12/13/1919 - The epic, but brutally too short life of one of the greatest fighter pilots to ever fly begins in the Charlotteburg region of Berlin, Germany, with the birth of Hans-Joachim "Jochen" Walter Rudolf Siegfried Marseille (the name and his French ancestry come from his father's side of the family) to Charlotte Marie Johanna Pauline Gertrud Riemer Marseille and her husband, Hauptmann Siegfried Georg Martin Marseille. By 1942, for his exploits fighting the British in the skies over North Africa, "Jochen" will be known as "The Star of Africa," or "The African Eagle."
Marseille
Childhood is a bit of a problem for the future ace. He is born sickly, then almost dies from influenza. Along with his physical ailments, psychological ones are undergone when his parents divorce, and one policeman father (Siegfried joins the Berlin police force shortly after the war) is replaced by a police official stepfather when Charlotte marries a lawman named Reuter (for awhile, Marseille will go by his step-father's name). Not handling the split well, for years Marseille will refuse to visit his father in Hamburg, and later, as a young man, when the two briefly reconcile, Siegfried is the one that introduces his son to drinking and the playboy lifestyle Marseille will fully embrace as an adult (rejoining the German Army, the elder Marseille will rise to the rank of General, will be part of the Operation Barbarossa invasion of Russian, and will be killed by partisans near the town of Pyetrykaw in 1944). Coddled after he survives the flu, kept from participating in outdoor activities like soccer and rugby, the youth instead puts his energies into becoming classically trained as a pianist (during which he becomes a connoisseur of American jazz). His energies however are not applied to his schoolwork, which he considers too mundane to occupy his interest for very long and Jochen soon develops a reputation as a loner, rebel, and lazy worker. One thing he is not is stupid though, and his mind finally engaged while attending secondary school at the Prinz Heinrich Gymnasium in Berlin, Marseille at age 17, he aces his final exams. From March of 1938 to September of 1938, Marseille fulfills his military obligations to Germany as a member of the Reich Labour Service, but rebels at the thought of being an infantryman in the army upon completing his six months in the service ... the sky is calling. Using his father's military connections from WWI (after the favor is completed, the two men will never see or talk to each other again), on November 7, 1938, Hans-Joachim Marseille joins the air wing of Germany's military, and becomes an officer candidate in the Luftwaffe.
Family Coat Of Arms
Playing Cowboy
Teenager
Assigned to basic training in the town of Quedliburg, just north of Germany's Harz mountains, then receiving fighter pilot training at Furstenfeldbruck, and Vienna, Austria, Marseille experiences all the deportment and discipline problems that plagued his earlier education. Their are dalliances with a host of women and court-martial offenses like being too drunk to fly more than once and landing his plane on the Autobahn without orders because he needs to take a leak, taints on his record that.are all glossed over because Germany needs pilots and in the air, Marseille is magical (studying with guidance from Austria's #1 ace of WWI, Julius Arigl, a flier with 32 aerial victories, fellow flight student Werner Schroer, a pilot who will end WWII with 114 confirmed victories, will state of Marseille, "He was the most amazing and ingenious combat pilot I ever saw. He was also very lucky on many occasions. He thought nothing of jumping into a fight outnumbered ten to one, often alone, with us trying to catch up to him. He violated every cardinal rule of fighter combat. He abandoned all the rules."). Impressing his instructions with the results he is able to achieve in the air, the rebellious pilot is able to gain high evaluations from his instructors and graduates in the Top Five of his class. At the start of WWII in September of 1939, Marseille is assigned to fly defensive cover over the Leuna munitions plant near to town of Merseburg, Germany. With the Fall of France to Hitler's war machine in 1940, the young fighter pilot is transferred to Lehrgeschwader (LG) 2 squadron of Oberleutnant Herbert Ihlefeld (an ace who will survive the war with 130 confirmed aerial victories achieved over 1,000 combat missions). Arriving at Calais-Marck airfield in August, only days later, Marseille is over England in a Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-3 fighter on his first combat mission of the Battle of Britain.
