The English-speaking world knows little of Erbo Graf von Kageneck, the 39th recipient of the Knights Cross with Oakleaves, but Kristen Alexander draws on his wartime letters – here in English for the first time – to highlight the young Jagdflieger’s emotional life and stellar aviation career.
WAR IN THE AIR
On Christmas Eve 1941, over the inhospitable deserts of North Africa, two Royal Australian Air Force pilots engaged a group of enemy fighters in a brief but deadly combat: ‘Yellow One and Two climbed. Four or five Messerschmitt Bf 109s were at 6 o’clock above. The Messerschmitts flew around into the sun and dived. One Bf 109 shot up Yellow Two’s aircraft, striking fuselage, mainplane, elevators, and aileron. Sighting Yellow One, the enemy pilot broke away and climbed. Yellow One gave chase, closed, and delivered a quarter head-on attack, striking the Messerschmitt’s fuselage. Yellow Two also fired. The enemy aircraft briefly pulled away intothe sun then glided down, pouring black smoke. Battle over, Yellow One claimed a probable; Yellow Two verified that it was definitely ‘badly damaged’. ‘ The two Australians had no way of knowing that they had mortally wounded a Luftwaffe Experten.
RHINELAND ARISTOCRACY
Erbo von Kageneck was entranced. Perched on a hill overlooking the town of Wittlich during a family picnic, he watched in wide-eyed silence, enthralled as a flying circus performed aerobatic feats. Loops, spins, barrel rolls. He held his breath as an intrepid wing walker saluted the crowd then jumped, slowly descending by parachute. He uttered not a word, but his youngest brother could see what he was thinking: flying like a bird, risking your life in adventure, the triumph of man over machine. Was there nothing better? Erbo immediately decided he wanted to be a pilot: he would join the fledging Luftwaffe, instituted in 1935. But there was a problem.
The free spirit railed against the strictures of his Jesuit schooling, and he was expelled for rule breaking, including sneaking out to meet girls. Erbo needed to settle down into his new school and study hard to pass the Luftwaffe’s rigorous entrance exams. Daily he was reminded of his goal as aeroplanes from a nearby airfield soared overhead. He passed top of his class, and, after a compulsory six-month stint with
