Fallen Ace
Death of a German Air Ace
at
Hawstead, Suffolk.
Ending-September 1943
In the cockpit of his 85 Squadron Mosquito night fighter, Flight Lieutenant G C Houghton peered
into the dark. After a long chase his radar operator, Pilot Officer A G Patston, had guided them
within visual range of an unidentified aircraft approaching the East coast. It was Monday, 6th
September 1943 just after 9.30 pm when Houghton detected a faint yellowish blue crescent ahead
- the exhaust of an aircraft.
Concentrating intently on the glowing exhaust Houghton edged closer, struggling to positively
identify the vague, dark shape in the black sky. Just as he was sure the other aircraft was an
enemy Focke Wulf 190 single engined fighter bomber a brilliant light, shining through a gap in the
cloud layer below, blinded him and his radar operator causing them to lose sight of their target.
They had been dazzled by a friendly searchlight at a critical moment. Though they resumed
searching it was futile, the enemy had gone.
Despairingly Houghton called control to inform them “The candles have mucked it up”.
Compounding his disappointment he then heard his 85 Squadron colleague, Squadron Leader G L
Howitt call on the radio to report a kill off the east coast near Clacton, another Focke Wulf 190 that
Howitt, and his operator Flying Officer G N Irving, shot down and left burning on the sea.
Meanwhile, in his parents home at Grove Cottages near Hawstead, Suffolk teenager Alan Copping
was playing cards while looking after his younger siblings. At about a quarter to ten Alan was
startled by a terrific roar right over the house followed a moment later by a loud bang then an
enormous explosion in the fields behind. In a neighbouring cottage 13 year old Don Marriott had
just got into bed when he was also startled by the sudden frightening roar of a plane low overhead.
Don’s sister later told him the plane was so low she was sure it had dragged something across
their roof as it passed. Recovering from their shock and surprise Alan and Don rushed to the back
windows of their cottages. There was a big fire raging in the fields where an aircraft had crashed
and exploded with awful violence.
News of the crashed enemy aircraft in Suffolk soon reached West Malling airfield in Kent where a
frustrated Houghton and Patston landed at 11.25 pm. Clearly the aircraft at Hawstead was not the
one shot down into the sea off Clacton by Squadron Leader Howitt and Pilot Officer Irving, could it
have been the one stalked by Houghton and Patston?
Howitt and Irving had noted precisely the time their victim crashed, four minutes to ten, they also
reported that as they were manoeuvring into position they saw a faint flash on the horizon as if a
bomb had exploded somewhere in the distance. The flash seen by Howitt and Irving roughly
coincided with the time the aircraft crashed and exploded at Hawstead, more tellingly it also
corresponded with the time Houghton and Patston had been dazzled by searchlights and lost the
Focke Wulf 190 they were stalking.
Lieutenant Carruthers, the Searchlight Liaison Officer with 85 Squadron, made enquiries and
established that Flt Lt Houghton had been engaged by searchlights in the Ipswich area of Suffolk
not far from Hawstead. Houghton meanwhile felt that the pilot of the Fw 190 he was closing on saw
him in the searchlights, panicked and took such violent evasive action that he lost control in the
dark and cloud and crashed. Subsequently Flight Lieutenant Houghton and Pilot Officer Patston
claimed a kill on the basis that the enemy aircraft they engaged crashed as a result of evasive
action taken to get clear of the Mosquito.
The suggestion by Houghton that the enemy pilot panicked and lost control before crashing at
Hawstead raises a rhetorical question, if he panicked on seeing the Mosquito why didn’t he
immediately jettison the heavy bomb his aircraft was carrying to make his machine lighter and
more agile? The aircraft that crashed at Hawstead was still carrying its bomb, which suggests the
pilot may not have panicked as Houghton believed.
In their cottages near Hawstead Alan and Don couldn’t know as they stared out of their windows at
the conflagration outside that they were looking at the funeral pyre of one of the Luftwaffe’s leading
pilots, because the Focke Wulf 190 which had crashed was flown by Hauptmann (Captain) Kurt
Geisler, a veteran of the German campaigns in Crete and Russia. Geisler had flown more than 300
combat missions and been awarded one of Germany’s highest awards for gallantry, the Knights
Cross of the Iron Cross, just months earlier after leading a daring rescue mission to evacuate 2000
troops that had become cut off and trapped behind Soviet lines.
Begining - Hauptmann Kurt Geisler.
Kurt Karl Geisler was born in Hennersdorf, Germany on 28th January 1914, at the time of his death
on 6th September 1943 he was 29 years old, a fact that would ultimately prove crucial to
identifying him in 2007 decades after he was killed at Hawstead and buried as an unknown
German airman.
By 1941 Geisler was married and flying unarmed Junkers 52 transport aircraft. In May 1941 he
took part in Operation Mercury, the airborne invasion of Crete. By December 1942 he had been
promoted and was commanding a Luftwaffe Transport Group on the Russian front ferrying supplies
and equipment to German troops.
