Donald A. Kuske

This article or section needs to be revised. Details should be given on the talk page. Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

Donald A. Kuske (* 1922 in Green Bay , † June 13, 1944 in Reischach ) was an American fighter pilot with the United States Army Air Forces . He was killed in an aerial battle over Bavaria during World War II when he attempted an emergency landing in his badly damaged fighter . Due to an abrupt evasive maneuver in the last few seconds before the possible impact on a farmhouse - in which there were ten people at the time - his machine overturned and crashed on the ground. In his honor, a memorial cross was erected not far from the crash site in 2010 .

Life

Donald A. Kuske grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin . During the Second World War he served as a pilot in the US Air Force , the United States Army Air Forces. The so-called ID his dog tag was 0-760469. He was used as a fighter pilot in Europe , where in 1944 he was a member of the 71st Fighter Squadron, a unit in the 1st Fighter Group of the 15th Air Force (15th Air Fleet). He flew an interceptor of the type Lockheed P-38J Lightning .

Kuske flew a Lockheed P-38 J interceptor

The 15th Airforce was stationed in Italy and was merged with the 8th Air Force then stationed in England as the United States Strategic Air Forces (USSTAF) in February 1944 . As part of the USSTAF, the P-38 combat aircraft of the 71st Fighter Squadron were used as long-range escorts in June 1944 and secured air raids by bombers on Munich , including on June 13, 1944. After the squadron, including Kuske, with 14 machines from their Italian base Salsola Airfield north of Foggia , it flew together with other fighter units escort for several B24 bomber units. At Velden , around 70 kilometers northeast of Munich, the unit left the bomber and took up a dogfight with the Me 110 and Do 217 fighter aircraft of the German Air Force .

During the aerial battle, Kuske reported the failure of both aircraft engines in his machine due to enemy action. He received fire protection from other aircraft in his unit and was escorted for a short flight distance until he announced his jump by parachute . In fact, an opening parachute west of the Chiemsee was observed by his squadron . Kuske's plane was last seen by his unit near Mühldorf . As a result, Kuske was officially reported missing ("MIA - Missing In Action"). It was suspected that he jumped off with the rescue parachute and possibly came into German captivity . After the end of the war, however, he was not among the freed prisoners of war, so that his fate remained uncertain, especially for his relatives like his parents and his younger sister.

In fact, however, Kuske died on June 13, 1944 when his plane crashed near Reischach, something that was only cleared up several years after the end of the war.

Afterlife and remembrance

Recovery and transfer to the USA

In June 1950, the crash of the P-38J and Kuske's death were clarified and officially confirmed by a search and recovery team from the US Army Air Forces, S&R Team No. 6 (“Search & Recovery”). After speaking with the former mayor of Reischach and the Reischach Land Police Post, the S&R team was able to locate the crash site of a US fighter plane. This was located about 2 kilometers south of Reischach on a meadow near the Ehrnsberg (also Engersberg ) hill , in the immediate vicinity of a single farm. There, on June 13, 1944, the crashing aircraft had bored about 2.5 meters deep into the soft slope. As the investigations also showed, after the crash , German Wehrmacht soldiers only removed parts of the wings and fuselage that were on the meadow in the area of ​​the crash site. However, the wreckage of the plane was not recovered from the crash crater and there was no search for the American pilot. A parachute was not observed in the vicinity of the crash site at the time.

After the S&R team removed numerous aircraft parts such as the propeller blades and other wreckage in the main crater, the team was able to recover the human remains of the pilot who had not survived the crash of the machine. Using the dog tag, the S&R team identified the skeleton as Lt. Donald A. Kuske. At the same time, the location of his P-38J interceptor was officially registered. The bones of Kuske were first transferred to Wiesbaden .

The identification was then applied to the US military cemetery (US Military Cemetery) in Neuville-en-Condroz in Liege ( Belgium confirmed) after among others, the preserved teeth were compared to the dental records of Kuske. The previous missing person case was thus closed and Kuske was officially declared a war dead ("KIA - Killed in Action"), whereby his relatives gained certainty about his death. As a result, Kuske's bones were then transferred by the American Battle Monuments Commission to his home town of Green Bay in the USA . There he found his final resting place in the family grave in Woodlawn Cemetery in Allouez .

Course of the crash

Kuske had obviously tried on 13 June 1944, after the aerial battle with his heavily damaged engine emergency landing . After both engines failed, his fighter was able to cover a certain distance in gliding flight even without a drive . It is believed that because of the damage, Kuske was unable to save himself by getting out of the machine and jumping with his parachute . His emergency landing attempt in a field near Reischach was observed by several eyewitnesses, including a farmer who was making hay in a meadow on Ehrnsberg (Engersberg) .

The US fighter then flew in low-speed with burning engines and approached the isolated farm located there at around 10:30 a.m. In the last few seconds before the possible impact with the building, the aircraft was torn “to the left” by the pilot, overturned and hit a meadow directly next to the courtyard. The plane crashed into the hillside; the pilot, Donald A. Kuske, was killed. At the time of the crash, there were a total of ten German civilians , three women and seven children in the farmhouse . These events were only made public in the post-war period and were recorded in the Reischacher Ortschronik , where it says, among other things:

"... dashed down to the Ehrensbergerhof, at the last moment swung to the southwest just in front of the courtyard, rolled over and hit the nearby meadow with full force like a bomb ..."

