Hans-Joachim Marseille

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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.

Contents

1 Biography
2 Death
3 Achievements
4 Notes
5 External links

Biography

Marseille was born in Berlin as a son of a French-origin family. His father was a fighter pilot of the German Luftwaffe in World War I. Marseille´s relation to his father was not very good. As mentioned by Johannes Steinhoff Hans-Joachim did not want to meet his father again.

During the Battle of Britain in mid-1940, Marseille served in Jagdgeschwader 52^{[#endnote_Luftwaffe]}, where he claimed 7 kills, alongside 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 colors of "White 14" in which he had flown the aircraft.

As punishment for insubordination (rumoured to be his penchant for American Jazz music, and perhaps his 'playboy' lifestyle), he was transferred 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. His Geschwaderkommodore Eduard Neumann soon saw potential in Marseille and encouraged him to self-train to improve his abilities. By this time, he had gone through 4 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, each aircraft numbered "Yellow 14", 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 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 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 rate multiple victories per attack, and it is what 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 P-40s of No. 5 Squadron South African Air Force, five of them in six minutes, including the aces Capt Pare (6 claims), Lt. Goulding (6.5 claims), and Capt. 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 he 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

There was nothing special in terms of combat flying on the 30 September 1942. Hauptmann Marseille was leading his staffel on a Stuka escort mission during which no contact with enemy fighters was made. While returning to base, his new Bf109G-2's cockpit began to fill with smoke; blinded and half asphyxiated by the smoke, he was guided by his wingmen Jost, Schlang and Pottgen back to the German lines. By the time they reached their own lines, he deemed his aircraft no longer flyable and decided to bale 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 pealed away to give him the necessary room to manoeuvre, and Marseille rolled his Bf109G-2 onto its back in standard procedure for bale-out, but due to the smoke and slight disorientation he failed to notice that the aircraft had entered a shallow dive and was now travelling 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 unconsious so that he could not deploy his parachute. He fell almost vertical, hitting the desert floor face down 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 attempted to open it.

Marseille's funeral took place on 1 October 1942 at the heroes cemetery in Derna where Generalfeldmarschall Albrecht Kesselring and Eduard Neuman delivered an emotional eulogy.

His grave bears a one-word epitaph, Undefeated.

A war-time pyramid was constructed by Italian engineers at the sight of his fall but over time it decayed. In 1989 Eduard Neuman and othe JG 27 survivors in co-operation with the Egyptian government erected a new pyramid that stands there to this day.

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 losses from Allied records, 24 can be safely rejected as no aircraft were lost/matched his combat reports, and 46 'possibles' which match to definite Allied losses shot down by several German fighters, and could be attributed to Marseille. 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

↑ For an explanation of the meaning of Luftwaffe unit designation see Luftwaffe Organization

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 6th, 1942, in which he attacked, alone, a formation of 16 P-40 fighters, and shot down six of them in 11 minutes.
[Hans-Joachim Marseille] the hero of the German Lufwaffe

Holders of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds during World War II

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