OT: Balloon Busting Video

As I spend dozens of hours looking for material to be included in the mod i am doing I tend to find amazing stories, biographies, photos, etc. From time to time I find some unique ones, be it rare pics, amazing histories and feats or, as in this case, very rarely, videos.

Hans Marwede Served with Kest 2 prior to being assigned to Jasta 67 in 1918, where he achieved some success against French and American balloons. The German pilot, was credited on Sept 14 with shooting down three balloons in a space of five minutes, at about 4:35 in the afternoon, southwest of Verdun. The last of his kills, which resulted in his fifth victory, was well recorded by the Americans, with a series of dramatic photographs showing the balloon burning and Marwede being shot down by the defending anti-aircraft guns of the 6th US Balloon Company. Marwede was captured, the entire event filmed by an American camera man, the German ending up sitting in a shell hole with a bloodied face from either the gunfire, the cockpit, or the soldiers.

He was the last surviving Luftwaffe fighter pilot from the first World War.

Story was told by well-known author Jon Guttman in his" Balloon buster aces of WW1" published by Osprey.

Marwede´s plane:



Injured Marwede:





His decorations:



Video of the event (turn the music off...)

Nice find, Thank you for sharing!

ArisFuser

Amazing find ArisFuser. How rare that a relatively unknown pilot's history should be captured by chance video recording and that he should end up not only being the last surviving pilot but also having served for the British in WWII.

Awesome find Aris!

Good Stuff, thanks Aris.

Yep, very interesting. Thx, Aris.

Marwede's D-VII spun for a l-o-n-g time! Thanks for posting!