- Testimony of the eyewitness : Ortschronik von Reischach

The eyewitness at the time died in 1977.

Processing and commemoration

In 2007 the Reischach local home nurse Alois Stockner (* 1935) began to come to terms with the event. Stockner himself was an eyewitness, at that time as a nine-year-old student in Reischach from the school building he observed the burning aircraft flying past at high speed and with "deafening noise", heard the "thudding impact" and on the same day visited the crash site with fellow students. In 2009 Stockner published an article about his own experiences and the report of the community chronist at the time in the local history series Oettinger Land , which was organized by the Heimatverein Oettinger Heimatland e. V. is published as a reference work for the local history of the Altötting district (see literature). The person of the pilot remained unknown.

The contribution aroused public interest and in his further research Stockner received support from members of the Bayerische Flugzeug-Historiker e. V. in Oberschleißheim , in particular by the then chairman of the association Günter Braun and Josef Eimansberger, project manager for research into plane crashes, and later by the editor Anthony "Tony" Walter of the US daily Bay Green Press-Gazette , who was still in contact with Kuskes in Green Bay living sister, Arlene Peterson, now married. Peterson then completed the processing with personal information about her brother as well as photographs of him. In this way, it became known in Kuske's homeland that he has been the lifesaver of ten people in Reischach in Bavaria since 1944 and that he lost his own life in the process, while in Reischach the person of the pilot who died at the time became known.

As a result, citizens of Reischach decided to document the complete history of the plane crash and to commemorate the pilot. Exactly 66 years after his death, a memorial cross was erected in honor of Lt. on June 13, 2010 not far from the crash site on Ehrnsberg . Kuskes inaugurated. In addition to the initiators, representatives of the US Army Air Forces and the German Air Force , a member of the state parliament and the US consul Kit Traub from the US consulate general in Munich as well as local dignitaries and interested citizens took part in the German-American commemoration . In addition, there were several biological descendants of the people present on the farm at the time, who, according to aircraft historians, lost their lives Lt. Thanks to Kuske. Kuske's sister had sent a personal letter that was read. On the same day, a memorial service for Donald A. Kuske took place in the St. Martin parish church in Reischach .

literature

• Alois Stockner: The plane crash in Ehrnsberg near Reischach in 1944 . In: Oettinger Land, Annual Series 2009, Volume 29 . Ed .: Oettinger Heimatland e. V. , Geiselberger Verlag, Altötting 2009, ISBN 978-3-87245-049-4 .

Web links

• Memorial cross for American aviators on regional television Upper Bavaria (with video stream )
• Memorial cross for Lt. Kuske (KIA 13.06.44) on www.FlugzeugForum.de
• Reischach / Germany: Memorial for Lt. Kuske (KIA June 13th, 1944) unveiled on ArmyAirForces.com (English; with photographs)
• The 15th US Army Air Force in July 1944 on Airpower.at

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Bavarian Aviation Historians: Reischach / Germany: Memorial for Lt. Kuske (KIA June 13th, 1944) unveiled. (No longer available online.) ArmyAirForces.com, June 16, 2010, formerly original ; Retrieved July 20, 2010 (English).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
2. ^ History. (PDF; 446 kB) In: Fact Sheet: Eighth Air Force. 8th Air Force , accessed July 17, 2010 . 
3. ^ ^{A b} Search information for Lt Donald Kuske, WW2 MIA. (No longer available online.) In: 1st Fighter Group WW2 P-38 Missing In Action. www.1stFighter.org, archived from the original on December 3, 2007 ; Retrieved July 17, 2010 (English, see official documents of the 71st Fighter Squadron, such as Mission Report - Pg 1 , Mission Report - Page 2 ). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Tony Walter: WWII memorial honors Green Bay aviator Lt. Donald Kuske. (No longer available online.) Green Bay Press-Gazette, June 15, 2010, formerly original ; Retrieved July 20, 2010 (English).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
5. ^ ^{A b c} Search information for Lt Donald Kuske, WW2 MIA. (No longer available online.) In: 1st Fighter Group WW2 P-38 Missing In Action. www.1stFighter.org, archived from the original on December 3, 2007 ; Retrieved July 18, 2010 (see official documents of S&R Team No. 6 of the US Army Air Forces, such as Recovery Report - Pg 1 , Recovery Report - Page 2 ). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ^ Search information for Lt Donald Kuske, WW2 MIA. (No longer available online.) In: 1st Fighter Group WW2 P-38 Missing In Action. www.1stFighter.org, archived from the original on December 3, 2007 ; Retrieved July 18, 2010 (English, see official document of the USMC in Neuville-en-Condroz: Search & ID Results ). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Missing Air Crew Reports (MACR) s. (No longer available online.) Air Force Historical Studies Office, archived from the original on June 30, 2010 ; Retrieved July 18, 2010 (English, explanations on the procedures of the US Army Air Forces in cases of missing persons). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ ^{a b} Memorial cross for Lt. Kuske (KIA 06/13/44). www.FlugzeugForum.de, June 15, 2010, accessed on July 18, 2010 . 
9. ↑ Alois Stockner: The plane crash in Ehrnsberg in Reischach 1944. In: Series Oettinger Country , Volume 29 Oettinger homeland e. V., 2009, accessed on January 10, 2018 (excerpt as a reading sample on the Altötting district website ).