Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, From the Red Baron to the F-16 (35 page)

Herbert Ihlefeld was a veteran of the Condor Legion, Poland, France, and now Britain. A professional fighter pilot, he recognized the potential in Marseille but had no patience for a loose cannon who might get other pilots killed. Still, there’s a fine line between teaching a spirited, aggressive pilot and crushing him. Ihlefeld would remember, “He was like a young boy who had just caught his first fish. I sat him down, broke out a bottle of cognac, and poured one for each of us. I told him the kill was visually confirmed, and I would credit him with it. I then told him that if he ever broke formation in my unit again, if I could not shoot him down myself, I would shoot him when he returned. . . . I smiled as I said it.”

It didn’t really sink in. To Marseille, life must’ve seemed a big game, and the war was initially an extension of that, so why get bent out of shape over silly rules and regulations? In fact, most fighter pilots feel some of that, but most also are deadly serious about the business of fighting and killing. After Marseille’s fifth victory in late September, Ihlefeld tore up the evaluation he’d just written and said, “Marseille, you must pull your head out of your ass. You are not alone; this is not the Hans Marseille show.”

In the end Ihlefeld simply didn’t have the time to reform one rogue pilot, so he transferred him to Jagdgeschwader 52 at Peuplingues on the Pas de Calais. For the next three and a half months Marseille flew, was grounded, flew some more, and generally got in trouble. Restricted to his quarters, he didn’t take that to include the town, so he borrowed (stole) his commander’s car and went barhopping. Coming back drunk with two French girls certainly did not endear him to his new commander, Johannes Steinhoff. One could forgive his utter lack of military bearing and even his rebelliousness up to a point, but not his seeming disregard for his fellow pilots. But in studying the man, I don’t think that was truly his attitude. He was a warrior and a loner. The cold fact was that he really didn’t need anyone’s help in the air and was better alone.

Then in late January 1941 a very irate Gestapo major showed up looking for a fighter pilot who fit Marseille’s description.
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Apparently this man had a daughter just home from the university and Marseille “took advantage of her.” It was the final straw.

Herbert Ihlefeld was no lightweight and would survive the war with 132 victories plus the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. Steinhoff would also survive with 176 victories and he too wore the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. These men were true fighter pilots—they just couldn’t afford to babysit an extremely troublesome albeit amazingly skilled aviator. With Operation Sealion postponed and Russia still in the future, North Africa seemed the perfect solution for getting rid of Hans Marseille. In a fit of overconfidence Mussolini, the Italian dictator, had ordered an invasion of Egypt in the fall of 1940. It was actually a shrewd tactical move to attempt to conquer North Africa, and especially the Suez Canal. Such a victory would cut Britain off from the vast resources and wealth of India while giving the Axis direct access to Middle Eastern oil. With control of the Mediterranean Basin, Europe’s southern flank would be secure and a jab straight into the Soviet Union’s belly through the Black Sea very possible. One wonders how different the world would be today if Hitler had turned south after the Battle of Britain instead of east. Fortunately for the Allies, neither Mussolini nor the Italian military was up to the task.

Under the very real threat of invasion in 1940, England was in no position to devote a great deal of resources to either the Mediterranean or North Africa. The Western Desert Force had been thrown together in June following Mussolini’s declaration of war, but it consisted of only 36,000 men and about seventy tanks.
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So when Marshal Rodolfo Graziani advanced east from Italian-controlled Cyrenaica in September, there was little to stop him.

Fearful of a large incursion into Egypt, the 200,000 Italians got just east of Tobruk to Sidi Barrani, and there they stopped on September 16, 1940.
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Graziani then fortified open ground between the coastline and the Libyan Plateau to the south as the British forces withdrew to Mersa-Matruh, farther down the Egyptian coast. The British rightly concluded that success on the ground in North Africa would not be possible as long as the Regia Marina (Italian navy) dominated the Mediterranean Sea. With the German threat to their island somewhat diminished, the offensive-minded British commenced Operation Judgment.

