August 2019 31You really had to see Jochen in
combat to really appreciate his gift. I
really have no idea how he managed
the impossible angles, stalls, and inverted over-
the-top victories, but he always did this even
when greatly outnumbered...Marseille simply
said once that he was “touched by the gods,”
and I told him, “No, you are just touched in the
head.”—Ludwig Franzisket
When Gen. Adolf Galland visited Mar-
seille’s squadron between September 21 and
22, he faced a sign that read, “Welcome to
3./JG 27: The World’s Best Fighter Squadron.”
Although Galland stated this sign refl ected a
rather high level of morale, the inscription
was far from reality in terms of combat
effi ciency. A more appropriate sign would
have been, “Welcome to 3./JG 27: Home
of the World’s Greatest Fighter Pilot.” As a
squadron without Marseille, 3./JG 27 was
clearly “not in the game.”
Following his return from Germany, many
squadron mates remarked that Marseille was
clearly a disillusioned young man. Something
traumatic happened while home on leave,
and an emotionally depleted Marseille
fl ew like a madman with nothing left to
lose. The death of his best friend Hans-
Arnold “Fifi ” Stahlschmidt on September 7
certainly did not help matters. He gave his
all, while the Nazis gladly took everything
he had remaining. All of this fi nally caught
up with him on September 30, when, at
1142, Marseille lay dead on the fl oor of the
Egyptian desert 7 kilometers south of Sidi Abd
El-Rahman, the result of a failed engine and a
fatal bailout attempt.
October 1, 1942–December 31, 1942
Following Marseille’s death, morale dropped
so precipitously that the entire 1. Gruppe was
temporarily withdrawn from Egypt. Following
Marseille’s burial in Derna, Libya, on October
2, the Gruppe fl ew a formation over his
grave, took several days’ rest, and were then
redeployed to Pachino, Sicily, on October 8,
where they fl ew Ju 88 escort missions over
Malta. They returned to North Africa later
that month.
During this three-month period, 1. Gruppe
only brought down 23 airplanes and 3./JG
27 only 3 of those—again, a dismal 2% of
the Wing’s 130. All of this should be seen in
context of the ever-increasing air ascendancy
of the DAF and the arrival of the United
States Army Air Forces in the theater. Both
had a signifi cant impact on all Jagdwaffe
operations in North Africa, but with much
of the Luftwaffe fi ghting spirit clearly lost
following Marseille’s death, Reichsmarschall
Hermann Göring sent a scathing letter to the
fi ghter pilots of North Africa.
During the nearly seven months from
Marseille’s promotion to 3./JG 27 commander
through the end of 1942, fi ve and one-half
months of which he was either on leave or