Hans-Joachim Marseille
Hans-Joachim Marseille
| |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | The Star of Africa |
| Allegiance | Germany |
| Service/ | Luftwaffe |
| Years of service | 1939 - 1942 |
| Rank | Hauptmann |
| Unit | JG 52 and JG 27 |
| Awards | Ritterkreuz mit Eichenlaub, Schwertern und Brillianten |
Hans-Joachim Marseille (December 13, 1919 - September 30, 1942) was a Luftwaffe pilot, accepted to be one of the greatest aces of World War II. He was nicknamed the "star of Africa". Marseille scored all but seven of his 158 victories against the British Commonwealth's Desert Air Force over North Africa. All of his victories for the Axis Powers were scored in Bf 109s.
Biography
Hans-Joachim Marseille was born to Charlotte and Siegfried Marseille, a family with French-Huguenot ancestry in Berlin-Charlottenburg. It is thought his father Siegfried was a fighter pilot in World War I, however this is unconfirmed. What is known about Siegfried Marseille (according to the book German Fighter Ace Hans-Joachim Marseille -'The Star Of Africa') is that he was promoted to general in the Army in 1935. Other sources claim he was killed in action against Soviet Forces in the Stalingrad area in early 1943, once again this is not certain.
His mother and father divorced when Marseille was still a young child. His mother married again and took the name Reuter, which affected Marseille, although he retook the name Marseille in adulthood. His lack of discipline afforded him the reputation of a rebel, often getting himself into mischief, something that would plague him early on in his Luftwaffe career. During the Battle of Britain in 1940 Marseille served in Jagdgeschwader 52 [1], where he claimed 7 kills, flying alongside the likes of Johannes Steinhoff and Gerhard Barkhorn. One Bf 109E which he had crash-landed (he had written off 4 aircraft in action) has been recovered, rebuilt, and repainted in the colours of "White 14" in which he had flown the aircraft.
As punishment for insubordination (rumoured to be derived from his penchant for American jazz music, womanising and his overly 'playboy' lifestyle) and inability to fly as a wingman, he was transferred by Steinhoff [2] out to Jagdgeschwader 27 which was soon relocated to North Africa. He scored two more kills before being shot down by Sous. Lt Denis, a Free French pilot with 73 Squadron in a Hurricane. However, his Geschwaderkommodore Eduard Neumann soon saw potential in Marseille and encouraged him to self-train to improve his abilities. By this time, he had crashed or damaged another four Bf 109E aircraft, including a tropicalized aircraft that he was ferrying.
His Staffel was rotated to Germany in late 1941/early 1942, to convert onto the Bf 109F-4/Trop, in which Marseille became a star. Marseille created a unique self-training program for himself, both physical and tactical, which resulted not just in outstanding situational awareness, marksmanship, and confident control of the aircraft, but also in a unique attack tactic that preferred a high angle deflection shooting attack and shooting at the target's front from the side, instead of the common method of chasing an aircraft and shooting at it directly from behind.
His innovative and unique attack method, which was perfected by him to a method for attacking aircraft formations, resulted in his fantastic lethality ratio, and in rapid multiple victories per attack, and it is this talent that made him one of the greatest and most innovative fighter aces in history.
On June 6, 1942, Marseille attacked alone a formation of 16 P-40 fighters and shot down 6 aircraft of No. 5 Squadron South African Air Force, five of them in six minutes, including the aces Captain Pare (6 claims), Lieutenant Goulding (6.5 claims), and Captain Botha (5 claims). On September 1 he was even more successful, claiming 17 enemy aircraft shot down on one day, 8 of them in 10 minutes.
Marseille flew 4 different Bf 109F-4/Trop aircraft:
- Werk Nummer 8693, in which his score rose to 50 on February 23, 1942,
- W.Nr. 10056, with 58 victory bars on the rudder,
- the well-known W.Nr. 10137, with the number "70" within an open-topped wreath and 31 victory bars on the rudder, and
- his final F-4/Trop, W.Nr. 8673 with the early-F Variant rear-fuselage horizontal support bars welded along the lower rear fuselage seam joining the fin/rudder and the stabilizer/elevators to the next forward fuselage section, a black-outlined yellow 14, and, on the rudder, "100" enclosed within a wreath, atop 51 victory bars.
The 1995 French-American WWII drama Diamond Swords is very loosely based on Marseille's life; its main character (played by Jason Flemyng) is named Hans-Joachim Avignon.