Marseille - Bottom, Center
Ihlefeld
Bf 109
Patrolling over Kent and southern England on August 24, 1940, Marseille spots a Hurricane fighter below him, dives out of formation, abandoning the wingman he is supposed to be protecting, and in a four minute air battle with the British flier, sends the plane and pilot into the English Channel with bullets that chew up the engine of the Hurricane for his first combat victory, then he dives away from a batch of pursuing enemy fighters, and in his own words, "... skipping away over the waves." Back at his base, Ihlefeld celebrates Marseille's first victory by giving the triumphant flier a shot of cognac, then reprimands the man for breaking formation and leaving his wingman behind, stating that he will shoot down Marseille himself if he ever pulls the stunt again ... a reprimand that Marseille takes as a joke and open approval to do more of the same as he feels he needs to (after Marseille's fifth victory, Ihlefeld will tear up the evaluation he has just written for the pilot and will yell at his problem child, "Marseille, you must pull your head out of your ass. You are not alone; this is not the Hans Marseille show."). In September of 1940, Marseille is either shot down by a British flier (there are more than one claimant), or has engine trouble that forces him to crash land in the Channel and spend over three hours paddling about in the water before being rescued by Heinkel HE 59 naval rescue plane. Losing his plane, abandoning his wingman again, ignoring an order to turn back from an engagement in which he is outnumbered, and other breaches of squadron protocol get Marseille passed over for promotion, and eventually, Ihlefeld transfers his problem child to Jagdgeschwader 52 and its commander, Oberleutnant Johannes Steinhoff (Steinhoff will be badly burnt in the war, but survives as an ace with 176 aerial victories to his credit), flying out of Peuplingues near the Pas de Calais (among those flying for the squadron is Gerhard Barkhorn, who will end the war with 301 victories).
Crash Landing After Seventh Victory
Rescue Plane
Steinhoff
Barkhorn
In trouble, out of trouble, a new commanding officer and new squadron comrades, but his three and a half months with Jag 52 are a continuation of his military "service" to the Reich. Hit by enemy bullets or simply worn out, Marseille's flying will retire four Messerschmitt fighters, restricted to quarters, Marseille will take "quarters" to mean the nearby village and he steals his commanding officer's car to go bar hopping there, on another occasion he returns to base drunk with two also intoxicated French girls, he is ordered confined to his quarters for five days for calling a fellow pilot a "duBlige Sau" ('a goofy pig") ... and along with not following orders and drinking too much, Marseille lets his hair grow shaggy and listens to banned American jazz whenever he has the opportunity (played on his phonograph over and over is Marseille's favorite song, "Rhumber Azul" by the Lecuona Cuban Boys). Finally figuring the fighter pilot isn't worth the effort of putting up with his lack of military discipline (trying to impress a visiting general with the squadron's abilities, Marseille is sent up to fly aerobatics for the big shot and ends his performance by rolling his plane onto its side, opening his cockpit, and snatching a scarf from a flag post as he does a pass only yards off the airfield ... and is grounded for five days by the visitor for breaking the unit's rules for elevation over the field unless landing is involved!). Steinhoff transfers Marseille to Jagdgeschwader 27 on Christmas Eve of 1940, after he lies to a Gestapo major looking to punish the pilot for "having his way" with the man's teenage daughter (a playboy that Hugh Hefner would have loved, among Marseille's bedroom "conquests" are the actress Zarah Leander, a German general's wife, singer Nilla Pizzi, a Hungarian countess, and a host of other nubile young ladies).
