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ISSUE
154 - January 2011
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There are pilots; and; there are Pilots |
By David Rose,
Contributing Editor
San Diego, California |
A
lot of us knew we were born to be pilots. Like many of us,
I can’t imagine how my life would have gone had I not
been able to fly. At the age of four, I watched in awe as a
pilot in a leather helmet lifted his Jenny off a northern Wisconsin
field and rattled off into the West. I stood up on a split
rail fence and just stared at the now empty sky. My path was
clear.
The war, WW 2, broke over us the following December and it would
all come to me shrouded in the news of fighters and bombers.
My life was full of the adventures of young men in the sky. Even
if you had no particular interest in aviation, you couldn’t
avoid it. I was enthralled with all the news. Aircraft of every
type rolled off the production lines and the skies were full
of them. This little boy couldn’t get enough. I was just
learning to read and what I searched for in the evening papers
were the pictures and stories of flying. |
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My
Uncle Oscar would spread the evening newspapers out on the
floor and help me to find and read the exploits of our aviators.
His cigar smoke would curl up around us and our Great Dane ‘Major’ would
listen to my halting words from across the rug.
Those
five years were filled more with aviation and war than studies and school. As
I’ve related here in other stories (available in the ‘Archives
of EFlyers’), I was off to the Air Force Aviation Cadet program as soon
as they would have me. I’ve never looked back.
In those years, Aviation
Cadet Programs on both sides turned out flyers by the tens of thousands. They
averaged nineteen years of age, and at nineteen they may have been competent
flyers, but many wondered just how they had gotten there. The innocence of their
youth faded as quickly as did thoughts of family, school and friends; reality
for them became discipline, guns and war.
They were all well trained and confident,
but just a few possessed a rare combination of talent and skills which would
make them a nightmare to their advisories. A complete understanding of their
craft and a large helping of inane ability set them apart from their peers. Their’s
was a combination of talent and go-to-hell attitude which had gotten them into
trouble in the peacetime world, but which in warfare would make them responsible
for the downing of more aircraft and aviators than all the luck and tactics of
other pilots. |
Aviation buffs and historians will forever
argue the list of greatest aviators; the most talented; the
most skilled; the most gifted. But they do seem always to agree
that aerial brilliance is nowhere more vividly apparent than
in war. |
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Men like Richthofen,
Boelck, Hartmann and Barkhorn among the Germans; the Japanese
Nishizawa, Iwamoto, and Fukumoto; Fonck and Clostermann from
France; Mannock and Johnson from the UK; two Russian women,
Litvyak and Budanova certainly distinguished themselves among
Russian Air Force Pilots by becoming the only two female flying
aces in history; Bong and McGuire from the U.S. and Bishop
from Canada; all brilliant aviators.
Time and opportunity are
factors in determining their greatness; the Germans were in
aerial combat the longest and hold the first 108 positions
among all time aerial combat victors, then Japanese. So
a lot rested with opportunity. How many sorties one survived
certainly had a great deal to do with the number of one’s
successful encounters. The luck to survive being shot down
certainly played a roll as most were downed more than once
in their combat careers. There are many factors for historians
to mull over as they sift through opportunity, longevity, and
luck in an attempt to identify who were great combat pilots,
or not.
Hartmann
had 352 victories in less than four years and crashed no fewer
than 14 times; Nishizawa's victories may have numbered as high
as 150 in only three years and Clostermann had 33 in two years.
Richthofen shot down 80 allied planes in under three years
while notably Eddie Rickenbacker achieved his 26 victories
in just six months.
But to those
whose misfortunes have carried them into war in the air, whether
the path to it began on a Wisconsin field, a Luftwaffe glider
school or with the Imperial Japanese Navy, the exploits and
records of one man stand in definition of “Fighter Pilot” and
brilliance in aerial warfare.
Hans-Joachim
Marseille.
In
high school Marseille was considered a lazy student, always
joking and getting into trouble. He did manage to graduate
and at 17 joined the Luftwaffe to become a flying officer.
His characteristic lack of discipline didn’t help his
early Luftwaffe career. Between a love of the night life and
his numerous flying infractions, (he once landed his trainer
on the new autobahn just to relieve himself), it was a wonder
he made it through fighter pilot school. But graduated he did,
and with an outstanding evaluation. He eventually found
himself assigned to I.Jagd/Lehrgeschwader 2, or Hunting Group
2 at Calais flying the Bf 109. With them he scored his first
victory on August 24, 1940. It is insightful that later
Marseille would write of the encounter “Today I shot
down my first opponent. It does not sit well with me. I keep
thinking how the mother of this young man must feel when she
gets the news of her son's death. And I am to blame for this
death. I am sad, instead of being happy about the first victory”.
