This day, 19 September 1942 a rather curious episode occurred at Fuka involving 4° Stormo. Its pilots received the welcome visit of newly promoted Hauptmann Hans-Joachim Marseille. " The Star of Africa" at that time a very popular person among Axis airmen.

By this time he had amassed a total of 150 abschusse and had been decorated with the Knight's Cross with swords and diamonds and the Italian Gold Medal for Military Valor. However by this time Marseille was completely exhausted due to the hectic pace of the aerial battles, on the verge of collapsing, he could no longer sleep or eat and as a consequence his health quickly deteriorated.

Arriving at the Italian base he was greeted by Tenant colonnello Armando François, an biplane fighter ace and the Stormo's commander, and then Marseille asked for a test flight in an MC.202. François called Tenente Emanuele Annoni, the CO of 96° Squadriglia who gave Hans-Joachim his own mount, the "96-10".

While sitting in the cockpit Annoni was providing him with a short description of the flight controls, which differed, in some way, from those of the Bf 109. Marseille took off and did some maneuvers over the airfield; when ready to land, he lowered the undercarriage but in so doing inadvertently accidentally shut down the engine, forgetting that the movement of the throttle in Italian aircraft was opposite to that of an Messerschmitt.

Marseille reacted rapidly by retracting the wheels and proceeding to belly-land. Thereby his test-flight ended insultingly, with the Macchi of Annoni sustained serious damage. Luckily Hans-Joachim Marseille walk away from the incident without a scratch.

In hindsight perhaps the fact the he wasn't injured in this belly-landing sealed his fate, as on 30 september, 11 days later, Marseille was killed in a flying accident, when he was forced to abandon his Bf 109 G-2 due to engine failure. After he exited the smoke-filled cockpit, Marseille's chest struck the vertical stabilizer of his aircraft and he fell to his death.

A personal comment, meetings with Luftwaffe fighter aces some of them told me that being seriously injured in a accident or in combat, followed by lengthy hospitalization period enable them to survive the war. This was by others the words of Hauptmann Alfred Grislawski who consider himself to be one of those "lucky" Jagdwaffe pilots.

Please note that this Breda produced C.202 Series III was painted in the overall dark Green "Verde Mimetico 2" and with desert color blotches of "Giallo Mimetico 3". Perhaps not a perticular appropriate desert camouflage.

During this week I manage to make six additional aircraft profiles. This Hans-Joachim Marseille profile is one of them, it is in fact the nitnth fighter flown by him that I have made into a profile. It would of cause be included in one of my upcoming profile book.