At 1206 hours on February 16, 1945 four Fw 190A-8s led by Oberleutnant Otto Kittel of 2./JG 54 took off from an airbase in the Kurland pocket. The mission was free hunting over the frontline area near Dzukste. This was Kittel’s 583rd combat sortie. After only seven minutes the German fighters spotted fourteen Il-2s that were bombing and shooting rockets at German ground troops from an altitude of 450 feet. Oberleutnant Kittel radioed an attack order. The Il-2 Shturmoviks were flying in a row, one after another, and Kittel attacked from the right hand side. His wingman Oberfähnrich Renner wrote: ”Flying at a distance of about 300 feet from Oblt. Kittel I saw him dive beneath and behind an Il-2 and attack it. Behind us two other Il-2s pulled up sharply. In the next moment an explosion was seen in his cockpit and the aircraft started to descend.” Kittel’s Fw 190 tore into the ground with its starboard wing, caught fire, and then exploded. Otto Kittel, victor in 267 aerial combats and the highest scoring fighter pilot to fall prey to an enemy, had no chance whatsoever of surviving. He was buried in Sabile/Lithuania. Otto Kittel was the top Fw 190 ace of the war, followed closely by another member of the Grünherz Geschwader, Walter Nowotny.
