On July 22, 1941, his plane was badly damaged over Yampil by Soviet AA artillery. Heydrich managed to crash-land in no-man's land, and run back to the German lines. After this, he was forbidden to fly once more.

Reinhard Heydrich - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anyone know if this is true? Is it mentioned elsewhere? Thanx!

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This is true. But as far as Heydrich wanting to show that the SS were not 'asphalt soldiers' is dubious. He wanted to get the Iron Cross and only way to get it was to fly. He did so with Himmler's permission (but under controlled conditions) until he had the first mishap. At the time, Heydrich did not have the Iron Cross First Class yet. I got this from Heydrich's biography.

Also, Sepp Dietrich also had the pilot's badge in diamonds. He learned to fly before the war when he was head of SS Liebstandarte and was responsible for Hitler's security. Never flew combat missions but did fly from time to time.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!