Crash site at Opalkovo

Willi writes in Life of WLK:

On the first day of the big battle “Citadel,” July 5, 1943, around Kursk/Orel, four Russian Yak fighters caught me after my second mission and the release of my bombs, and shot my left engine afire. We did not dare to jump, the battlefront was too close. A steep dive kept the flames back and brought us over friendly territory and a huge field with six-foot high wheat. Never in my life did I manage a better landing. The tall wheat cushioned the belly-sliding aircraft and we were able to jump out and run away from the ammunition explosions and flames.

He also found out 65 years later that a Major Plotnikov, who shot him down, was himself shot down on his next mission on that very day.