Douglas Pitcairn

[Fenton52]

Doug Stankey,

According to the book "Polesti," authored by Dugan & Stewart (Randon House-1962) p.88, "Pitcairn of Perthshire was descended from a Scottish Protestant clan which had emigrated to East Prussia in 1830 after religious quarrels with Catholic neighbors. One of his ancestors was the midshipman who first sighted Pitcairn Island, the haven of H.M.S. Bounty's mutineers. The German Pitcairn had grown up in Memel, joined the revived German air force in the early thirties, and was secretly trained as a fighter pilot in Gerstenberg's school in Lipetsk in the Soviet Union. He entered combat in 1936 with a Henkel 51 squadron flying for Franco and his first enemy aircraft destroyed was a U.S.-built Curtis, piloted by a French volunteer fo the Loyalists." When I visited with him in his home in Jul 1969, he told me he had flown in the same unit in WW2 as did Manfred von Richthofen, popularly known as the "Red Baron," did in WW1. At the time of our visit, he was a liaison officer with the USAFE. He also mentioned that an injury during the war kept him from being awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler. I have not had any contact with him since.

Roy