[bobbysocks]

more on marseille....

With the Messerschmitt's left wing tip pointed vertically toward the sea, the Hurricane fighter stood virtually motionless in front of a young German's windscreen. Viewed through the metal framed canopy of the Messerschmitt 109, a British Hurricane with its red centered cockade was starkly recognizable against the cloudless North African sky.

Pulling back on the stick, gut-wrenching turn tightening, the young German's slim body presses firmly into his seat. Underneath his leather and mesh flight helmet, beads of sweat roll down his face . . burning his eyes as they remain open and fixed on the Zeiss optical gun sight.

3 G's . . 3.5 G's . . 4 G's.

The strain increases. Tired and aching at the end of day's mission that was full of air combat, the young German's arm muscles begin to fatigue under the strain. But there are no distractions allowed. The quarry must not escape.

After a swift look inside, with a slight input of right rudder, Jochen . . as he's known by his friends . . corrects the aircraft's slight skid.

The Messerschmitt emits a tiny shudder as its airspeed rapidly bleeds off from 300 knots indicated down to 140. Physics now demands the aircraft's nose to drop as its lift falls away. In apparent defiance of this law of nature, Jochen applies judicious top rudder and the 109 hangs precariously.

Then, there's a metallic ' clang ' as the Messerschmitt's leading edge slats automatically slam into an extended position providing more lift.

Like an artist ' working' materials, the 22 year old ' works' his aircraft as if part of his own body, while sweat pours down his back . . and the shoulder harness bites into his neck . . stinging. These minor distractions, no longer affect the German ace; he's been there before. The only thing important is . . one more victory !

Looking behind him, the RAF pilot sees the Messerschmitt now perched ominously off his left hind quarter . . its propeller spinner slowly pulling lead setting up for the proper firing position. Fear grips the British pilot as he now realizes this was no rookie enemy behind him. And every evasive maneuver he'd attempted was flawlessly countered . . with the young German closing distance with each turn.

As Jochen's Messerschmitt closed in, and the Hurricane disappeared beneath its nose. Jochen cocked his head slightly to the left as he calculated where his ordinance and the enemy would coinside.

It was . . time !

The control column shook in his right hand from a quick two-second burst. The cockpit filled with the smell of cordite, as several pounds of per second of machine gun and cannon projectiles hurtle into the Hurricane. Intuitively positive his aim had been correct, the German rolled inverted, diving away.

The 7500 pound British Hurricane, a sheet of flaming metal, thundered vertically into the Mediterranean.

As the fighter ace turned for home, four oil slicks foul the sea's surface . . to be celebrated as four more victory marks on Hans-Joachim Marseille's aircraft, adding to the credibility that he was becoming the most successful of all German fighter pilots in the North Africa.

The morning of 30 September 1942 was like most other late summer mornings in the North African desert, with the weather forecasted to be hot. For the men of German Fighter Group JG-27, the anticipation of another entire day of combat flying weighed heavily. As well it should have.

For the first time, Rommel was in a position to be thoroughly tossed out of Africa by Mont-gomery's British 8th Army. Not only was JG-27 aware of Rommel's latest defeat, they were caught in their own battle with the harsh desert, lack of essential supplies, the daily strain of aerial combat, plus the threat of a British Commando attack out of the surrounding desert.


However, as difficult as the situation appeared, and despite the recent loss of two more very experienced fighter pilots, individual morale was extremely high. Because of their many victories, morale problems affecting other fighter units in the desert seemed removed from Marseille and the men located at their lonely airfield.

Captain Hans-Joachim Marseille rolled out of bed on the morning of 30 September 1942 and was, his personal batman. The strain of 1 1/2 years of almost continuous aerial combat showed in the deep wrinkles and taunt muscles of his 22 year old face.

Marseille, the youngest captain in the Luftwaffe, appeared to have everything going his way. He was confident, cocky, and by far the most famous and successful fighter pilot in the North African war front.

After a slow start as a fighter pilot during the Battle of Britain, having downed seven aircraft while losing several airplanes himself, Marseille overcame initial weaknesses as a fighter pilot and made his Messerschmitt 109 with the big yellow 14 painted on its fuselage . . the scourge of the Allies in desert aerial warfare.

In less than 30 days, he had destroyed 54 British, South African, and Australian fighter aircraft . . 17 of those kills were in a single day. Young Marseille was well on his way to becoming among the few Luftwaffe pilots to shoot down two hundred enemy aircraft.

The morning of 30 September brought the prospect of another day's hunt in the skies over Egypt. More victories and more glory bestowed upon the young man from Berlin. But this morning, a freak accident would reduce perhaps the greatest fighter pilot of the war from the hero of the German nation to a lifeless historical footnote on the floor of the North African desert.

All but four of his victories were against fighters. No other pilot destroyed as many aircraft on the Western Front as did Marseille, although he was shot down several times, himself, Marseille evaded death from the angry guns of Allied pilots in over 388 combat missions. Twenty-nine other German pilots would go on to score more victories than Marseille, however, those pilots scored the majority of their victories against slow-moving Russian fighter bombers on the Eastern Front.

Marseille, a German of French Huguenot ancestry, was in the words of the General of the German Fighter Arm, Adolf Galland, " . . the unrivaled virtuoso of fighter pilots." His ability to sometimes destroy entire squadrons of enemy aircraft in a single sortie is the substance legends are made of, and the kind of material ripe for critics to study and either deny or defend.

Marseille is still regarded by most German Luftwaffe pilots to have been the best of the best ; excelling as a marksman, an acrobatic pilots, as well as one of the best combat tacticians in the Luftwaffe. Together, the synergy created by the accumulation of these talents forged one of the most lethal fighter pilots in aviation history.