Playboy
Leander
Playboy At The Beach
Nude Playboy On The Beach
After briefly supporting Germany's incursion into the Balkans and then Greece, in April of 1941, Marseille arrives in North Africa, and as usual, turns the occasion into yet another adventure, one that includes the new Bf 109 E-7 he is flying from Tripoli to his new base at Gazala developing engine problems bad enough to force the pilot to make a landing in the desert, hitchhikes forward in an Italian truck, but upset with the vehicle's lack of speed, tries to "borrow" a German plane at a nearby airport, and finally talks the general in charge of a local supply depot to lend him his car so that he can fly on the morrow in already scheduled operations, an Opel Admiral that comes with a chauffeur (leaving the base, the general will yell to the pilot that he can repay the taxi service by getting "50 victories"). The next day, Marseille is up with the rest of the squadron protecting Stuka bombers dropping ordinance on the city of Tobruk. Spotting two Hurricanes below, Marseille drops out of formation and sends one down in flames and is about to light up the second when four more enemy fighters join the battle and Marseille is forced to flee the area. Returning to base, he refuels and rearms and is back in the sky later that same day, where he foolishly peels off again and drops into a group of Hurricanes ... three of which gain his tail and pepper his fighter with bullets that hit the engine, fuselage, and cockpit (almost thirty come within inches of Marseille's chest and head), shattering the canopy and causing the flier to make a gear-up landing of his shot-up plane. Incredibly, he is shot down a second time on May 21 (and survives), when Second Lieutenant James Denis (a Free French pilot that was in one of the three Hurricanes that almost finish off Marseille on his first day of African combat) slide slips unexpectedly in the subsequent dogfight of the two fliers, gains Marseille's rear, and once again sends a burst of machine gun bullets into the German's Messerschmitt (leaning forward, the Hurricane's bullets once again come within inches of blowing off Marseille's head). Not a good start, within weeks of operating for Jag 27, the playboy pilot "retires" four more German fighters and quickly draws the ire of his latest commanding officer, Hauptmann Eduard Neumann (a bit of an eccentric himself, Neumann sets up his personal quarters in a big circus wagon he'd found in France, shipped to Africa, one side of the wagon reads "Neumanns bunte Buhne," which translates as Neumann's Colorful Stage") Despite Neumann's anger, he senses the flier is special and he encourages Marseille to better himself ... and with nothing to distract him in a desert missing beautiful women and liquor stocked saloons, that is exactly what Marseille does, creating for himself a special training program that includes mastering deflection firing (in which the ace fires into open sky that his enemy flies into) on opponents in short bursts (the base armorer will be astonished on a regular basis at the lack of firing Marseille is able to achieve bring down another plane, for the most part averaging fifteen 7.62 mm rounds and two cannon rounds to bring down a Hurricane) that target at the enemy's engine and cockpit, repeating dogfighting techniques until they can be achieved in a split second without thinking (one of his fellow pilots will call Marseille a "magnificent madman"), bettering his eyesight by drinking massive amounts of milk and not wearing sunglasses in the harsh sunlight, and building up his resistance to the G-forces diving dogfights entail by strengthening his core muscles with daily sessions of running, sit-ups, push-ups, and jumping jacks.
Denis
Neumann
Home Away From Home
All the practice and training in the world however can't stop the desert from taking its toll on Marseille, and before he can put his "improvements" into play, suffering from dysentery, jaundice, and the chills and fever brought on by recurring malaria, with only 13 aerial victories to his credit, the now 110-pound pilot is sent back to Germany to recover his strength (for a brief time, he is so weak that he has to be helped into his fighter by his ground crew) on June 18, 1941 (Hitler will invade Russia four days later). That task completed, he returns to Africa in August of 1941 and scores 11 more victories before returning to Germany in October to transition into the newest Messerschmitt fighter, the Bf 109 F ... an upgrade of the plane known as "Friedrich" that centers the fighter's weaponry at the the propeller hub, has a redesigned semi-elliptical wing for less drag and weight that will allow the fighter to make tighter turns, and possesses a more powerful 1,159 horsepower Daimler-Benz engine to increase the aircraft's climb rate and turning capacity. Returning to the African front with his new plane and situational tactics ready for optimal testing, Marseille is on combat patrol again in December, is sent to Athens to get over another bout of malaria (where he receives a telegram from his mother telling him his youngest sister, Ingeborg, had been murdered by a jealous lover in Vienna), and the world truly now at war with the United States of America's entry into the conflict after it's fleet is attacked at Pearl Harbor, and ends 1941 with 36 kills, four short of the minimum a flier needs to qualify for a Knight's Cross award and ready to transform himself into Nazi Germany's legendary, "Star of Africa."
