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Gerhard Thyben
| Oberleutnant Gerhard Thyben (deceased) Gerhard Thyben was born on 24th February 1922 in Kiel, Germany. Gerhard Thyben volunteered for military service in the Luftwaffe in late 1940 and by summer 1941 gained his pilots licence. Gerhard Gerd Thyben flew 385 combat missions and claimed 157 aerial victories. He claimed 152 victories on the Eastern Front, including 28 II-2 Sturmoviks and five victories on the Western Front. He flew 22 fighter-bomber missions on which he claimed two aircraft and seven trucks destroyed on the ground. On 8th May 1945 he claimed his last victory over the Baltic Sea. Thyben shot down a Petlyakov Pe2 that was almost certainly looking for German refugee ships escaping from the besieged Courland Pocket. Thyben caught the reconnaissance Pe2 at 07:54 and achieved what very well might have been the last Fw190 victory of World War II. The Pe2 crew, consisting of Starshiy Leytenantt Grigoriy Davidenko, Kapitan Aleksey Grachev, and Starshina Mikhail Murashko were all killed in the engagement. Thyben surrendered to the British on touching down. He was released in 1946 and later servied as an instructor with the Colombian Air Force. He died on 4th September 2006 |