At the end of 1942 a force of some 2000 German servicemen charged with holding the town of
Kantemirova on the river Don found themselves encircled by Soviet forces. Using a small airfield
within the perimeter of the unit Geisler and his men managed to keep the trapped soldiers supplied
for four weeks, but their situation became hopeless.
A break out was deemed impossible. Instead Geisler was ordered to try and evacuate the men.
Under fire in dreadful weather conditions he led a succession of rescue flights over the course of
three nights and saved 1,957 men. It was a remarkable feat leading to the immediate award of the
Knights Cross of the Iron Cross.
After his return from the Russian front Geisler was transferred to the west and joined a special unit,
Schnellkampfgeschwader 10, Fast Bomber Group 10 (SKG10), which used state of the art
equipment to fly daring solo night missions against targets in England.
Schnellkampfgeschwader 10 and the Focke Wulf 190A5/U8.
The night he died Hauptmann Geisler was flying a soot black coloured Focke Wulf 190A5/U8,
number 840096, yellow 1 of 3 staffel SKG10. For night operations the day fighter camouflage,
national and unit markings on the aircraft had been roughly overpainted with black distemper.
The A5/U8 version of the feared and versatile Focke Wulf was a fighter bomber able to carry two
drop tanks for longer range and a 250 kilogram bomb. As a trade off for the extra fuel and bomb
the fighters normal armament had been reduced to two wing mounted heavy machine guns, the
machine relying on speed and manoeuvrability rather than fire power for defence.
In the summer and autumn of 1943 SKG10 flew day fighter and day and night intruder missions,
Geisler being one of a small number of very experienced Luftwaffe officers drafted in to improve
the units night flying capability.
On 6th September ten aircraft from SKG10 were dispatched on fighter bomber missions in the
Cambridge area, two failed to return - Geislers machine which crashed at Hawstead and the
aircraft of 22 year old non commissioned officer Hans Breier who was shot down off Clacton by
Squadron Leader Howitt and Pilot Officer Irving.
Aftermath at Hawstead.
First on the scene of the crash at Hawstead was local farmer Mr Maddevar with his son, a member
of the local Home Guard, and an employee, Mr Ramsbottom. Shortly afterwards Mr Maddevar told
a journalist what happened:
“I heard the plane approaching but could not see it, the engine however was labouring. Suddenly I
saw a red glare and the machine burst into flames in the air. The pilot glided down then there was
a terrific explosion, another explosion followed and a lot of coloured lights went up. There were
pieces everywhere. We looked around and saw there were no survivors and nothing we could do
so we informed the Police.”
The plane had crashed at Fyletts Farm, beside a small copse around a brook known locally as the
gull, the bomb it was carrying was thrown clear and exploded in an adjoining field causing a large
crater that was not filled in for many years. The blast from the bomb was so great it damaged
Brook Cottage some distance away in Bell’s Lane, luckily there were no civilian casualties.
The crash site was a scene of complete devastation, terrifying to those on the scene as
ammunition and flares exploded in the fierce post impact fire. It was like an eerie vision from
Dante’s Inferno. So complete was the destruction of the aircraft that at first the authorities were
unsure what type was involved and how many crewmen they were looking for.
Ted Cooper from Horringer was a 16 year old dispatch rider with the National Fire Service who was
sent to guide a fire engine to the site from Bury St Edmunds. On arrival he was ordered to join the
search for the crew of the crashed plane. After searching around the gull for some time Ted was
told to stop as the authorities had established the aircraft was a single seater and the remains of
the pilot had been found.
The unfortunate Karl Geisler had been blown to pieces, his torso, still in the shreds of his burning
uniform, was hanging by his parachute harness in an Elm tree, it was a tragic sight. To Pamela
Grimwood and her family who lived at nearby Copdoe’s Farm the tree became known for ever
afterwards as the “the Germans tree.”
William Nunn was a wartime special constable who saw the pilot’s burning body in the tree but
couldn’t approach it immediately because a bandolier of ammunition for the man’s sidearm was
exploding in the heat.
Home Guard Percy Mason eventually helped retrieve the pilot’s remains. Later he told his family
that he had found the man’s “pay packet” and handed it to the authorities. Percy also said that the
pilot was a “nice looking man” and an “ace pilot” suggesting perhaps that the pay packet he found
included a photograph and some other details someone was able to translate. Immediately after
the crash the rumour started circulating locally that some insignia had been found showing that the
pilot was high ranking, though no further information about the insignia has ever come to light.
It may well be significant that Percy described what he found as a pay packet because a document
known as a pay book including a photograph was the main form of identity used by the German
military at the time, though it was often exchanged for a more basic identity card containing less
information immediately before an operational flight. Subsequently however the document Percy
found and handed in disappeared, resulting in a decades long mystery over the identity of the pilot.