Ready To Sortie
Explaining A Victory
Back in the air again in February, Marseille is in the process of landing at his home base when the airfield at Matruba is attacked by five Hurricanes. Gears and flaps slapped up, throttle jammed forward, the ace kicks his rudder back and forth, going into sideway skids to avoid the bullets coming his way until he is able to put his Messerschmitt into a spine snapping left turn that lets him gain 2,000 feet of elevation. With his entire squadron watching the proceedings, Marseille rolls inverted and at low altitude sends deflection bursts at three of the enemy planes that cause two Hurricanes to crash into the desert, as the other two fighters flee for home, with one smoking. Later in the day, when British Blenheim bombers and their escorts attack Matruba again, Marseille takes out two more Hurricanes and brings his victory total to forty planes. As usual though, Marseille also gets in trouble on the same day, when against orders, he flies over the enemy airfield and drops a note telling the British that Flight Sergeant Hargreaves has been shot down (Marseille's 37th triumph), is a POW, but is uninjured. Upset his orders have been ignored, the commanding officer of the ace's unit, Oberleutant Gerhard Homuth, grounds the pilot ... a bad move. Suffering from the stresses of combat and the illnesses the desert seems to be filled with for the pilot, and still depressed over the recent loss of his sister, Marseille reacts to the grounding by getting into his Messerschmitt, taking off, and then showing off his marksmanship by peppering the area around Homuth's tent with machine gun bullets. Grounds for a court-martial, with the war on Marseille is considered too valuable of a pilot to sentence to a jail cell or shot against a wall, so after making sure the pilot stays on terra firma for three days, Jag 27 commander, Neumann, reassigns the flier to a different group and sets him loose on Allied fighter planes once more.
Homuth
Hawker Hurricane
Curtiss P40 Warhawk
Airborne again on February 12, northwest of Tobruk, Libya, Marseille shoots down another Hurricane and three P40 fighters. The next day, two more Hurricanes fall to Marseille's guns. Escorting bombers over Gambut, Libya, two more P40s are added to the ace's count on the 15th, and on the 21st, in the same area of Libya, Marseille smokes two more P40s to bring his victory total to 50 (he will end the month with a score of 52 aerial victories, a total that gets the rebellious pilot the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (he will receive the medal from the man commanding Germany's military efforts in the Meditterean, Oberbefehlshaber Sud Albert "Uncle Albert" Kesselring), the Silver Medal of Military Valor from Italy, promotion to the rank of Oberleutant, and a reward leave back to Germany (where he will use some of his down time to become engaged to Hanna-Lies Kupper, a Berlin school teacher).
Kesselring
With Fiancée Hanna-Lies Kupper
Combat
Updating Marseille's Score
With One Of His Victories
On June 1, 1942, Marseille shoots down the P-40 of British flier over Gadd el Ahmar, Libya for his 69th victory. Two days later, Marseille leads eight fighters on a mission protecting Stuka dive bombers attacking Bir Hakeim when the group is jumped by nine South African P-40s. Instantly attacking, Marseille shoots down his first fighter of the day at 12:22 in the afternoon as his opponent climbs into a defensive turn, then he gains altitude, rolls over and dives into the Lufbery circle (a circling formation in which each fighter protects the rear of the fighter in front of him) of the South Africans, and turning tighter than his opponents and using his usual deflection shooting, cutting across the circle twice, he shoots down five more enemy fighters ... in eleven minutes of flying, at a cost of only twelve rounds of 20 mm cannon shells and 360 machine gun bullets (less than a third of his machine gun ammunition), the ace adds six more planes (three are themselves flown by aces) to his growing total of victories, his count now at 75, and adds Oak Leaves to his Knight's Cross. The next day, Kesselring arrives in Libya to give Marseille the citation for his Oak Leaves (the actual medal will come from Hitler when Marseille is back in Germany) and tells the young pilot he will permanently being taking over command of Squadron 3 (which happens on the 8th of the month). On June 7th, two more P-40s fall to Marseille's guns, then on a morning patrol on the 10th, the aerial gunslinger flames three more P-40s and a Hurricane in 15 minutes of combat. The next day, the Hurricanes of Flight Sergeant Graves and Australian Pilot Officer Persee go down before Marseille's guns. On the 13th, in five minutes of fighting, yet another four P-40s are added to Jochen's total (his wingman at the time, Rainer Pottgen, will earn the nickname of "Fliegendes Zahlwerk," the Flying Counting Machine.). On the 15th of the month, it takes him another five minutes to eliminate four more P-40s, and the following day, eleven minutes of combat score him four more fighters. Then scoring his last victories of the month, Marseille uses ten minutes of dogfighting over Gambut to shoot down three Hurricanes and three P-40s, bringing his victory total to 101 (and he is now eligible for his Knight's Cross to be updated to one with Oak Leaves and Swords), the eleventh Luftwaffe fighter pilot to reach the total.
