Hans-Joachim Marseille place of burial Libya
"The pilot lay on his stomach as if asleep. His arms were hidden beneath his body. As I came closer, I saw a pool of blood that had issued from the side of his crushed skull; brain matter was exposed. I then noticed the awful wound above the hip. With certainty this could not have come from the fall. The pilot must have been slammed into the airplane when bailing out. I carefully turned the dead pilot over onto his back. opened the zipper of his flight jacket, saw the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords (Marseille never actually received the Diamonds personally) and I knew immediately who this was. The paybook also told me. I glanced at the dead man's watch. It had stopped at 11:42."
Oberleutnant Ludwig Franzisket collected the body from the desert. Marseille lay in state in the Staffel sick bay, his comrades coming to pay their respects throughout the day. Marseille's funeral took place on 1 October 1942 at the Heroes Cemetery in Derna with Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring and Eduard Neumann delivering a eulogy. Marseille was succeeded by Oberleutnant Jost Schlang as Staffelkapitän of 3. Staffel.
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