ME-109 wreckage & pilot remaind discovered while metal detecting.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Glad this post spawned such an inciteful discussion.

Thanks

[Flying10uk]

I recently purchased, on eBay, a small post card with details of a fallen German soldier which I happened to notice purely by chance. I hadn't realised that these items existed but, according to the vendor, it was customary for the German family of a fallen soldier to have a batch printed for the funeral/memorial service with the details of the soldier on one side and a few religious lines/prayer on the other. With my limited German, it reads that he was an army engineer/sapper and died at the age of 24 on the Eastern Front. When I read it I thought what a waste of a life, all because a madman was in charge of his country.

[Bob Womack]

If you haven't read the book, A Higher Call , by Adam Makos, you can be forgiven for not know this: At the end of the war, German fighter pilots were reviled by the German public. Goering had perpetuated a lie that the country had been let down by her fighter pilots who allowed the American "Four Motors" (bombers) to break through and ruin Germany. As a result, in postwar Germany, the surviving fighter pilots were often rejected and refused work. Worse, some were beaten when they attempted to be employed. The truth is that by the end of the war there were four classes of German pilot: Those who were flown non-stop and without a break until the odds caught up with them and were killed, the new pilots at the end of the war who were often thrown into battle with only eight to ten hours of flight training and were immediately shot down and killed*, those so badly wounded they couldn't return to battle, and a very small handful, about thirty, who were good enough to survive.

By the end of the war, those who were good enough to survive were gathered in Adolph Galland's veterans squadron who were allowed to fly the very last of the ME262 Schwalb fighters until there was no fuel left to fly them. The surviving rank and file pilots faced this ostracism and hate. Some of the lucky ones moved away to other countries to start again.

Perhaps a remanent of this attitude remains in the ambivalence towards the fallen fighter pilots.

Bob

* Or were killed by the BF109G, which was known as an extremely temperamental, menacing aircraft. German airfields often had a pile of metal off to the left, three-quarters of the way down the strip. At that point on the strip the 109G had lifting its tail and began to veer. Most suggested that you just allow the plane to slightly veer and not try to prevent it because an attempt pull her back on centerline would usually cause a crash. The plane was known as a novice-killer. We've got a 109G at the local museum. The test pilot who certified this plane to be flown in U.S. airspace described the G models he's flown as a group as a plane with a lurking menace that wants to kill the unwary pilot. The up-rated Daimler engine and improved prop overpowered the small tail control surfaces until the plane was actually in the air.

[Flying10uk]

The crew of a German bomber did surrender to my Grandfather during WW2 because he was the first person to reach the aircraft after it had been shot down near the east coast of Essex in the area of Clacton. He served in the Home guard throughout the war but on this occasion he was only armed with his own personal pistol. When he got to the scene the crew were standing at the side of the aircraft and seemed happy to surrender; they were fully compliant and made no attempt to escape, just pleased to be out of the war probably. When regular British soldiers arrived to take charge of the prisoners my Grandfather was disgusted with some of the regular soldiers for taking personal items off the prisoners such as watches. My Grandfather did protest about this behaviour but there was little else that he could do by himself.

[Ovidio]

If you want to know more about German pilots, together with Galland's book, I'd suggest "The Blonde Knight Of Germany", by Toliver and Constable about Erich Hartmann, the ace with the highest number of victories ever, and "Stuka Pilot", from Hans- Ulrich Rudel.
I read Rudel at age 12 in Italian and reread it a fair amount of times. Then I bought it in German and got even more tangled up with that book. In German you understand the kind of person: amazing!
Hartmann's story is somewhat parallel and as gripping, though a bit more "aseptic", considering he was a fighter pilot and had a somewhat different approach to war. Plus it has been written by writers and not by himself directly.
These two are among the few expert ones who survived the war and lived to be old.
Great reads!

[Gil Boyd]

On a similar vain and a very similar story, is about "Mick" Mannock VC, DSO & Two Bars, MC & Bar, who was a British flying ace in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War.

It is believed his grave has been found, but there appears a reluctance to exhume the body of an "Unknown Airman of the First World war" marked on the GWGC gravestone, and use DNA to rightfully correct his final resting place as one of our national heroes of that war.

Lets hope the powers at be, one day see some sense, as this current unmarked grave of a pilot is the only one near, where the German infantry recovered the body of Mannock from his burnt out plane after it developed engine failure, and buried him nearby. After the war they informed the British Government, but due to him crashing near the front months before the end of the war, exact locations of his burial were probably lost in time!

[browningautorifle]

VC, DSO & Two Bars, MC & Bar

Quite the credentials...

[Gil Boyd]

Jim,
Yes certainly is. At least the German pilot has been found, and will after all this time have a befitting burial and ceremony hopefully by a grateful nation for his sacrifice.

[Paul S.]

Jim,
Yes certainly is. At least the German pilot has been found, and will after all this time have a befitting burial and ceremony hopefully by a grateful nation for his sacrifice.

I'll be honest here and admit that was the only thing that I as a Catholic worried about in Vietnam, being killed, lost and not have a Christian burial.

[Gil Boyd]

Paul,
No doubt ................as did we all!!!