Photo: archiv autora

HISTORY

Wijnendale (Wynendaele) castle which at the beginning of 1918 served as comfortable accommodation for Jasta 7 pilots.

memoirs as he, according to his own words, finally forced his inexperienced opponent to land on

the German side of the frontline. So the situation

from December 12th repeated itself.

“As was our custom, we sent a car to pick him up

and bring him to our airfield, where, in courteous

fashion, he could spend the day with us as an honored guest.”

It turned out that the pilot was the aforementioned, twenty years old Sub-Lieutenant Hubert St.

John Edgerley Youens. His youthful look was a bit

spoiled by the bloodied nose and black eyes suffered during the hard landing. Degelow went to

pick his victim up personally and as he recalled

during the ride to the German airfield, and then

to the castle Wijnendale, the pilots’ lodging, the

British young man was rather depressed. However, in the castle’s colorful environment and

after hot soup and glass of wine he relaxed and

with more glasses of wine the lively conversation

developed.

“My knowledge of English, which I had improved

while in America a few years before the war, and

a frequent Pröstichen! (Cheers!) appeared to help

him forget the sorrow of defeat. The candles were

lit and soon no one could tell whether we were

Photo: archiv Simona Youense

Photo: archiv Simona Youense

Victory! Or not?

“We were patrolling the area over Houthulst Forest, the scene of many, many aerial combats.

On this day, however, the weather was not very

welcoming as clouds and haze lowered the visibility. For this reason, the watchword from our

flight leader was: ‘Keep a sharp look out!’ We had

already cruised over the ‘required’ sector of the

Front and were on our way home when, from out

of the sun, a flight of British Sopwith Camels suddenly pounced on us. A number of individual duels soon developed, and I found myself engaged

with a fellow who had caught me by surprise. This

pilot, who did not seem too well acquainted with

the location of the frontlines, belonged, as we later learned, to a group of Dunkirk-based fighter

pilots whom we called the ‘Armstrong Boarding

School’. The fellows were all young and inexperienced, having just arrived from England. To

gain frontline experience, they were assigned to

various sectors of the Front and indoctrinated in

the manner of an English boarding school, hence

the name we gave the group. They were always

welcome adversaries, as their lack of experience

allowed us to trick them into situations that made

them easy prey for us,” recalls Degelow in his

in a German Kasino or an English club. After the

meal, our guest seemed at ease and a few shots

of whisky completed the task of loosening his

tongue. Mr. Youens then declared to us that he

was musically inclined and performed fairly well

on the violin. So, we had a violinist – but no violin.

Just then, the cook, who had been following the

conversation through the half open door, suddenly shouted that Monteur (mechanic) Schmitz

had brought back a violin when he returned from

leave. ‘Let’s have it,’ I said and this ‘Stradivarius’

was brought forth. It was in relatively good condition, except that it lacked an A string. ‘Never

mind,’ said Tommy. ‘I have one right here.’ With

that, he drew from his wallet at least two complete sets of strings for his favorite instrument.

It seems that before taking off the Englishman

had put these necessary parts into his pocket to

be prepared for any eventuality. Mr. Youens busied

himself stringing his fiddle and I took my place at

the piano to assist him in tuning the instrument.

Within ten minutes the international orchestra

was ready to begin and as the opening piece we

played the German national anthem, ‘Deutschland über Alles’. To the delight of all present, my

partner played the song with as much intensity of

feeling as if it were ‘God Save the King’. Our guest

gave us pleasure the entire evening and helped

us pass the time with his musical entertainment.

Eventually, we did play the British national anthem and every German in the room stood at

respectful attention as a sign of comradeship beyond the bounds of national or political affiliation.

Thus, a battlefield defeat was transformed into

a human victory.”

When the party was over Youens was escorted

to his bedroom with nailed windows and in addition he was asked to surrender his suspenders

and boots. To escape without boots holding your

pants at the same time doesn’t sound feasible… In

the morning Youens had breakfast with Jasta 7

pilots and then he was picked up by a car from the

Army Interrogation Unit. His visit was recorded

in Jasta 7 chronicle as follows: “A double victory.

On the one hand the hard-fought air battle that

ended victoriously; and, on the other hand, the

musical pleasure that the loser so bountifully and

cordially provided us.”

For Degelow however the whole event ultimately

came to a bitter end. Not even the victory over

Youens was credited to him because there was

Holzminden POW camp in which Hubert Youens was kept until the end of the war.

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eduard

A group of British POWs in Holzminden’s camp. Youens is standing

at the extreme right.

INFO Eduard - January 2022