The author was born on 20th December 1920 in Rstringen near Wilhelmshaven. He grew up in Masuria, the land of the three thousand lakes in East Prussia. He spent his childhood and youth in Masuria's capital Lyck and on the farmsteads of his grandparents both on his mother's and his father's side. He turned to aviation at an early age, served in the German air force during World War Two and later flew missions over the Eastern Mediterranean. On 11th March 1943 his He 111 was shot down by an English night fighter near Tripoli. The crew drifted for five days in a life raft off the coast of Africa and subsequently endured five years as prisoners of war under the English in Egypt.