By the following morning experts from the RAF’s Air Intelligence team had arrived to examine the
wreckage, but there was little they could glean from the burnt and smashed remains other than that
the aircraft had been a Focke Wulf 190, that it had carried a large bomb that had ricochetted into
another field before exploding and, as the team were evidently unaware of the paybook found the
night before, that the pilot who had been killed was unidentifiable. The intelligence team submitted
a very brief report that stated:
‘Eye witnesses first saw the machine on fire flying in a westerly direction. Shortly afterwards the
fuel tank exploded and the aircraft disintegrated in mid air. One 500 kilogram bomb was carried
and it continued for some distance after the main wreckage struck the ground before exploding.
From examination of the wreckage it was not possible to determine the cause of the fire.’
Given the normal operational payload of a Focke Wulf 190 it is likely that a 250 kilogram rather
than a 500 kilogram bomb was carried by Geisler’s aircraft. The cause of the fire reported by eye
witnesses as the aircraft approached remains a mystery as Houghton and Patston didn’t open fire
on the aircraft they engaged and no anti-aircraft guns claimed an aircraft shot down in the area.
In the days after the crash scores of people from the local neighbourhood visited the site. Don
Marriott went, so did his brother Pat with another friend Gerald Ramsbottom. Alan Copping also
viewed the scene of devastation and saw something remarkable that other witnesses also recalled,
hanging in the hedge by the gull were the recognisable remains of a small dachsund dog. The
body had been blown out but the skin, head, legs and tail were clearly identifiable. No-one knew
anyone in the village who had such a dog so locals believed it must have been in the aircraft with
the pilot.
Colin Rose was a pupil at Hawstead school who visited with his parents the evening after the crash
when he was told graphic details about the pilot’s body hanging in a blood soaked elm tree. Peter
Hunt cycled over from High Green, Nowton to look for a souvenir and went home with a piece with
‘Fw190’ stamped on it.
Souveniring was rife once the RAF experts had picked over the wreckage and gone. The guards
left at the site didn’t seem to care. Alan Copping was “green with envy” when another lad
discovered a Luger pistol and spirited it away. A few days afterwards however the local police
toured the area to try and retrieve some of the items removed from the site.
Some villagers, including Colin Rose’ mother, were disturbed at the cavalier, even disrespectful
way, the authorities handled the dead airman’s remains. Laughing, one military driver was seen to
deliberately reverse his lorry over the collected body parts before they were taken away for burial.
The pilot was an enemy but he was also someone’s son and some of the villagers had relatives in
the armed forces themselves, if they were killed they hoped they would be treated with more
respect.
After the military left, parts of the aircraft were still strewn around the site together with other
sadder remains which Percy Mason quietly collected and secretly buried.
Meanwhile, in Germany Kurt Geisler’s family were informed that he had failed to return from an
operational flight and was missing. His fate was not officially resolved until 2007.
Burial As An Unknown Soldier.
The body of the airman from Hawstead defied identification. All that could be recorded when he
was interred at the Borough Cemetary, Kings Road, Bury St Edmunds on 10th September 1943
was that he was an unknown German airman aged about 30 years.
After the war the German authorities arranged to exhume most of their fallen men from cemeteries
around the United Kingdom and re-bury them at a centralised German military cemetary at
Cannock Chase, Staffordshire.
The remains of the pilot from Hawstead were exhumed on 22nd November 1962 when the casket
was opened and the contents examined. The grave contained a few smashed bones which did not
constitute a full skeleton that could be measured, parts of a uniform and pieces of a parachute.
The authorities were able to deduce from an examination of the bones that the airman was about
30 years old.
The remains were re-interred in block 1 row 12 grave 465 at Cannock Chase Military Cemetary,
still as an “unknown” German airman.
Identification
In 2007 the German Wargraves Commission reassessed the case and accepted that the unknown
airman from Hawstead was Hauptmann Kurt Geisler of SKG10 who had failed to return on 6th
September 1943. Luftwaffe records showed that only two Focke Wulf 190’s had been lost on the
night of 6th September, Hauptmann Geisler’s aircraft and that of a non commissioned officer, Hans
Breier also of SKG10. Breier however was aged 22 whereas it was apparent from contemporary
records and examination of the contents of the casket in 1962 that the pilot of the Hawstead
aircraft was older, around 30 years of age - Kurt Geisler was 29 years old. It was sufficient
evidence for the German Wargraves Commission to conclude that Kurt Karl Geisler was the
unidentified airman buried at Cannock Chase after crashing at Hawstead in 1943.
Tailpiece.
Accounts about a small pet dog in the aircraft with Geisler seem far fetched, but there is more than
one similar account, plus......
Squadron Leader Ron Noble a flight commander with 607 Spitfire Squadron in Burma in 1944
acquired a pet mongoose in Calcutta called “Nellie” which became his constant companion, he
took her flying in a camera case he had modified. At height she would pass out through lack of
oxygen, but always made a swift recovery. A small dachshund would be roughly the same size
and weight as a large mongoose, so, though the story seems outlandish perhaps there is
something in it.
Robin Hill 2020.
Note: Warplanes of the Third Reich states that an Fw190A5 could carry a 250kg bomb, it doesn’t
mention a 500kg bomb. However, the internet says that some versions of the Focke Wulf could
carry a 500kg weapon.