Markus Scheckenbach. Bishop's kill 60 on 30 June 1918. Which Jasta?

Hi,

A distant relative, Markus Scheckenbach, was claimed as kill 60 by Billy Bishop (see the Aces page on this site). I am hoping to be able to track down his unit and maybe figure out his aircraft's markings. Apparently he was flying a Pfalz D.III.

As suggested, by Terry Phillips, I have checked http://patriot.net/~townsend/WW1AirMap/ for 30 June 1918, I see that Jastas:

7, 16, 20, 40 and 43

are within a reasonable distance of the area where he is reported to have gone down.

According to Terry, Markus Scheckenbach is not listed in "The Jasta Pilots" by Franks, Duiven, and Bailey, or any of the related titles.

Is there anyone on this forum that might be able to shed some light on which Jasta Markus Scheckenbach was flying with or any other additional information?

Thanks

Alan Scheckenbach

[rammjaeger]

If nobody can help you here then your only way is to contact some of the at least 180 living people with this name in Germany.

I doubt that any other Internet Forum can be more helpful in this matter than this Forum.

BTW:

Do you have serious prove that Bishop did get him or is it only an assumption?
This question is connected to another question:
Are you sure MS was member of the flying personnel and not a simple ground crew member?

[alex_revell]

The German lists give his rank as Flieger (private) I don't know if privates flew as fighter pilots in the GAAS. Perhaps some of our German experts could help. Some Flieger are given in the casualty lists in The Jasta Pilots, but I'm told that some of these casualties are listed as pilots when in fact they were ground crew who were injured or killed in accidents.
How did you link Scheckenbach with Bishop's 60th victory. The area certainly fits, yet Ed Ferko did extensive research into B's victories and failed to match any with his very extensive German records. I would like to know how he eliminated this one, but sadly Ed is no longer with us, so we will never know.

[rammjaeger]

Alan,

Soldiers (called "Flieger" in the GAF) and Gefreite did fly as pilots in the GAF! Especially in 1917/18 the number of common soldiers - flying as pilots - did increase because of the fast growth of the GAF. Also some class barriers fell and more and more people with a working class background came in to the rows of flying personnel.
Nevertheless the misleading use of the term Flieger in the GAF results always again in mistakes like the assumption these people would have been all "real" aviators.
The famous Oberstleutnant Siegert recalled the misunderstanding of the term Flieger resulted also in many love affairs and pregnancies in Germany which never would have occured without this important misunderstanding.
So the question arises:
Is there any proof that Scheckenbach was a pilot or even fighter pilot?
Or is it an assumption based on the reported loss in COTGAS or a result of claims of researchers who did deal with the "enigmatic" Mr Bishop?

VBR

[frontflieger]

Hi,

the German War Grave Commission http://www.volksbund.de quoates Scheckenbach beeing a 'Fahrer' (driver)... and not a pilot. Cemetary Sailly-sur-la-Lys/ France (Block 8 Grave 39 ).

Thorsten

Frontflieger, Rammjaeger & alex_revell,

Many thanks for your replies. Apologies for the delay in replying. I was travelling for work with no access to the net.

I have only a little additional information on Markus Scheckenbach other than what I came across in the spreadsheet on the Aces page of this website, which is where I got the info on being Bishop's kill 60.

Markus Scheckenbach was born (probably) in Seinsheim on 22 Nov 1898 and died 15 July 1918.

I'm not wedded to the possibility of him being a pilot, it's just that the only mention of him that I've found notes him as a victim of Bishop's guns. The family tree I have makes no additional comments on his death., hence my question on this forum.

Thanks for your replies.

Cherrio

Alan

[Frank_Olynyk]

First, the date you reference should be June 15, 1918. Second, I prepared the list of claims and losses linked on the Billy Bishop page in the list of aces. The list of losses is not a list of Bishop's victims; it is rather a list of all the German aviation deaths on the days when Bishop made claims. You will note that there are 16 names given for June 15, and Bishop did not make 16 claims that day. The idea was to allow those who wanted to match Bishop's claims with German losses to have the available data. I do not remember any one having noted a link between one of his claims and one of the losses.

Frank.

[Taz]

Alan- Rick Duiven's and Dieter Gröschel's list of two seater crews has Markus Scheckenbach listed as a Flieger, but no other info except his death date of 15 June, which you knew, and place of death at Fleurbaix. Nothing on whether he was a pilot or an observer. He is listed in the aviator death list in Unsere Luftstreitkräfte 1914-1918 with the same information and the fact he was born in Seinsheim on 22 November 1898. They definitely thought he was an aviator.

Taz
Terry Phillips

Frank and Terry,

Thank you both for this additional information.

Frank, I regret to say that I only matched dates and locations to come up with the idea that Markus Scheckenbach was Bishop's kill 60. I did not even register the fact that there were 15 others listed for the same day. A salutory lesson of looking at the appently biggest tree and not seeing the forest.

Nevertheless the dates and the locations match, leading to a very tempting conclusion.

Terry,, does that book give any other information about what sort of aircraft?

Otherwise, is it worth writing to any particular archive to ask about his service record?

Cheers and thanks again.

Alan