Marseille's remarkable ability as a deadly serious fighter pilot was conflicted by his uncommon, gregarious, and often boyish behavior on the ground. He wore his hair long, had a penchant for practical jokes, and listened to taboo music like American jazz and swing, that Nazi propaganda referred to as "Jew" and "******" music.

Marseille also had a reputation as a "playboy." Early in his career, he was transferred out of famous ' Macky' Steinhoff's squadron. " Macky' later said: " Marseille was remarkably handsome guy, and he was a gifted pilot and a fighter. But he had girl friends everywhere; they took up so much of his time that he was often too tired to for me to safely allow him to fly his airplane. His often irresponsible understanding of his duties was the primary reason so I sent him packing. "

Marseille was quickly shipped off to air combat in North Africa, where his new commanders had been shipped a thick file containing his breeches of military discipline and unorthodox behavior. To say Marseille was not the typical German fighter pilot or stereotypical Aryan Teutonic Knight would be a gross understatement.

" Jochen was a practical joker; he was forever playing pranks. He came to see me and my squadron one day in his colorful Volkswagen jeep. He called it Otto. After a talk, a cup of sweet coffee and a glass of Italian Doppio Kümmel, he got into his jeep and drove it straight at my tent . . flattening everything. Then he drove off with a grin stretching across his face." [ Werner Schrör, 8/JG 27, 61 Kills in North Africa.]

Much of the debate and refusal to substantiate Marseille's combat record originates from one day of furious air combat on 1 September, 1942 in which he claimed to have destroyed 17 aircraft in three missions. Not only did Marseille claim 17 aircraft, but he did it in a fashion that was unheard of at the time. His victims were shot out of the sky in such a rapid fashion that many Allied critics still refuse to believe Marseille's claims as fact.

But it is precisely the speed and fury involved with these kills that has been the center of the Marseille debate for the past half century. For years, many British historians and militarists refused to admit that they had lost any aircraft that day in North Africa. Careful review of records however do show that the British did lose more than 17 aircraft that day,and in the area that Marseille operated. The British simply refused to believe, as many do today, that any German pilot was capable of such rapid destruction of RAF hardware.

Facts are that Marseille is still acknowledged as among the best marksmen in the Luftwaffe. The Germans were very meticulous in filing combat reports with all relevant data to include time of battle, area of operation, opposition encountered, as well as an in- depth armorers report. At the end of a mission, the armorers would count the number of bullets and cannon shells expended during the fight.

Marseille would often average an astonishing 15 bullets required per victory, and this with a combat resulting in his downing of several allied aircraft. No other German pilot was close to Marseille in this area

" Yeah, everybody knew nobody could cope with him. Nobody could do the same. Some of the pilots tried it like Stahlschmidt, myself, and Rödel. He, he was an artist. Marseille was an artist." Using his hands to illustrate. " He was up here and the rest of us ( he gestured ) were down here somewhere." [ Friedrich Körner, 36 victories, Knight's Cross winner.]

But what made Marseille so effective in a theater of combat where so many other pilots achieved little or no success? Several factors accounted for his success in the desert with one being attributed to his superior eyesight. Legend has it that Marseille would stare at the sun for extended periods of time in order to acclimate his eyes to the desert glare. Marseille, like American fighter pilot legend Chuck Yeager, he had the ability to see enemy aircraft long before anyone else in his formation.

Since Marseille tended to see the enemy first, he was consistently able to position himself in desirable attacking advantage with many of his victims obviously succumbing to the speed and surprise of his attacks.

Another critical factor for his success was his superb flying ability. Through constant practice and a desire to be the best pilot in his unit, and confident in his flying abilities that he would often break standard rules of aerial combat by pulling his power to idle and using flaps to help tighten his turns. He would also regularly attack numerically superior enemy formations in lightening fast strikes that used the enemy's formation size as its own disadvantage.

But most critical to Marseille's success was the exploitation of his superior Messerschmitt fighter over the majority of enemy fighters he encountered in the desert in concert with exposing weak-nesses inherent within the standard Allied tactical fighter formations used in the desert.

The Royal Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force, and South African Air Force sometimes used what was called a Lufbery Circle. When encountered by a real or perceived superior force of enemy fighters, the Allied fighter pilots would often form up in a defensive circle with one aircraft behind the other. This formation was much like the 2-dimensional wagon train circling in a attempt to both dissuade Indian attack and to afford the best defensive firepower.

Using the original Luftbery theory, if a German aircraft attacked a British fighter from behind, another British fighter's guns would be in place to immediately shoot down it down.

Marseille, one not to be frightened away, developed his own innovative tactics, while paying the cost of losing several of his own airplanes earlier in his combat career, that allowed him to enter and destroy the otherwise efficient Allied fighter formations.

Several thousand feet above the Lufbery defensive circle and displaced laterally a mile or so, Marseille would dive down below the formation's altitude. From below, he would select one unsuspecting victim, line him up in his sights, and hammer one brief and deadly burst of cannon and machine gun fire.

His aim was so accurate that he was often able to place nearly all of his bullets from the engine back into the cockpit, often killing the pilot.

After his firing run, Marseille would set himself up for another run.

By repeating cunning variations of this deadly sequence, Marseille often shot down four, five, and six, aircraft in a single sortie. His movements were so swift and quick that often unsuspecting allied pilots thought they were being attacked by several fighters.

On 15 September 1942, for example, Marseille destroyed 7 Australian fighter aircraft within an eleven minute period and on 17 June 1942, Marseille destroyed six aircraft within a seven minute period. The table below illustrates the quickness of many of Marseille's multiple kills.