Hi,
This may be long shot…
I have this book on the Messerschmitt 109 from the Ballantine’s Illustrated History of World War II series. The title back in 1968 was “Me 109: Willy Messerschmitt’s peerless fighter” and the author was Martin Caidin.
In an assesment of German aces, he writes:
“Mölders, Wick and Marseille…
Once upon a time, a young German ace (whose name shall not be mentioned, except that he was one of the 3 stars mentionned above) came back from a fight against Spitires above the Channel and claimed 3 Spitfires shot down. The groundcrew noticed that his guns hadn’t been fired and that all the ammunition was still in the aircraft. The story spread through the Luftwaffe and allthough his score went up, he was soon given a desk job.”
Which one of the 3 would Martin Caidin had in mind?
All 3 died in the war, it could not have been Marseille (he died in a fying accident before he was ever given desk job), I would be highly surprised if it was Mölders who seems to have been held in high esteem and even has todays JG74 named after him) and Wick died in combat just as the papers withdrawing him from the front as “too valulable to lose” arrived.
Could the story itself be spurious? I would remember to fire the guns if I was going to make a false claim. 😉
Best regards, Transall.
By: nitramMkII - 31st August 2003 at 15:17
You would have to be really foolish to make a claim without firing a shot, you cannot really miss the vibration and the lack of tracer would be a dead give away.
Suggest that this is another of Mr Caidin’s tall stories
Though I do have reservations about some of Marseilles’ claims in the desert with remarkably low numbers of rounds fired/claim
Nitram
By: PipsPriller - 31st August 2003 at 00:09
Caidin was probably referring to Helmut Wick, the leading LW scorer of the Battle Of Britain. There have been rumours floating around for years that many of Wicks claims were questionable. But as with most things there has never been any proof that this was so. And his contemporarys were adamant that Wick’s claims were no more fictional than any other LW ace. And he was given as desk job, when he took over control of JG2. He continued to fly often though. He was shot down and killed by Flt. Lt. J C Dundas (609 Squad) on 28 November 1940.
Martin Caidin was quite a prolific, exciting aviation writer, but not always strong on historical research.
By: Transall - 30th August 2003 at 18:55
Thanks for the link, Mark.
He must have been quite a character.
Cheers, Transall.
By: Mark12 - 30th August 2003 at 16:45
Martin Caidin:
He is no longer with us.
I flew with him in Connie Edwards’ Catalina – quite a pair!
Mark
By: Transall - 30th August 2003 at 16:11
Thanks for the insight , Firebird.
But the desk job papers for Wick had just arrived, so maybe…
Is anything known about the author Martin Caidin?
By: Firebird - 30th August 2003 at 16:02
You answered your own question really, in that, by deduction, he must have been refering to Molders, as he was the only one of the three given a ‘desk job’.
But don’t forget, Molders left the channel front to go east for the start of the invasion of Russia in July 1941, and spent almost 5 months adding to his score there, before dying in the He111 crash on the way to Udet’s funeral in Nov 1941. So, hardly what you’d call ‘given a desk job soon after’…….
I would guess it’s spurious, and could posssibly have come from the pro-Nazi circles within the Luftwaffe, given Molders anti-Nazi stance on occasions. Don’t forget, in the late sixties you were only talking about events of just over 20 years before……
Still, interesting what turns up in ‘older’ written and oft forgotten writings…….
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August 30, 2003 at 10:46 am