even when his unit was evacuated back to sicily after the fall of tunis in april 1943, he still flew over to tunisia each day doing combat missions before returning to sicily each night, writing home of "wonderful aerial combats". he went on to score 29 victories as leader of 8./jg 53 and reached 50 kills shooting down a p-38 over the sea south of sicily on 21 may. schieß was awarded the knight's cross on 21 june for 55 victories and then was sent on leave for 2 months, thereby missing the air battles over the invasion of sicily. returning to 8./jg 53 in mid-august, his unit was now flying out of southern italy against the allies, who were mounting a concerted campaign to destroy the transport net prior to an invasion of the italian mainland. schieß shot down 12 enemy aircraft in 11 days, of which seven were p-38 twin-engine fighters. together with jürgen harder of iii./jg 53, schieß was promoted to the rank of "hauptmann" on september 1, 1943.