An Early Cased Luftwaffe Pilot’s Badge Named To Flieger Speck

Footnote: A Likely Recipient of this Badge is Manfred Freiherr Speck von Sternburg, an officer in the Luftwaffe. The highest rank he achieved was that of Major. Only bits and pieces from his life are known. In March of 1936, Speck von Sternburg participated in the 3rd International Flying Meet of the Aero Club of Egypt at Cairo, piloting a Ju-86 B-08 named “Kismet’, winning the competition. During the Second War, he became the Group Commander of the 3rd Group of Kampfgeschwader (Fighter Wing) 27 “Boelcke”. This wing flew missions against Poland during the Polish Campaign, and was redeployed to the Western Front after the end of the campaign. It then flew missions targeting cities in France and Belgium in early 1940. Since the end of June, the wing participated in spoiling attacks on English airports and airfields, eventually also targeting cities, among them London, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Manchester. On a solo flight on August 19th, 1940, which should have taken him to Liverpool, Speck von Sternburg apparently lost his way and instead ended up dropping six bombs on the RAF night fighter station of Coltishall in the county of Norfolk, near Norwich. They did minor damage to an unfinished hangar, but killed several civilian workers. Speck von Sternburg died on October 22, 1940. Upon returning from another mission over England in a group of five, the pilot, Lieutenant Rudolf Jansen, crashed the plane into a lake near Goven on their way back to the Wing’s airfield in Rennes due to fog and severely reduced visibility. The only survivor, Sergeant Gerhard Hobbie, jumped out of the plane without a parachute before impact, and was badly injured. Speck von Sternburg and Jansen were killed, as were NCO Erwin-Oskar Schmidt, and Sergeant Max Karwinkel.