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Old 02-20-09, 09:59 AM   #19
Dowly
Lucky Jack
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Lindemann, had originally intended to be a pilot and he knew several fellows who later went on to become aces. One of theses was Hans Joachim Marseilles, sometimes known as the 'Star of Afrika'. Marseilles was known as a ladies man and a heavy party boy, even to the point of missing a morning flight by being too hungover to fly. I suppose the Higher ups tolerated it because he brought results on his missions bringing down enemy planes with as few as two or three rounds. He often brought his plane back with multiple kills and left over ammo in the guns. A master of the deflection shot, one of his wing men told a story of him bringing down a Spit V with one single round of cannon in the Spits engine while in a steep turn.
The story Lindemann told me about him was that they were chatting about aircombat during a drunken beach party and Marseille told him he had found a way to turn inside those pesky Spitfires. Marseille said that what he had done was to split the landing gear hydraulic system on his 109 with a pump for each gear. He could then partly drop whichever gear he wanted to in order to turn faster in that direction.

I am certain he knows Carius's exploits, he lent me a couple books on Tiger Aces.
Wasn't Carius SS? I don't remember off the top of my head.
Lindemann seems to have a rather curious attitude toward SS guys. The times he's mentioned them, I get the impression he thinks that they were far too hardcore. People whom it was best to stay away from. He certainly admires the big Tiger aces though.
You know, it kind of feels to me like he regrets not making it out of Afrika and missing the rest of the war. I am pretty sure he would have regretted it if he HAD made it out to rejoin the rest of the Wehrmacht.
I am certain that he still believes that what he was doing was right. He wasn't a fan of the National Socialists and at one point described Hitler as "Crazy as a bedbug!"
Africa was a different kind of war, a 'clean' war if that's possible. Very few civilians were involved. Most of the time troops were out in the middle of nowhere with nothing around for hundreds of miles. Guys depending on each other for their lives everyday for years develope a special cameradery and I think he still misses that. In spite of the blood and death of war I think he still thinks of those times as the best part of his life. It was when he himself had the most impact on the world.
I think he still misses that....

For those guys that asked, unfortunately he never met Von Luck or Knappe or Carius, although he is certainly familiar with them. He has a copy of Von Lucks book he said, so I'm sure he's read it.

Aismov, when I asked about Col. Kriebel, he said yes he met him a few times. As Rommel needed, units were transferred between 15th and 21st Panzer and Lindemann met him a few times at briefings. He said he hadn't read Kriebels book because he hadn't heard about it, but he is going to look for a copy.

His Kreigschule was in fact at Potsdam and afterwards at Doberitz (you German guys don't give any crap about my spelling, I got no umlauts!). What year was Knappe at Potsdam?

Wolf326, when I asked about strafing planes killing tanks, he said he'd never seen any rifle calibre stuff penetrate. He said that they did sweat air attacks though. Planes would spray mg fire around to keep the tanks buttoned up and infantry under cover until the fighter-bombers could drop bombs on 'em. If they were moving, the tankers would just keep moving if they could, the trucks and stuff would catch up later.
When the Brits got the 40mm armed Hurricanes, that really made the tankers sweat. Even if it wouldn't penetrate everything it could certainly break track if the pilots got good hits. (Brit pilots were trained to 'walk' their rounds into a target. It wasted a good bit of ammo though and a lot of pilots didn't like doing it that way.)
He said they really didn't see a lot of enemy air though. The DAK spent a lot of time in the deep desert and you had to find them before you could attack them. When they did get discovered though it meant you were gonna get bombed and strafed just as hard as they could. Then all you could do was wait it out and try to move the unit under the cover of darkness. He did say that their SPAA saved them on more than one occaision. (I have a convoy story that I will relay a bit later.)

HTMD, he said he is from Franconia himself, (is that a county name?) He is still planning on heading home sometime soon, maybe you'll get a chance to meet him yourself!
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