Knight's Cross With Oak Leaves
Marseille
Knight's Cross With Oak Leaves
And Swords
As Marseille's victory total rises, he becomes a hero to the German people (he is now known as "The Star of Africa" and receives bags full of fan mail. mostly from the frauleins back home), even more desirous to the young ladies of the Third Reich, and someone the Nazi leadership of the state wants to be associated with ... there is one problem however ... Marseille is still Marseille, a partying rebel (he continues to make "special flights" over enemy territory to keep his opponents updated on what has become of some of their fliers) that wants nothing to do with the regime. An open critic of the ruling government, when asked about joining the Nazi Party, Marseille will quip that "... if he saw a party worth joining, he would consider it, but there would have to be plenty of attractive women in it." Queried by former WWI ace and now head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering, about reaching over a hundred conquests, Marseille will send his boss into choking laughter by asking, "Herr Reichmarschall, do you mean aircraft or women?" Even fellow 100 victory ace, and head of all the Luftwaffe's fighter pilots, Lt. General Adolf Galland is not immune to Marseille's personality, and visiting the pilot in Africa, the commander asks his younger charge for directions to the latrine and is given a shovel and told to walk 20 paces from his tent and to dig, which he does ... and the next day is amazed to find Marseille has erected a small monument on the site that the chief of Germany's fighters has taken a dump there. And after meeting Hitler a couple of times, Marseille states that he dislikes the man and finds him to be an odd sort, comments that hurt the Fuhrer and that he finds puzzling ... especially after personally awarding Marseille with the Oak Leaves and the Swords for Marseille's Knight's Cross at his forward headquarters in East Prussia. And just to make sure Marseille's message is received loud and clear, while in between the public relations tour he is on of German schools, hospitals, and various veteran's groups, at a party at the home of fighter plane designer and manufacturer, Willy Messerschmitt, that includes Hitler, Goering, Heinrich Himmler (head of Hitler's SS), Joseph Goebbels (the Reich Minister of Propaganda), Artur Axmann (the leader of Germany's Hitler Youth), Field Marshal Erhard Milch (the Inspector General of the German Air Force), Martin Bormann (Hitler's personal secretary) and other Nazi big shots (the only member of the German elite that Marseille actually gets along with, is fellow rebel, "The Desert Fox," , the fighter pilot shows off his piano skills be entertaining everyone with an hour recital of Chopin and Beethoven, before then breaking into the ragtime jazz stylings of black American composer, Scott Joplin ... music Hitler hates and considers "degenerate' (Hitler immediate stands up, raises a hand, and states, "I think we've heard enough," before leaving the room and ending the party). There is little respect for Fascist Italy's Mussolini either. Sent to Rome to receive the Gold Medal of Military Valor (Italy's highest award for bravery) from the Italian dictator's hand (Mussolini will contribute to the Marseille legend by giving the fighter pilot his medal, and then concluding the ceremony by telling the ace he needs a haircut!), and despite being engaged to be married, Marseille shows his appreciation for the award by conducting a quick affair with a married Italian woman that just happens to be one of Mussolini's nieces (before the affair blows up, it will be ended by the head of the Gestapo in Rome, Herbert Kappler, who finds the love nest of the couple and sends Marseille back to Africa).
Galland
With Rommel
Military Magazine - The Eagle
With Hitler
Hero
Back at the front by August of 1942, the ace and fledgling squadron commander also displays nonconformist tendencies which conflict with what the Nazi leaders would like to see out of their #1 fighter pilot. Along with continuing to be a prankster, Marseille likes to explore the desert around Tobruk in a Volkswagen Kubelwagen jeep he is gifted with by members of a nearby Italian air force squadron ... an automobile he names "OTTO." Visiting his friend and now fellow ace, Werner Schror, the pair will talk about the war and adventures they have had, drink sweet coffee and sample a glass each of a bottle of Italian Doppio Kummel before Marseille gets into his jeep, and drives his ride straight through his friend's tent, leveling it, and everything inside, then with a smile and a wave of his hand, drives back to his own base. And he also takes on a valet that soon becomes his best friend and follows the pilot wherever he goes when on the ground in Libya ... a South African POW corporal named Mathew Letulu, whom Marseille calls Mathias, and who just happens to be black ("Where I go, Mathias goes," the flier will state and knowing there is a potential that should something happen to him, Letulu might be sent to a POW camp or be put to death simply because of his color, Marseille gets fellow pilot, Ludwig Franzisket, to agree to look after the man, a task that Franzisket is successful at, secretly seeing Letulu back to Allied lines before the Germans are pushed out of Africa ... later, after the war, Letulu will be a welcome participant in reunions of Jag 27). Back in Africa, Marseille finally returns to the air on August 31, 1942, shooting down two Hurricane fighters during a morning patrol over El Alamein, Egypt after less than two minutes of combat, and adding a Spitfire to his victory total during an afternoon mission over Alam Haifa, Libya.
