Ulrich Neckel
Ulrich Neckel (born January 23, 1898 in Güstrow ; † May 11, 1928 in Arco ) was a Prussian fighter pilot in World War I and a knight of the Pour le Mérite order .
Life
Neckel was the son of a Mecklenburg manor owner.
When the First World War broke out , he volunteered and in September 1914 joined the Holstein Field Artillery Regiment No. 24 of the Prussian Army . After his basic training he was transferred to the Reserve Field Artillery Regiment No. 65 and transferred to the Eastern Front in January 1915 .
In 1916 he signed up for the air force and completed pilot training at Gotha. After successfully completing his training, Neckel was initially employed with Jagdstaffel 12. In September 1917 he achieved his first aerial victory. On February 28, 1918, he defeated the successful British fighter pilot John McCudden , brother of James McCudden , who, however, managed to make an emergency landing on the Allied side. On April 7, 1918 he was promoted to lieutenant in the reserve . On August 13, 1918 Neckel scored his 28th aerial victory, shooting down the British so-called flying ace Charles Booker with his Sopwith Camel .
On September 1, 1918, Neckel took over the management of Jasta 19, which was stationed in Metz -Frecaty with its black and white striped Fokker D.VII . He achieved his 30th and last victory in the air on November 6th when he and his squadron met the pilots of the 28th (US) Aero Squadron. Neckel crashed a SPAD S.XIII . The pilot, 1st Lt. Ben Brown, survived uninjured and was captured. Neckel received the order Pour le Mérite on November 8, 1918 as the penultimate flight officer of the war, after he had already been awarded both classes of the Iron Cross and the Knight's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords.
After the end of the war and demobilization of his squadron, Neckel was released from military service in January 1919.
In civil life he was initially active as a businessman and later worked as a flight instructor at the later commercial aviation school in Hanover, then in Staaken and finally in Schleissheim near Munich.
Neckel died of tuberculosis in Italy in 1928 after a long illness . He was buried in the Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin .
In his honor, Lufthansa named one of its passenger aircraft ( Junkers Ju 52 D-AGAK) "Ulrich Neckel" in the 1930s .
literature
- Hanns Möller: History of the knights of the order pour le mérite in the world war. Volume II: M-Z. Bernard & Graefe publishing house. Berlin 1935. pp. 80-81.
- Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Christian Zweig: The knights of the order Pour le Mérite of the First World War. Volume 2: HO. Biblio Verlag, Bissendorf 2003, ISBN 3-7648-2516-2 , pp. 499-500.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated December 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) 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.
- ↑ http://www.frontflieger.de/3-nf.html
- ↑ http://www.gerhards-markseite.de/ju52/ju1930er_11.html
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Neckel, Ulrich |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German fighter pilot in the First World War |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 23, 1898 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Guestrow |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 11, 1928 |
| Place of death | Arco (Trentino) |