Post by Wind vom Oberturm on Dec 28, 2010 21:40:14 GMT -5
Username: wind
Character Name: Wind vom Oberturm
Rank: Luftwaffe Oberleutnant
What Army Will You Serve Beneath? : Nazi/German Army
Nationality: German
Character History:
Staff Notes:
Character Name: Wind vom Oberturm
Rank: Luftwaffe Oberleutnant
What Army Will You Serve Beneath? : Nazi/German Army
Nationality: German
Character History:
Born in Königsberg, Wind vom Oberturm was brought into a world meant for people of his inherent nature. He was destined to be born in such a place, in such a nation, with such a language as he was. Destiny had determined his birth to a mother who would die to give him life and to be kept by a father glad for the liberating event of his son’s birth. At least, the young man thought it was destiny; there were no coincidences in this or any other life, he knew it.Writing Sample:
The birth itself had taken place under interesting circumstances. Nine months earlier, as is often the pattern, his parents had had a wonderful evening in the town which ended with more than champagne and caviar. On the 15th of January in the Lord’s Year, as they called it then, 1910, the middle-aged woman had her only son, among seven daughters before him. The night was deeply frozen and the cold air managed to permeate through the thick wooden and stone walls of the mansion in the middle of Königsberg. The wind was blowing like hammers against the blown glass windows that lined the entire southern side of the corner bedroom. Then late in the night, the cries of a newborn could be heard bellowing through halls of the Stadtsvilla.
Few people knew the story completely, but the midwife had said one time to the Herr Lord vom Oberturm, Wind’s father, that right before his wife had given birth to the child, the windows were blown open by a gust of wind that nearly froze the room. The gust must have given the mother the last bit of pushing she needed to give the world new life. She died soon after, but the city clerk who was present heard her whisper before falling into darkness, “Wind, Sein Name ist Wind.” To this day it is discussed whether she meant God with “Sein,” or her son. The clerk, being a literal, Jewish man, gave a bewildered look and wrote “Wind vom Oberturm” on the form and hurried off to the Stadt’s registry.
From that moment on, Wind was raised by his father, a Lord in the Emperor’s court, and a stern Prussian man who began raising his son from the start to take on the lordship after him. It was not four years later before the Great War began and East Prussia started sending farmer boys and city scoundrels to be turned into disciplined soldiers of the Reich. The economy started a slow decline as the war dragged on in France and the Prussians were forced to defend themselves from the Russian aggression to the east. By 1918, when Wind was 8 years old, Germany had lost the war and East Prussia had been separated from the rest of Germany to give Poland a port, a German port at that.
A certain bitterness set itself in among the people of Prussia and the rest of Germany during the years afterward, which went through deep depressions of economic activity. The Reichsmark became wallpaper and a replacement for other paper in the various water-closets of the German people, if they had one. Wind, however, did not suffer as many others did. Being a member of the old nobility, he grew up just less pampered than he might have been before. His sisters gradually left to marry other members the nobility and he continued living with his father and began spending more time at the airfield that his father owned, learning how to pilot the gliders that were kept there. This pattern continued as Wind gained more access to the biplanes left over from the war, their guns removed in accordance with the Treaty.
Life continued, and in addition to the new love of flying that Wind found himself enamored with, he went on to the university in Berlin. There, he began studying physics and chemistry, something he had done very well in during the days of his secondary tutoring. Though his studying did have an effect on his life, he also learned far more by living in Berlin, the capital of the madness that Germany had become. While he was learning about aerodynamics and the explosive properties of hydrogen, the streets outside were filled with the voices of the various, boisterous communists, anarchists, and nationalists who were vying for control of the Weimar Republic.
In the little time he spent listening to the political commentary of the parties outside his windows, Wind was faced with something he had never seen before. He was nobility, no question. One day he would be Herr Lord vom Oberturm. However, many people seemed to be very unhappy with the idea of nobility, like Frenchman with a weird accent. Their words were convincing, though. So much so, that the young student noble began attending meetings of the communists, something he did only in secret, hiding his appearance. His presence at such meetings would be utterly embarrassing to his father who had said little of politics to his son, but, when loose with his tongue, did mention the evil of the Communist Party.
It didn’t matter so much, though. After three years a new man seemed to take the nation by storm. Well, one quarter of it. He only ever won about 23% of the vote. Adolf Hitler had made himself known to the nation when he became chancellor, at the bequest of President Hindenburg. It was not long before a Dutch communist had burned down the Reichstag and the whole nation was turned against the Left Wing.
