The Star of Africa's favourite vacation cities

[Sturmovik]

 

Hopefully I won´t have to explain the joke.

[Admiral Puff]

Do NOT give up your day gig ...

[fightersweep]

Hans Joachim Margate?

 

[JPuente54]

It's actually a great joke(based of names). I read his biography a year or two ago(maybe over 3); and learned that he had a very different point of view. My good friend Walt stated that he definitely walked to a different drummer. He had a sense of humor; and was famous for pranks that got him into serious trouble. More than a few commanders were ready to court-martial him. His great ability to fly(and many of his companions and commanders could never explain how he flew the 109 variants) was why they didn't court-martial him. He was also known for his many girl friends. As I wrote; it's not that bad. Could have been better; but it worked. And, I agree with @Sturmovik's statement.

[Ed Russell]

Historians seem to fall into two camps about him. Some more or less idolise him as a highly successful ace pilot. Others point to the fact  that, as well as the characteristics in the post above, he only claimed a very small number of bombers in his 100+ score. It could be argued that  it was the WDAF bombers that were doing all the harm to the Afrika Korps, sinking ships, blasting supply dumps and materiel concentrations and the first priority should have been to shoot them down. It can be argued it was necessary to shoot down escort fighters but from what I remember of his biography this isn't what happened - some of his most useful victories were while escorting Stukas but many were battles of encounter.

[fightersweep]

I think I have most of the published works on Marseille. Certainly a colourful character who I have always put in the same mould as Kidd Hofer. I wonder how his career would have progressed had he survived North Africa?

 

Steve

[vppelt68]

47 like:s or haha:s so far at a Finnish fb airwar history group, of course credited to Sturmovik 👍

 

[Sturmovik]

1 hour ago, vppelt68 said:

47 like:s or haha:s so far at a Finnish fb airwar history group, of course credited to Sturmovik 👍

 

Thanks vppelt68, much appreciated.

 

 

[Valkyrie]

Quite a good about him in the Franz Stiegler book A Higher Call when Stiegler gets posted to his unit. Nice aspect from another pilots point of view 

Would like to get this biography though