, they were both awarded the Knight's Cross on the same day - 22 February - the first such awards for JG 27 since arriving in North Africa.

After this his scoring slowed right down to only three victories in March. Sent to officer-training school, he was promoted to Leutnant in April. At the end of May, now an Oberleutnant and assigned to the Stab (HQ) flight of II./JG 27 as Technical Officer, he had another quick flurry of four victories including his 50th on 31 May, a P-40 flown by South African ace Major Andrew Duncan (5.5 victories) of No. 5 Squadron SAAF, who was killed.

On 17 June 1942, after claiming his 51st and last victory (Canadian ace Flight Lieutenant Walter “Wally” Conrad (6.5 victories) of No. 274 Squadron who was wounded), Schulz himself was shot down and killed in his Bf 109 F-4trop by RAF Kittyhawks near Sidi Rezegh. Research suggests the victory should be credited to Canadian ace James "Stocky" Edwards of No. 260 Squadron RAF.

Otto Schulz is credited with 51 victories from about 400 combat missions, and included only 3 victories on the Eastern Front. At the time of his death he was the 3rd-highest scoring pilot in the Mediterranean theatre, behind Marseille (101v.) and Günther Freiherr von Maltzahn, Geschwaderkommodore Jagdgeschwader 53 (64v.).