Roland Nauck, 1893-1917

[Ransom E. Olds]

The fatal crash of Lt d R Roland Nauck near Villeveque, France on Easter Sunday, 8 April 1917 was the subject of a thread on this forum several years ago. I recently learned that this event was mentioned by 2nd Lt Wilfred Owen of the 2nd Manchester Regt., B.E.F., in a letter to his brother Colin written on the following Monday. Owen described the crash of the "new Albatross no 2234" and recovering the dead pilot's handkerchief and a bit of 3-ply from "the body (of the machine)" in a letter to his brother Colin. The letter was published in Wilfred Owen's Collected Letters (London, Oxford University Press, 1967) as no. 504. Ransom

[frontflieger]

Originally Posted by Ransom E. Olds

The letter was published...

BTW: Nauck's letters were published, too "Kriegsbriefe gefallener Studenten (Philipp Witkop)" [War letters of fallen Students]

Thorsten

[Ransom E. Olds]

Thorsten: Was the collection of letters in which Nauck's appeared those written by the students of a specific school or was it a general anthology? Wilfred Owen, who witnessed Nauck's crash, also fell in the war, on 4 November 1918, just a week before the armistice. Ransom

[frontflieger]

No. Different universities, different professions... all the time between the beginning and the ending of the war.