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Oscar Boesch is well known to Luftwaffe researchers, is one of the few Sturmstaffel survivors still alive  and still peforms his 'Silent Flight' glider routine at airshows after settling in Canada postwar. Oskar Bösch's Feuertaufe or baptism of fire was the famous Berlin raid of 29 April 1944. He shot down his first four engined bomber on this raid having made his first flights in a Fw 190 Sturmbock the previous day ! ..." I didn't have time to be afraid..it was exciting. Your adrenalin really pumped..the air was pretty thin at 24,000 ft and there was a lot of turbulence behind the bomber formation.....Zehart had guts. He flew right into the Pulk and we just followed him in ..."       Oskar Bösch quoted in Mombeek's Sturmstaffel 1 published by Classic ( see links for more information )
An Austrian, Oskar Bösch was a qualified glider pilot before joining the Jagdwaffe  in 1943. From early childhood he had a love of flying and flight and was an avid model builder. He learnt to admire the beauty and grace of  birds of prey gliding and soaring between the peaks of the Austrian Alps.  " I began to design and build and test my own glider designs even as an adolescent..".

He received his first operational posting to JG 3 shortly after completing his advanced fighter pilots training on the Bf 109 F and G-6 with JG 101 at Nancy, France .. Caught in a bomb raid en route to his new unit he resolved to become a bomber destroyer and volunteered for Sturmstaffel 1 then based at Salzwedel to the west of die Hauptstadt, Berlin. At the time, the air battle of 29 April 1944  was acclaimed by both sides as one of the biggest ever fought. At Salzwedel , IV./JG 3 and the Sturmstaffel had been at readiness from 09:00 hrs as some 679 bombers assembled over southern England. In total the German defenders scrambled some 14 Gruppen, Oskar Bösch  and the Sturmstaffel getting airborne shortly after 10:00 am. Forming up with IV./JG 3 ( led in the air by Lt. Hans Weik ) an impressive Gefechtsverband assembled over Magdeburg and headed out in the direction of Braunschweig, making visual contact with the incoming bombers at 11:00 am.  North-east of Braunschweig the Stumstaffel was to carry out one of the most successful Sturm assaults in its short history.

Bösch's Fw 190 was hit by the fierce defensive fire and running short of fuel he attempted to put down at Bernburg near Berlin. The subsequent landing on the short field almost ended in disaster as the 190 flipped over. " I found myself hanging upside down , barely able to breathe and suffocating in the fuel vapours. I saw my life pass in front of my eyes. Fortunately help arrived shortly thereafter.."

Barely a week later Bösch was credited with an Herausschuss as over 700 USAAF bombers screened by a similar number of escorts again raided Berlin and Braunschweig. By now the Sturmstaffel had been integrated into IV./JG 3 and renamed as 11./JG 3.

"..I clearly remember the 8 May mission which went wrong from the beginning. Our own Flak took us for a target and my plane was riddled with shrapnel.."   Bösch's Staffel had been preparing to close in on a box of B-24's when disaster had struck. Forced to leave the relative cover of the Gefechtsverband, a film of oil obscuring his windshield, he dove down through the formation of US bombers firing wildly and taking hits, his life almost certainly saved by the protective Sturm armour.  He jumped from his stricken aircraft at 6,000 meters over Goslar in the Harz. His parachute had been holed and he received slight burns through falling too fast through the freezing atmosphere ...." Because of a slight shrapnel wound to my head I had a short stay in hospital ..I remember a doctor giving me a ticking off for the holes .....in my socks.."   (continued below)

The profile and the photograph below show Bösch's Fw 190 A-8/R2 as it appeared in September 1944 when IV./JG 3 was based at Schafstädt, a field to the south-west of Berlin close to the Komet base at Brandis, lying under the bomber stream's route to the Leuna-Merseburg fuel plants. In the picture pilots of 14 Staffel are gathered around the machine. A fully 'blinkered' and armoured Sturmbock this Fw 190 may have been equipped with the wide-bladed wooden propellor with squared off tips designed to improve performance in the climb. A note on Sturmbock designations; the A-8/R-8 designation was introduced at the end of November 44 and essentially denoted an R-2 variant with the MG 131 ports covered over with aerodynamic fairings. By the end of July 1944 most of the R-2's of  II.Sturm./JG 300 and many of IV.Sturm/JG 3 Sturmböcke already had this configuration.

"...I had virtually no sleep over the next four days. Hiding up in woods by day I walked at night taking care to avoid Soviet patrols. By chance I came across an old bicycle near a railway line. I tried to make myself look like a peasant and pedalled for two days solid through Russian held territory, fearing death at any moment...."

After two days pedalling Bösch arrived in American held territory and covered the remaining distance home uneventfully having travelled almost 1,000 km in a little over four days.

In 1951, Oscar Bösch emigrated to Canada with his wife Editha and baby Roland. The Boesch's have had two daughters since then. Oscar still flies at airshows across North America

The photo is enhanced from the original print courtesy Barry Smith and Erich Brown to whom I extend sincere thanks . (Compare with the  extremely dark reproduction on p246 of Prien's Chronik) . Thanks also to Jochen Prien and Jean-Yves Lorant for additional information.