At 10:58 p.m. on November 11 the first of two waves of obsolete Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers attacked the Italian main battle fleet. Sheltered in the 2,600-year-old harbor of Taranto, the Italians had five serviceable battleships, seven heavy cruisers, and ten lighter warships. Nicknamed “Stringbag,” the Swordfish was an open-cockpit biplane that could barely manage 135 mph under ideal conditions and carry a single torpedo or an assortment of bombs.

The Italians believed that the 39-foot-deep harbor was too shallow for aerial torpedoes and they were safe from that sort of attack.
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This was despite the fact that Rear Admiral Bradley Fiske, USN, had proven the effectiveness of aerial torpedoes in 1915.
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The Royal Navy had taken their standard Mark XII 18-inch torpedo and modified the fins so it could be dropped in water as shallow as 24 feet.

And that’s precisely what they did.

By 1:22 a.m. three battleships were severely damaged, and nearly seven hundred Italian sailors were killed or wounded. Despite 15,000 anti-aircraft rounds fired, the British lost two aircraft, two killed, and two captured. The battleship
Conte di Cavour
later sank and although she was raised, she never fought again. In a tactically revolutionary move the British had pulled off the first naval attack conducted entirely by aircraft. The balance of seapower in the Mediterranean shifted, albeit temporarily, forcing the Italians to relocate to Naples. Control of the North African coast was still problematic, but the Royal Navy had shown quite clearly that it still had teeth and was prepared to use them.

Most important, it deprived the Axis of the initiative in this particular theater and permitted a British counteroffensive, which began on December 7, 1940. Italian forward positions east of Sidi Barrani were attacked from the air and shelled by the Royal Navy just off the coast. The 7th Armored Division, which became the legendary “Desert Rats,” hit the Italians hard and shattered their lines. Supported by infantry, British armor made short work of the Maletti Group’s Fiat tankettes and M11/39 battle tanks. Without any mechanized defense, most of the Italian infantry surrendered.

Sidi Barrani fell by December 10, and the Italians fled down the single coast road west toward the Libyan border. Twenty to 30 miles inland, most of the terrain was impassable for vehicles. Supply and support from the sea was vital, so this tug-of-war along the coast road would become normal for much of the desert campaign. Named for the former governor-general of Libya, the Via Balbo was the conduit by which North Africa would be controlled.
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Capturing Fort Capruzzo, the British advance slowed for both supply and strategic reasons.

But by late January, about the time Hans Marseille was involved with the Gestapo major’s daughter, Tobruk surrendered. Derna followed, and on February 7, 1941, the Italian Tenth Army ceased to exist along the coast road south of Benghazi. In a parody of Churchill’s famous Battle of Britain speech, Anthony Eden, the British foreign secretary, quipped, “Never has so much been surrendered by so many to so few.”

In two months the British and Commonwealth forces had pushed the Italians out of Egypt and advanced 500 miles. They’d destroyed about 400 tanks and taken 130,000 prisoners at the cost of 1,600 dead and wounded. To be partially fair to the Italians, it must be remembered that the rank and file weren’t totally committed to the war.

A motley collection of RAF aircraft called the Desert Air Force had been strung together under our old friend “Collie” Collishaw—now Air Commodore Collishaw. With an archaic collection of Gladiators, Lysanders, and Blenheims, his pilots attacked airstrips and strafed anything that moved. There was also a single Hurricane in theater, which Collie moved around, a ploy that convinced Italian intelligence he had a squadron of fighters.

Justifiably doubting the Italians’ ability to fight the British, Hitler had at last intervened and sent one of his best tank commanders to the desert. Arriving four days after the Tenth Army surrendered, Erwin Rommel was to command the newly formed Deutsches Afrikakorps (DAK). He was to be supported by units of Jagdgeschwader 27, including a renegade young flyer who would become one of the greatest fighter pilots of all time, the future “Star of Africa,” Hans-Joachim Marseille.

RECAPTURING TOBRUK WAS
Rommel’s immediate objective. It was far enough forward in Cyrenaica to be an ideal staging area, and its port was as vital to the British as to the Germans. A port meant replacement tanks, fresh troops, and fuel. Above all, it meant fuel, the lifeblood of any mechanized army, and especially so in the desert.

