WWII: You were very lucky.

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Rall: Yes, I was lucky. In the crash I broke my back in three places–the eighth and ninth thoracic vertebrae and the fifth lumbar vertebra. I was paralyzed for a long time on the right side and my right leg.

WWII: How many times were you wounded during the war?

Rall: I was wounded three times, but I was shot down about eight times. I bellied in between the front lines, I jumped out and was picked up by Germans in tanks and so on. I was always lucky, except I was seriously wounded three times. The first time it was my back. I was then shot and hit right in the face and in my hand, and the third time I jumped out and a P-47 Thunderbolt shot my left thumb off.

WWII: You met your wife, Hertha, while in the hospital.

Rall: Yes. She was a medical doctor, and we met after the crash in Russia. I was evacuated in due time and was back in Romania. We were moving back in retreat, and there were no X-ray stations; it was just chaos. In Romania, I was X-rayed and the doctor told me, “Flying? You can forget it!” because my back was broken in three places. I got a full body cast, an extension cast, and when this was fixed after one week, I was transferred on a train, which took eight days to go through Romania and the Carpathian Mountains. We ended up in Vienna, and at night we came to the train station. The doctors came and I had everything written on my chest as to what had happened to me. They took me to the hospital and the next morning Hertha was the doctor who saw me, and afterward she became my wife.

WWII: What types of aircraft did you fly?

Rall: I flew the Messerschmitt Bf-109 in all of the different marks (variants), the E, F, G and the K model, and of course the Focke-Wulf Fw-190, but I liked the 109 most because I was familiar with it. Certainly I flew the 190, but only the D model long-nosed version, toward the end of the war in some missions.

WWII: How would you compare your aircraft with Allied fighters?

Rall: When I was injured, I became the commander of the German Fighter Leader School for about four months or so. At that time we had formed a squadron with captured enemy aircraft, and we flew them–the P-38, P-47, P-51, as well as some Spitfires. My left hand was still in bandages, but I was flying all of these aircraft, as I was very eager to learn about and evaluate them. I had a very good impression of the P-51 Mustang, where the big difference was the engine. When we received these aircraft we flew about 300 hours in them. You see, we did not know anything about how they flew, their characteristics or anything before that. In the P-51 there was no oil leak, and that was just fantastic. This was one of the things that impressed me, but I was also very interested in the electrical starting switches, which we did not have. This made it very difficult in starting our engines in the Russian winter. We had the inertia starter. The cockpits of all of these enemy aircraft were much more comfortable. You could not fly the Bf-109 for seven hours; the cockpit was too tight, too narrow. The P-51 (cockpit) was for me a great room, just fantastic. The P-38 with two engines was great, but I think the best airplane was the P-51. Certainly the Spitfire was excellent, but it didn’t have the endurance of the P-51. I think this was the decisive factor. They flew for seven hours, and we flew for one hour and 20 minutes.

WWII: That makes quite a difference in aerial combat.

Rall: Yes, you would have to get down because you were short on fuel, then look for the nearest air base, and they still had fuel for three hours more.

WWII: With all of your experience, which of the commanders was the best fighter leader you served with, as far as taking care of the fliers and the missions?

Rall: I can tell you that all the characters you may name are and were good friends of mine, such as Johannes Steinhoff, Adolf Galland, Hannes Trautloft, Werner Mölders and Dieter Hrabak. As Hrabak was my wing leader at one time, and he is one of my closest friends now, I respect him as a fighter leader and as a person. In the war I served in the JG-52 exclusively on the Eastern Front.

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