Death
It was ironic that September 1942, the month that saw Marseille reach his greatest achievments, would also be his last. On the 30 September 1942 Hauptmann Marseille was leading his staffel on a Stuka escort mission [3], during which no contact with enemy fighters was made. While returning to base, his new Bf 109 G-2/trop's cockpit began to fill with smoke; blinded and half asphyxiated by the smoke, he was guided by his wingmen Jost Schlang and Lt Pottgen back to German lines. Upon reaching friendly lines, 'Yellow 14' had lost power and was drifting lower and lower. Pottgen called out after about ten minutes that they had reached the White Mosque of Sidi Abd el Rahman, and thus had reached friendly lines. At this point Marseille deemed his aircraft no longer flyable and decided to bail out, his last words to his friends being "I've got to get out now, I can't stand it any longer".
His Staffel who had been flying a tight formation around him peeled away to give him the necessary room to manoeuvre, and Marseille rolled his aircraft onto its back in standard procedure for bail-out, but due to the smoke and slight disorientation he failed to notice that the aircraft had entered a shallow dive and was now traveling at a considerably faster speed (approximately 400mph). He worked his way out of the cockpit and into the rushing air only to be carried backwards by the slipstream, the left side of his chest striking the vertical stabilizer of his stricken fighter, either killing him instantly or rendering him unconscious to the point that he could not deploy his parachute. He fell almost vertically, hitting the desert floor 7 km south of Sidi Abd el Rahman. As it transpired, a gaping 30 cm hole had been made in his parachute and the canopy had spilled out, but after recovering the body, the parachute release handle was still on 'safe', revealing Marseille had not even attempted to open it.
Hans-Joachim Marseille lay in state in the Staffel sick bay. His comrades coming to pay their respects throughout the day. As a tribute to their comrade they put on the record the 'Rhumba Azul' that he enjoyed listening to so much, it played over and over again until the close of day. Marseille's funeral took place on 1 October 1942 at the heroes cemetery in Derna where Generalfeldmarschall Albrecht Kesselring and Eduard Neumann delivered an emotional eulogy.
His grave bears a one-word epitaph, Undefeated.
A war-time pyramid was constructed by Italian engineers at the site of his fall but over time it decayed. In 1989 Eduard Neumann and other JG 27 survivors in co-operation with the Egyptian government erected a new pyramid that stands there to this day. It is understood that after the war, Hans-Joachim Marseille's remains were brought from Derna and reinterred in the memorial gardens at Tobruk - it was there that his mother visited his grave in 1954.
Achievements
- 8 victories in 10 minutes, 17 victories in one day, 54 victories in one month.
- Average lethality ratio of just 15 rounds per victory.
- Awarded Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, Germany's highest military honor. (one of only 27 awarded during the course of the war, ten of them to ace pilots).
- Awarded Italian Gold Medal for Bravery (awarded only twice to Germans during the course of the war).
- Youngest Captain in the Luftwaffe.
- His 151 claims in North Africa included:
- 101 P-40/Tomahawk/Kittyhawks
- 30 Hurricanes
- 16 Spitfires
- 2 Baltimore medium bombers
- 1 Blenheim bomber
- 1 Martin Maryland bomber
Recent research has suggested that of his 151 North Africa claims, 81 can be directly attributed to Marseille via cross reference to Allied loss records, 24 can be safely rejected as no aircraft were lost or matched his combat reports, and 46 'possibles' which match to definite Allied losses shot down by German fighters, but could not definitely be attributed to Marseille or any other Luftwaffe pilot.
This discrepancy of claims to actual losses proves to be fairly typical of all WW2 combat claims for both Axis and Allied fighter aces.
The I./JG 27 fighter Gruppe claimed 588 aircraft shot down April 1941 - November 1942. Marseille accounted for 151 of these; 26% of the unit's total.
Notes and references
- ^ For an explanation of the meaning of Luftwaffe unit designation see Luftwaffe Organization
- ^ Copy of WW2.net interview with Steinhoff
- ^ Kurowski,Franz; German Fighter Ace Hans-Joachim Marseille; Schiffer Military History; 1994; p208; ISBN 0-88740-517-7
External links
- An essay about Marseille's self-training program, his unique attack tactic, and a detailed description of his most 'classic' battle, On June 6, 1942, in which he attacked, alone, a formation of 16 P-40 fighters, and shot down six of them in 11 minutes.