Marseille was flying alongside
the likes Johannes Steinhoff (176 victories and later military
commander of NATO.) and Gerhard Barkhorn (second leading ace
of all time with 301 victories). Later Steinhoff would recall “Marseille
was extremely handsome. He was a very gifted fighter pilot,
but he was unreliable. He had girl friends everywhere, and
they kept him so busy that he was sometimes so worn out that
he had to be grounded. His sometime irresponsible way of conducting
his duties was the main reason I fired him. But he had irresistible
charm.” |
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Fired
by Steinhoff, Marseille’s was transferred to another
Bf 109 squadron which was soon thereafter transferred to North
Africa. There, his new GruppenKommandeur Eduard Neumann would
recall that “His hair was too long and he brought with
him a list of disciplinary punishments as long as your arm.
On top of it all, he was a Berliner… In trying to create
an image, he wasn’t averse from talking about the many
girls he had been to bed with, among them a famous actress.
He was tempestuous, temperamental and unruly. Marseille could
only be one of two, either a disciplinary problem or a great
fighter pilot."
In North Africa, perhaps removed from
the night life and driven by early flying disappointments contributed
to by his generally depleted physical state, Marseille threw
himself into the task at hand. He began a rigorous physical
routine to build stamina and worked to strengthen his legs
and abdominal muscles to assist in resisting the extreme ‘g’ forces
of air combat. It was at this time that Marseille developed
his own special tactics which differed significantly from the
methods of the other pilots. His would be the angled shot.
Much more difficult than the accepted ‘in trail’ shooting
position, but deadly if efficiently executed and Marseille
soon became known as a master at deflection shooting.
He
would often enter the middle of an enemy defensive formation
(Lufbery circle) in a tight turn and firing a deflection shot
destroy an enemy aircraft. It didn’t hurt that his excellent
eyesight made it possible for him to see the enemy before he
was spotted, allowing him to maneuver into position for an
attack before ever being seen.
Of his encounters Marseille
would comment “Our aircraft are basic elements, Stahlschmidt,
which have got to be mastered. You've got to be able to shoot
from any position. From left or right turns, out of a roll,
on your back, whenever. Only this way can you develop your
own particular tactics. Attack tactics, that the enemy simply
cannot anticipate during the course of the battle — a
series of unpredictable movements and actions, never the same,
always stemming from the situation at hand. Only then can you
plunge into the middle of an enemy swarm and blow it up from
the inside”.
And of his brilliance? The actual numbers
are hard to digest. If they weren’t so well documented
you would pass them off as the fabrications of his admirers.
In three sorties on September 1, 1942, Marseille destroyed
17 fighter aircraft, all of them Hurricane, Spitfire and P-40
fighters. Of the 17 aircraft which fell victim to Marseille’s
deflection shooting that day, eight were downed between 10.55
AM and 11:05 AM; eight minutes. On the 15th of that month Marseille
was credited with seven P-40’s destroyed in a single
11 minute encounter. On 9 separate occasions in Marseille’s
career he attacked a large force of enemy fighters, coming
away only after destroying 5 or more and as many as eight of
his adversaries.
He would go on to register a total of 158
kills, all but seven in North Africa, and a total of 54 in
that one month of September, his last. On September 30, 1942,
the now youngest Hauptmann (Captain) in the Luftwaffe was flying
an escort mission when the reduction gear on his engine failed
and caused a fire. Exiting the aircraft Marseille struck the
vertical stabilizer and was killed.
Erich Hartmann and Adolf
Galland, as well as many of the other top Luftwaffe fighter
aces regarded Marseille as "the best" and Gunther
Rall stated that he was "an excellent pilot and brilliant
marksman. I think he was the best shot in Luftwaffe”.
GruppenKommandeur Eduard Neumann, one of the Luftwaffe’s
most respected leaders and Marseille’s Commander stated
that "As a fighter pilot Marseille was absolutely supreme… Above
all, he possessed lightning reflexes and could make a quicker
judgment in a bigger orbit than anyone else... Marseille was
unique…”.
At
his death Marseille was 22 years of age.
As well as all aviation enthusiasts,
all patriots need to know the histories of such men. You will
thank yourself for delving further into the lives of not only
Hans-Joachim Marseille, but of such men as Rickenbacker, Boelcke,
Fonck, Yeager, Olds, Van Coc and Rayyan.
You
might begin at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Joachim_Marseille
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_ace |
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