Pranking A Fellow Pilot
Marseille And Otto
There is a difference in the victorious ace though. Where flying was fun and combat a personal challenge, the desert and its many maladies, the demands of now being a leader himself, the constant strain of combat, the loss of friends (most recently, his friend Gunther Steinhausen, an ace with 40 victories, and Hans-Arnold "Fifi" Stahlschmidt, a flier with 59 victories) and the need of a form of perfection to stay alive, along with worries about the men in his squadron, and whether he will have a future with his fiancée, all combine to take a toll on Marseille as he wastes away to skin and bones despite his recent R & R in Germany. Once a babyface that looked to still be a teenager, the fighter pilot now looks much older than his 22 years, smokes incessantly, repeatedly sleepwalks around the airbase, and is covered in sweat and shakes incessantly upon returning to base after missions. Despite everything, including a bum arm that he fractures in yet another crash landing (the crash keeps him on the ground for all of two days, which he follows up crashing the Machi C-202 fighter of Italian ace Tenente Emanuele Annoni that he borrows for a test flight though he has been grounded by Neumann for a little rest and recuperation ... all Marseille's fault, unfamiliar with the plane's instrumentation, the German pilot manipulates the wrong button and shuts off the gasoline flow to the engine prematurely), September of 1942 will be Marseille's best month as a knight of the air, and, it will also be his last.
Steinhausen
Stahlschmidt
Annoni
On September 1, 1942, Marseille takes off, along with 34 Bf 109's of Jag 27 and Jag53 on a morning mission to escort Stuka bombers tasked with plastering British troops on Alam Halfa Ridge. Thirty minutes after takeoff, Marseille spots a flight of sixteen Hurricanes making a westerly climb preparatory to shooting up tanks of Rommel's Afrika Corps. Pushing his throttle forward and inverting, Marseille closes in o the British from their six o'clock low blind spot and opens fire ... flaming a target, falling away, and then firing on another target, which also goes down. Warned by a fellow pilot that a Spitfire is coming up behind him, Marseille boots his rudder, yanks back on the throttle and drops his flaps, basically bringing his Messerschmitt to a dead stop in the sky. Spitfire streaking by, he flips his flaps back up, goes to full power, pulls his nose up, and sends deflection rounds at his opponent, taking out the fighter for his third victory in nine minutes, then returning to base, he takes out a Spitfire straggling back to its base (four kills using eighteen cannon shells and less than 250 machine gun slugs). Rearmed and refueled, an hour later Marseille is off on his second mission of the day. This time he attacks eight P-40s in yet another defensive Wheel formation. Diving into the middle of the circling fighters, Marseille shoots down three P-40s in three minutes, then with his head on a swivel, takes out the other five P-40s in ten minutes. Returning to base, Neumann congratulates Marseille on his morning, then orders him to sit out the group's next flight ... no disagreement, the physically and mentally exhausted pilot drinks over a gallon of water, eats lunch, and then falls asleep. He is up again a few hours later, in time to lead the squadron's fourth mission of the day. At the head of eleven Messerschmitts, over El Imayid, Marseille attacks a formation of fifteen Hurricanes and in six minutes of combat, using his dead stop trick, a 90-degree deflection shot, and full throttle dives, sends five more British fighter into the desert floor and finishes his day with seventeen aerial victories ... it is the single best performance by any pilot on either side of the fliers clashing on the European Western Front of WWII, a feat which will be matched three times as the war continues, and be bested only once (flying a Focke Wulf FW-190 by Emil "Bully" Lang on November 4, 1943, during the Battle of Kiev, when the Luftwaffe pilot shoots down 18 over-matched Russian "pilots" over four missions ... the German ace will himself be shot down over Belgium in 1944, dying with 173 aerial victories to his credit).
