A Higher Call

by Adam Makos

The door to the shack swung open. Steinhoff, the commander of JG-77, entered. The Gestapo captain asked him to leave, but Steinhoff asked for the captain’s rank. “The last time I checked, a major outranks a captain,” Steinhoff said.10 Folding his arms, Steinhoff leaned against a wall behind Franz, his presence and dangling Knight’s Cross adding weight to Franz’s defense. Steinhoff and JG-77 had returned to Trapani a few days prior, on June 13, to relieve JG-27 so the unit could begin to rotate home. Willi had found Steinhoff and summoned him to Franz’s aid. Steinhoff had always hated The Party and had dealt with the Gestapo before. In Russia they brought their inquisition to his unit, then Fighter Wing 52 (JG-52), to investigate the supposed Jewish backgrounds of a few of his pilots. Steinhoff had declined to assist them and had said to the Gestapo leader, “You’ll be lucky if you leave Russia alive.” The man asked if the skies were that unsafe. Steinhoff said, “No, it’s because you just made enemies of forty fighter pilots who have never added a Ju-52 to their victory list, and I think that’s yours sitting on my runway.”