Rommel had retaken Benghazi and was in Derna by April 11. The advance contingent from JG 27 had arrived and by April 15 was setting up facilities in Gazala, about 50 miles up the coast from Tobruk. After fighting in the Battle of Britain, the wing was sent to the Balkans, then Greece. Already approaching their 1,000th victory, JG 27 was a solid mix of experienced and battle-hardened pilots.
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The first
Staffel
of BF 109E’s flew in on the eighteenth and began combat operations the following day.

Marseille reached Gazala on the evening of April 22 and was in combat the next day. Escorting Stukas in the vicinity of Tobruk, he spotted at least two Hurricanes and immediately attacked, sending one down in flames. However, as he turned to kill the wingman, four more enemy fighters swirled into the fur ball. Diving away, he returned to base, refueled and rearmed, and took off again for another mission over Tobruk. First to see targets, he dove into the middle of them without a radio call or a wingman and found three Hurricanes on his tail. This time he wasn’t so lucky—the armored head plate behind him was hit, as were his engine and fuselage. Breaking away, he limped back to base, stinking of oil and glycol, and made a gear-up landing in his shot-up plane.

By this time the British Desert Air Force had been reorganized into the 204 Group under Collishaw’s command. They’d also been reinforced with three squadrons of Hurricanes plus bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Their main purpose was to prevent or disrupt German attacks on the Tobruk garrison and interdict Axis supply lines. Marseille’s earlier kill, his eighth to date, was likely from No. 6 Squadron from Tobruk.
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The Hurricanes that shot him up so badly later were from 73 Squadron, veterans of the Battle for France and the Battle of Britain. Due to the U-boat threat, the aircraft had been brought by ship to the Gold Coast, assembled, and flown to Egypt to oppose the German offensive.
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After three weeks, Rommel knew Tobruk would not be taken through a siege. The Australian 9th Division was too well dug in and too well protected by the RAF and Royal Navy. It was also commanded by Lt. Gen. Leslie Morshead, a schoolteacher turned infantry officer during the Great War. A veteran of Gallipoli and the Western Front, Morshead was nicknamed “Ming the Merciless,” and the Germans discovered why. His stubborn defense forced Rommel into an encirclement that cut the Via Balbo on the Egyptian side but did nothing to prevent support from the sea.

The British launched several badly executed attempts to relieve Tobruk, but they all failed. If Rommel had been reinforced, he likely could’ve taken the harbor, pushed all the way to Cairo, and taken the Suez Canal. But German resources, and Hitler’s priorities, lay thousands of miles to the north as Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia, began on June 22, 1941. This left North Africa in the backwater, at least strategically, but to Hans Marseille it was a battle like any other.

All through that hot summer he worked on two things: perfecting his unique combat techniques and thoroughly pissing off his squadron commander. Asked by a visiting senior officer what he thought of Libya, Marseille answered, “They really should bring some girls here, sort of boring and all that, and not even a
pilstube
[bar] in the area.”

The desert was taking its toll. As a result of dysentery, jaundice, poor food, and stress, Marseille dropped from 150 pounds to 110. Recurring malaria brought fever and chills to the point where he could barely climb into the cockpit. Sent home to recover, he regained his strength and returned at the end of August 1941.

During his absence, the Allies had been reinforced with additional tanks and an influx of Commonwealth fighter squadrons that had converted from Hurricanes to the Curtiss P-40. Called a Warhawk by the Americans, the early export version was known as the Tomahawk.

With no high-altitude bombers to protect, and short engagement distances, air combat in North Africa generally took place below 15,000 feet, and this favored the P-40. Horizontally, it could outturn both the Bf 109E and the Macchi C.202, and it could outdive either opponent. The Tomahawk was also a very stable gun platform, and the later 1942 variant, called a Kittyhawk, carried a lethal punch, with six .50-caliber wing-mounted machine guns. Engine and cockpit armor made it a favorite with pilots, though its roughly 8,000-pound weight and Allison engine gave it a slower rate of climb than the Emil.
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