The Yellow 14 Of Marseille
Spitfire
Lang
Seventeen! Back at base, an exhausted Marseille is forced out of his bed to take a congratulatory phone call from Kesselring, in which the Field Marshal tells his killer pilot that he has been nominated to receive Diamonds for his Knight's Cross (only 27 individuals will win the "Diamonds" level during the war) and that Hitler plans on making the award to Marseille the next time the flier has leave in Germany. Business as usual, the next morning Marseille is off on a morning patrol over El Alamein results in the ace shooting down a Hurricane and two P-40s (one flown by U.S. 1st Lt. M. McMarrel, flying for the South African Air Force), then downing two more P-40s in an afternoon sortie over El Imayid, Egypt. Marseille scores six more victories on the 3rd ... three in the morning, and three more on an afternoon patrol. On the 5th, Marseille adds two Hurricanes and two Spitfires to his total of aerial victories, with six more fighters (five P-40s and a Spitfire) falling to the pilots guns the next day. Knight's Cross upgraded to diamonds with Hitler's official approval earlier in the day, the fighter pilot spends the evening of the 6th accepting congratulatory phone calls from Kesselring, Rommel, Goring, Joachim von Ribbentrop (the Third Reich's Minister of Foreign Affairs), Goebbels, and Milch, but finds little joy in the praise he receives with his good friend, Stahlschmidt, going missing earlier in the day. Two more P-40s fall to Marseille on the 7th, and he raises his overall total to 144 when he downs two more Hurricanes while escorting Germain bombers over El Imayid. On the 15th, Marseille's total goes up by seven more fighters (four P-40s and three Hurricanes), but the pilot's Messerschmitt is hit in all the dogfighting (by British-Canadian ace, Flight Commander James Francis "Eddie" Edwards), and he crash lands returning to base, fracturing his arm. The next day, Marseille butchers his test flight of Annoni's Italian fighter, is told by Neumann that the paperwork making him the youngest captain in the Luftwaffe has been signed, receives yet another congratulatory phone call from Rommel, and accepting the invitation he receives via the call, dines with the Desert Fox in the evening. For the next ten days, Marseille and his squadron rest and run easy patrols incorporating new Messerschmitts into the unit, a move the pilot is unhappy with as the new planes all seem to have issues with their engines, but complies with as ordered by Kesselring himself. Using one of the new fighters, on the 26th of the month Marseille is dogfighting again ... eliminating seven more Allied fighters during a morning and afternoon patrol to bring his victory total to 158, the last in a 15-minute duel that Jochen, almost out of fuel, wins when he climbs into the sun and the British Spitfire pilot loses him in the glare, allowing Marseille to make a tight turn, roll, and gain a firing solution from about 110 yards away that takes the wing off his opponent's plane (back at base, an exhausted Marseille will describe the enemy pilot as the best he has faced in the war).
Some Of Jag 27 Taking Off
Marseille
Chatting With Rommel
With Diamonds
Standing down for a couple of days to rest and refit their planes before the next fighter sweep, Marseille receives a phone call from Rommel on the 28th, asking the fighter pilot to share his transportation back to Berlin where Hitler has invited the pair to hear a speech he will be giving at the city's Sportpalast on the progress of the war. With respect, Marseille declines the offer, telling Rommel he has already had three months of leave and that he would like to save any time off he has to marry his fiancée during the Christmas holidays. Flying one of the new Messerschmitts (now a model "G," Wing Number 14256 ... the plane's first and only combat flight of the war), Marseille is up in the air again on a Wednesday morning patrol to close out the month of September. Reacting to reports that British fighters have been spotted near El Imayid, the German flight heads east, but unable to find any enemy in the area, the Germans turn back to base, and at around 11:30 radios that he is having engine problems which are filling his cockpit with smoke (unbeknownst to anyone until later, the differential gear in the engine has become damaged and begun to leak oil, which is ignited when a number of teeth on the spur wheel break off). Unable to see, members of his flight guide him back with their radios towards their home airfield while encouraging Marseille to bail out of his plane ... a course of action the ace pilot is reluctant to take until he is back behind German lines. Radioed that he is now over German territory, Marseille inverts his plane and chooses to leave it by dropping underneath and opening his parachute after the fighter passes, but eyes blinded by the smoke he does not realize he is not flying level and is in a dive of 70-80 degrees and traveling at nearly 400 mph. "I have to get out now ... I can't stand it anymore," Marseille proclaims as he pushes himself out of the cockpit of his Bf 109 at roughly 2,000 feet above Libya's desert floor just south of Sidi Abdel Rahman and is grabbed by the slipstream and slammed into the plane's vertical stabilizer with the left side of his chest with such force that he is instantly killed, or knocked unconscious and can't engage his parachute. Forever twenty-two (his watch is found to have stopped at exactly 11:42 in the morning), the fighter ace is two months and thirteen days away from his next birthday.