In the same year, Wind returned to East Prussia after completing his degrees in physics and chemistry. He started back on his hobby of flying with a greater fervor than before and began working our ways of redesigning the planes he flew for better movement and speed. His work took a jump when he met a man from Messerschmitt, who was having dinner with the family. The man was an engineer who was building a plane for the new Luftwaffe that was being built by Hitler in defiance of England and France. He was talking about an issue the engineering team was having with a design of the wings when Wind volunteered his idea about the wing design he had thought of during his own flying experiences. Within the week, he was invited to work at Messerschmitt as a professional aerodynamics designer.
Wind worked at the company for three years, helping to design a fighter plane that would hopefully become the main stead of the German air force, the Bf109. Once the plane was designed and in full production, he got to fly one of them. After some talking with higher ups in the company, Wind was able to procure a plane of his own which was immediately shipped back to Prussia to the private airfield, which had finally become Vom Oberturm Flughafen, an airport.
Wind’s role in the company changed as the plane became usable and he began demonstrating the plane’s abilities to Luftwaffe officers. He had suddenly become a marketer. It was one night in 1936 when a Luftwaffe officer, one of Wind’s new friends, suggested he join the Luftwaffe himself. They were in need of professionals and good pilots, something Wind had proven himself to be.
In February 1936, he joined the Luftwaffe and began flying planes for them, instructing new pilots in the use of the Bf 109. It was not long, however, before Germany was supporting the fascists in Spain. Wind was sent to Spain to lead a squadron during the Civil War.
The war continued for three years. Wind came back a veteran, having shot down a number of Republican fighters. He was no ace, but he was working for it. Upon his return to Germany, he took leave to Prussia, to see his father and his two sisters who were still living at home, determined to be old maids rather than widows. Until 1939, Wind continued working with the Luftwaffe and staying away from politics as much as possible. However, politics are inseparable from war, something Wind had taken an intimate role in. His next role in war was as a pilot into Poland after the Polish attacked East Prussia. The world was about to change.
I figured this was an infantry shtick and I saw some other guys do a plane thing instead. So, I thought it was alright.Approved/Denied?: Approved
-WvO
Take-off. It was the most difficult part of flying the Bf-109; Wind had learned this in his many years of flying the machine. The plane had a narrow body and had little stability once the tail wheel was off the ground, which gave the plan a tendency to veer to the left and crash if handled improperly. Once in the air, though, the plane was the king of the sky, without a doubt.
Wind had just taken off from the airstrip near Baden to make a flight toward France. The RAF had stationed itself in France at the bequest of the French government in the war against Germany. It was Wind’s job to lead his squadron across the border to rile the place up and confuse the British before the German army was to attack. It was 1939 and the future was about to be made.
Wind pulled the joystick back and started making a climb that would send allied heads spinning. While the Spitfire was more maneuverable, the Messerschmitt could take tighter turns and go up at higher speeds and at a great incline that the spitfires without cutting out; speed and extreme angular flight was the German advantage. Once at 6000m, the rest of Oberleutnant vom Oberturm’s squad fell in behind him in a V formation so that no single plane was at the end, making a target for the British. The British never realized the stupidity of the formation and continued to place one plane at the back end of their formations. Numerous raids in France had made this clear to Wind.
It was about twenty minutes across the border when the squadron began spreading the formation out and searching for the British airfield. No doubt, the RAF had been warned of their arrival and the Spitfires would be coming soon. Wind kept calm and began moving faster, speaking into his throat-mike. “Männer, steigen Sie bis 11 500 Meter. Die Briten können nicht so hoch fliegen. Lassen Sie Ihre Bomben klar sein, und folgen mich bis, wenn ich sage. Werfen Sie Ihre Bomben auf die Landebahnen der Briten. Wenn das getan worden ist, können Sie die Bomben auf die Gebäude werfen. Hiernach haben wir Funkstille.”
The planes began their climb to 11, 500 meters, above the service ceiling of the British planes. Soon, the moment came when the German planes were nearing the coordinates of the British airfield, anti-air shells were being fired up at them, but still weren’t reaching them. The British hadn’t learned, yet, how high the German planes flew. Then, came the moment. Sptifires were flying up and firing at the Messerschmitts which broke formation and began diving at ultra-high speeds toward the airfield. Wind pushed his joystick forward and watched the altimeter try to catch up with the plane. Directly in front of him was the British airfield. He pulled the stick back and released the bomb underneath just as he flew back up at an envious angle. Just as he hit 3000m, a Spitfire fired at him and scathed the top of his right wing. He spunand took a sharp leftward dive, gain speed and pulled back up after 300m to the right to find the Sptifrie that had fired at him. Leutnant Kielschmidt was following the plane and firing diagonally at the tail, but only put a couple of holes through it. Wind accelerated, and turned his plan at an angle in order to get a sideways dip which would drop him and get more speed, giving him a chance to shoot from under the Spitfire.
