Albert Schlegel comes home
USAFRetired sends us a link to the news that Captain Albert Schlegel is coming home. Hondo told us last year that his earthly remains had been identified by DPAA.
The ace of Cleveland, Ohio.
He was a local legend who had been declared killed in action in 1944 after flying a mission over France. He was 25 when he died.
Schlegel will be buried with full military honors in Beaufort National Cemetery at the end of March. The ceremony was organized by the only living family member to remember Schlegel — his nephew, Perry Nuhn.
Nuhn, 84, lives on Callawassie Island and is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and decorated pilot.
You’ll notice in the picture above, Schlegel is wearing two sets of aviator wings, that’s because he joined the Canadian Royal Air Force before the US entered WWII and then transferred to the US Air Corps when they went to war. He had 15 kills as an air ace.
On Aug. 28, 1944, Schlegel was flying with his squadron over Strasbourg, France, on a mission to strafe German trucks, trains and oil on the ground. The weather was poor, and the P-51D flew low.
Schlegel radioed that he had been hit by anti-aircraft fire and disappeared into the clouds.
Back home, his family received a series of notices: missing in action in 1944; killed in action in 1945; body unrecoverable in 1949.
[…]
Along with the car crash injuries, pictures of Schlegel’s skull show a bullet hole in the top of the head and a large exit wound in the back.
Witnesses had reported seeing an American seated in a car with several Germans headed toward a train station on the evening Schlegel went missing.
Another witness later reported hearing two gunshots behind the station about dusk, according to the report from the federal agency.
[…]
The remains showed evidence of a beating.
After taking flak, freeing the bubble canopy of the P-51D and parachuting to the ground, Schlegel had apparently been captured and executed.
He’ll be laid to rest in Beaufort National Cemetery, South Carolina on March 30 after three days of ceremony;
His casket will arrive in Savannah on March 27 and be transferred to Nuhn during a short ceremony by an Air Force Honor Guard.
A set of Schlegel’s medals recommissioned for his burial and an Army uniform will go to the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in Pooler.
A memorial service at the museum March 29 will end with a flyover of four F-15s from Schlegel’s 335th Fighter Squadron out of Goldsboro, N.C. The jets will form the “missing man” formation, with one aircraft peeling off in the fallen pilot’s memory.
“They are tremendously proud of their aces,” said retired U.S. Air Force Col. Jack Berry, who lives in Goldsboro, worked for Nuhn at the Pentagon and helped facilitate the flyover.
Category: We Remember
RIP, Captain.
Nazi bastards. The man was doing his job as a combatant, and was captured, became a POW, and was then beaten and murdered, in direct violation of the Protocols of the Geneva Convention.
RIP Captain Schlegel. May the Angels of His Mercy bring solace to all his family and friends.
May his memory be a blessing.
Catch the tailwind, CPT Schlegel.
Welcome Home, Fallen Warrior, Rest In Peace. You’ve earned your rightful place in History and Valhalla and may eternal damnation be the sentence for those who murdered you in cold blood, may the day they were born be erased from the calendar.
Welcome home, Brother.
I actually passed by Beaufort National Cemetery on Wednesday-I was on my way to Parris Island to teach a class for the company I work for. It seemed a very pleasant place and the roar of jets from the Air Wing at the Marine Air Station can be heard on a regular basis-that seems an appropriate place for a man like CPT Schlegel.
RIP Captain. Welcome home.
God bless the DPAA. There must be some serious unsung heroes there.
And welcome home, Sir. RIP.
Welcome home, Captain. Rest in peace now.
MCAS Beaufort has a sign at the entrance that states “The noise you hear is the sound of freedom” The Beaufort National Cemetery is a suitable place for the good Captain. He can join the Great Santini who was buried there twice, once in a movie and then years later when the Colonel passed away in real life.
As a Marine brat growing up I call Beaufort my home town, even though I live elsewhere these days. But why not, both my mother and father are buried side by side in the aforementioned National Cemetery
http://www.americanairmuseum.com/person/3611
RIP Sir.
Your mission is accomplished.
Well done.
Forever Honored, Never Forgotten, GREATEST of Thanks. Rest in Peace sir. Kraut bastards got theirs in the end no doubt.