Wreckage Of Marseille's Plane - Truck In The
Distance Is Where The Pilot's Remains Are
Found
Memorial Built By Italian Engineers At The Site -
Rebuilt In 1989
His body retrieved by his friend, Ludwig Franzisket, Marseille is placed in his tent, where his comrades spend the rest of the day quietly paying their last respects (in his tent, where Rhumba Azul is sung along with by the squadron and then in the unit's sick bay). The next day, in front of his squadron (his group will be so devastated by Marseille's death that it won't fly for a month and will soon be returned to Europe), and with eulogies from Kesselring and Neumann, Marseille is buried at the Heroes Cemetery in Derna, Libya (later, the fighter pilot's remains will be reburied at the memorial gardens of Tobruk, in a small clay sarcophagus with the number "4133" and the one word epitaph, "UNDEFEATED" (though Lt. James Denis might strongly disagree).
Back In Camp
Marseille's Body
Tent
Burial
Three years of war left, when the global conflict finally ends twenty-nine German fliers will have higher victory totals than Marseille (with Erich Alfred ""Bubi" Hartmann's count of 352 in first place), but no one will come close to his 158 victories in 482 combat sorties, or that all but four of his triumphs are against British, South African, Canadian, Australian, and American pilots flying Western fighter planes. A talented enemy worthy of respect, let the German warriors (and one special guest) that also flew in the European Theater of the conflict give the final tributes to Jochen:
*Adolf Josef Ferdinand Galland (104) - "Marseille was the unrivaled virtuoso among fighter pilots of WWII. His achievements had previously been regarded as impossible and they were never excelled by anyone after his death."
*Friedrich Korner (36) - "Shooting in a curve is the most difficult thing a pilot can do. The enemy flies in a defensive circle, that means they already lying in a curve and the attacking fighter has to fly into this defensive circle. By pulling his aircraft right around, his curve radius must be smaller, but if he does that, his target in most cases disappears below his wings. So he cannot see it anymore and has to proceed by instinct. Yeah, everybody knew nobody could cope with him. Nobody could do the same. Some of the pilots tried it like Stahlschmidt, myself, and Rodel. He was an artist. Marseille was an artist. He was up here, and the rest of us were down here somewhere "
*Johannes "Macky" Steinhoff (176) - "Marseille was extremely handsome. He was a very gifted pilot, but 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. Marseille had natural flying talent, I guess you could call it a gift. He would pull stunts all over the airfield doing amazing things, he was good. That was not the problem. His problem was that he knew he was good, and his ego always got the better of him."
*Emil Josef Clade (27) - "Marseille developed his own special tactics, which differed significantly from the methods of most other pilots. He had to fly very slowly. He even took it to the point where he had to operate his landing flaps as not to fall down, because, of course he had to fly his curve more tightly than the upper defensive circle. He and his fighter were one unit, and he was in command of that aircraft like no-one else."
*Werner Schroer (114) - "Telling Marseille that he was grounded was like telling a small child that he couldn't go out and play. He sometimes acted like one too. He was the most amazing and ingenious combat pilot I ever saw. He was also very lucky on many occasions. He thought nothing of jumpig into a fight outnumbered ten to one, often alone, with us trying to catch up. He violated every cardinal rule of fighter combat. He abandoned all the rules."
*Gunther Rall (275) - "Marseille was an excellent pilot and brilliant marksman. I think he was the best shot in the Luftwaffe. 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."
*Corporal Matthew Letulu - "Hauptmann Marseille was a great man and a person always willing to lend a helping hand. He was always full of humor and friendly. And he was very good to me."
*Eduard Neumann (11) - "In Africa, he became ambitious in a good way and completely changed his character. He was too fast and too mercurial to be a good leader and teacher, but his pilots adored him. He thanked them by protecting them and bringing them home safely. He was a mixture of the fresh air of Berlin and a French champagne gentleman. Yes, Marseille was one in a million."
*Erich Alfred "Bubi" Hartmann (352 ... the most EVER) - "Marseille was the best!"
The Star Of Africa
Champagne Bubbles
Enjoying A Swim
The Musician
Goofing He's A Gunfighter
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