Hello everyone welcome back to the history hit World Wars podcast I'm your host James Rogers and in this episode we're digging back through the history hit archive

to pull out one of our amazing episodes from the Chalk Valley History Festival this is unique because it's an interview with a luffwaffe

fighter ace, Hugo Brock. He had 81 victories to his name and a Knights Cross for good measure. To put that into some sort of

perspective, the highest amount of victories that an REF pilot got was around 38, so he was a truly remarkable fighter pilot.

We're joined by Paul Beaver and Rob Schaefer who do the interviewing here,

and they ask Hugo Brock about how he got into flying, where his passion came from.

He explains about his early days training in gliders, about how the fun and game soon went away

as soon as the war started, and about how he used to lose Allied fighter pilots off his wing and how he never lost a wing man.

This is a remarkable history, one that we so rarely get to hear from the other side of the conflict.

So here is Hugo Brock, in his own words, about his life as a Lufwaifer fighter ace. Ice. Well, good morning everyone, and welcome to the seventh Chalk Valley History Festival,

and the sun is shining, which is very exciting. How much longer not quite sure but anyway

let's enjoy it while we can. Thank you all so much for coming and thank you very much

for our three veterans who come all the way over from Germany.

This is an incredible treat.

I just want to thank Rob Schaefer here who's translating but who has sort of orchestrated this along with Regina Halm, her Helm's wife.

It's required a huge amount of work from Rob, from Regina, from Rachel Sykes who is part of the festival team, to put all this together.

Lots of towing and throwing.

It's a big thing, getting three veterans in their 90s from Germany all the way down to our little corner of sunny England.

But what a treat we're in for.

I mean, I've interviewed a number of German veterans over the years, but needless to say, they're

not as forthcoming about speaking as

other veterans American and British veterans and that's entirely understandable

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