[QUOTE=SimonCraig1;12123959]No sorry, not Fatty.
I'm looking for a pilot:
Sorry; but I've been good long enough. How about Kurt Student; a WWI Fokker pilot and ace, who later headed the German Paratrooper forces at Crete? Thanks; Ernie P.
Kurt Student (12 May 1890 – 1 July 1978) was a
German Luftwaffe general who fought as a fighter pilot during the
First World War and as the commander of German
Fallschirmjäger (
paratroopers) during the
Second World War. He was convicted of war crimes for his actions in
Crete. He received the
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves (
German:
Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub). The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grade Oak Leaves were awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. He lost the first major airborne operation of WWII, the
Battle for The Hague in May 1940, where he narrowly escaped capture.
Student entered the
Imperial German Army as an officer candidate in 1910 and was commissioned a
lieutenant in March 1911. After serving initially with a light infantry (
Jäger) battalion, he underwent pilot training in 1913. He served from the beginning of World War I until February 1916 with
Feldflieger-Abteilung 17 on the
Galician front, rising to command of the unit on 1 June 1916. On 5 July, he became a charter member of the
Fokker Scourge, when he scored his first confirmed victory, forcing
Nieuport 11 no. 1324 to land behind German lines. Student re-equipped the French plane with a
Spandau machine gun, and seems to have flown it in combat.[SUP]
[2][3][/SUP]
He then switched to the Western Front in aerial units of the
Third Army, including
Jagdstaffel 9 (
Jasta 9), which he commanded from 5 October 1916 – 2 May 1917, when he was wounded. He scored six air-to-air victories over French aircraft between 1916 – 1917, with two coming after his wound. He left
Jasta 9 on 14 March 1918.[SUP]
[4][/SUP]
During the interwar period, Student tried to keep German military aviation from becoming technologically obsolete, since, under the
Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forbidden to maintain an air force. In the immediate post-war years, he was assigned to military research and development. He became involved in
military gliders, since gliding was not forbidden by the treaty. He also attended the
Red Army Air Forces maneuvres, where he first came in contact with the idea of
airborne operations.
After
Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, the
Luftwaffe was secretly reestablished. Student transferred from the Army to the
Luftwaffe and was appointed by
Hermann Göring to be the head of its training schools, a position which became official when the
Treaty of Versailles was renounced in 1935. In July 1938, he was named commander of airborne and air-landing troops, and in September commanding general of the
7. Flieger-Division, Germany's first
Fallschirmjäger division.
In January 1941, Student was named commanding general of the
XI. Fliegerkorps, the newly formed command for the expanding German airborne forces. In this capacity, Student directed Operation Mercury (
Unternehmen Merkur), the
airborne invasion of the island of Crete in May 1941. In January 1941, he is known to have proposed a similar operation in
Northern Ireland along the same lines of
Plan Kathleen, at the time Göring told him that his focus should be on the airborne conquest of
Gibraltar via
Operation Felix.[SUP][
citation needed][/SUP] Crete was taken, but the high casualties caused Hitler to forbid future airborne operations. Acting as the temporary commander of the island, immediately after the surrender of Crete on 31 May 1941, on Göring's order Student issued an order for a launching of a wave of brutal
reprisals against the local population with the
Massacre of Kondomari and the
Razing of Kandanos being typical examples.