HiRez Me109 F2 Trop   Wk Nr9683  Jg27 Qasaba Nth Africa 1942
Hans-Joachim Marseilles:

He enlisted  at 18 and a half years old, by 22 he was dead.
He was present during the Battle of Britain, under the command of Johannes 'Macky' Steinhoff where although he shot down approximately 7 EA, he was only credited with 3 kills, and had to bail out 6 times himself, not a record that held any indications of the career to come.

He was a unique character who would have, in any other time, been called a "Bohemian" or a "Hippy" due to his long hair and 'social' lifestyle.

His 'Best day' and 'Worst day' both came at the same time, on the 1st of September 1942. 
It was on this day, that his Father, a military General, was killed at Stalingrad, while the son was flying at 'the battle of El Halfa' sometimes known as 'The Stalingrad of the Desert'.

It was this day that Marseilles, during the course of the day, alone accounted for SEVENTEEN enemy aircraft, a feat almost unmatched in the history of aerial warfare. 

On his first sortie of three that day,  his squadron was escorting Stukas at 0750 hours to their target south of Imayid. They were intercepted by a flight of 10 Kittyhawks, during the ensuing dogfight, Marseilles shot dow four enemy fighters within 13 minutes, before the devastated enemy withdrew. Just as they were exiting the area another flight, this time six spitfire MkV's. 
Marseilles found himself alone against the spitfires with just his long suffering wingman, Reiner Poettgen for support.
The Spitfires made an unsuccessful firing pass and in seconds Marseilles was 80metres from the tail of the last spitfire, with a 1 second burst he took out the hapless aircraft before they made their escape. 
After landing his armourer replaced the 20 ROUNDS OF CANNON SHELLS and 60 ROUNDS OF MG that he had used!!

Not more than 1 hour later, at 1020 hours, his squadron was escorting yet another flight of Ju87's to their target.  En route they encountered 2 flights of 15 bombers each along with 2 escort flights of 25 Kittyhawks each. A flight of 7 Kittyhawks was despatched to meet the attacking Marseilles, he shot ALL of them down, the last one at 1103 hours, while truning to return to base, he spotted another, down low and trailing smoke, he shot this down too. That made for a total of 8 P40's in 10 minutes. 
Timing recorded by his wingman for these kills was as follows: 10:55, 10:56, 10:58, 10:59, 11:01, 11:02, 11:03 and 11:05.

At 1700 hours the squadron took off for their third mission of the day, escorting a flight of Ju88's to Imayid, they were bounced by a flight of 15 P40 Kittyhawks. Marseilles personally accounted for five more during this mission for a total of SEVENTEEN kills this day. 

A feat that was only bettered once, by Major Emil 'Bully' Lang (173 kills, 25 against RAF) on the eastern front who was credited with 18 kills. No other airman has even come close to Marseilles efforts against the RAF.

This skin was completed in January of 2003, and has been waiting for the availability of a trop filter, which had been made by FreddyB. Thanks go to him for making it, and also for sharing it with me, otherwise I would still have been waiting, Thanks Freddy!

Thanks also to Mr. Johnson. for the original HR Messerschmitt 109, the first HR Me109 to be made, which paved the way for a great improvement in the game. Thank you.

Thanks also to Llv42_Doc_1 for the enourmous amounts of reference material he supplied me with during the making of this skin.