The Englishman was now 230m in front of the German fighter when Wind squeezed a coupe of rounds from the MG131s and put two holes in the enemy’s left wing. He turned right a bit and watched as the Sptifire banked right and down, moving below him. He centered his round sights on the cockpit and engine and fired twenty rounds, hitting the plane spot on before banking right to avoid the explosion.
His time spent shooting the enemy down was enough time to get another English fighter on his tail. Wind dove again, bringing his speed up to 380kmh and pulled up to the left at a 120 degree angle, turning left to find the enemy and calling on his radio, “Jemand, ich hab’ ein Jäger vor mir. Geh’ an sein’n link’n Seite un’ ‘ch werd ihn schießen!” Leutnant Gerschwin came in on the right side of the enemy fighter and strafed over him, propelling the Spitfire into a dive, which Wind followed. He fire two rounds over the plane to keep him going down and waited a little longer when he pulled out of the dive and right into his sights to be met with hot, flying lead. There was another explosion and Wind began another dive as he saw Spitfire fly over him from the side. He twisted up and to the right about 100m over the ground. Knowing he was directly over the airfield, he released another bomb and flew to a higher altitude.
By now the dogfight had been almost a half hour in the making, and other British squadrons were surely on the way. It was time to drop the rest of the bombs and fly back to Germany. He called up the squadron, “Männer, wir haben keine Zeit mehr. Werfen Sie Ihre Bomben und gehen Sie weg. Versuchen Sie der Reste der Gebäude zu vernichten. Gehen Sie zurück bi 11500m und wissen Sie sicher, dass keine Briten uns folgen.” He cut the radio out and pointed his nose down to see the mansion below. The British were especially fond of making villas in the country their bases of operation. He pointed further and centered himself on the mansion before accelerating into a dive toward the buildings. Instead of waiting for the turn upward to drop his bombs in an arc, he sped up and released the incendiary devices before pulling up. The explosives flew at more than 500kmh toward the building. The blast from the two projectiles could be heard as Wind pulled up at a steep angle and evened out after two minutes as three more of his fighters fell in behind him. They then continued their ascent to 11500m and checked behind them for enemy followers. After making sure they were free of enemies, they sped up and crossed the German border. The casualty count was taken. Two German fighters had fallen and there were five confirmed German hits on English planes. Not a bad trade off.
Wind thought of this fighting, hoping there was more to come, to keep this excitement up. God knows, the politics wouldn’t. He looked down and saw the landing strip and began dropping altitude and finally slowing down enough to land, letting the wings open a bit and allowing the increased rag to slow him down as he touched gently on the grass, tasting success like fine Schwarzwaldschokolade. He was at home again.
Übersetzung/Translations
“Männer, steigen Sie bis 11 500 Meter. Die Briten können nicht so hoch fliegen. Lassen Sie Ihre Bomben klar sein, und folgen mich bis, wenn ich sage. Werfen Sie Ihre Bomben auf die Landebahnen der Briten. Wenn das getan worden ist, können Sie die Bomben auf die Gebäude werfen. Hiernach haben wir Funkstille.”
-Men, climb to 11500 meters. To British can’t fly that high. Make sure your bombs are ready and follow me until I tell you not to. Drop your bombs on the landing strips. After that’s done, you can drop your bombs on the buildings. From here on, there is a radio silence.
“Jemand, ich hab’ ein Jäger vor mir. Geh’ an sein’n link’n Seite un’ ‘ch werd ihn schießen!”
-Someone, I have a fighter in front of me. Go to his left and I’ll shoot him.
“Männer, wir haben keine Zeit mehr. Werfen Sie Ihre Bomben und gehen Sie weg. Versuchen Sie der Reste der Gebäude zu vernichten. Gehen Sie zurück bi 11500m und wissen Sie sicher, dass keine Briten uns folgen.”
-Men, we don’t have any more time. Drop your bombs and get out. Try to destroy the rest of the buildings. Go back to 11500 meters and make sure there are no fighter following us.
Staff Notes:
Very, Very nice... I like it alot. It'll be very good to have our first ever Luftwaffe Pilot on this site! I myself am a Pilot, so We'll probably be seeing each-other soon...
You'll get your standard BF-109, And other equipment. See you in the skies, Lieutenant.
Accepted as a First Lieutenant.
~Major Furey Campellone