PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE 198
Karl Thom
Karl Thom was born in the West Prussian town of Freystadt on May 19, 1893. He was the son of a field hand. Young Karl began his military service in 1911 by enlisting with the Hussar Regiment Number Five. In August 1914, he was serving with Mounted Rifle Regiment Number Ten when the Great War began… and wounded for the first time three months later.
Upon recovery, Thom transferred to the air service for training. His first assignment was piloting a two-seater reconnaissance plane for Flieger-Abteilung (Artillerie) 216. In May 1916, Thom was injured in a crash while patrolling the vicinity of the Vosges.
After his second recovery, Thom was reassigned to Flieger-Abteilung (Artillerie) 48. Soon, he was forced down and captured by the enemy… but later managed to escape! For this, Thom was awarded the Iron Cross First Class.
After a brief tour with Flieger-Abteilung (Artillerie) 234, Thom was transferred yet again… this time to Jagdstaffel 21 on May 26, 1917. He joined a Saxon-based fighter unit despite being of Prussian blood. That same day, Jasta 21 also received a new squadron leader, Staffelführer Eduard Ritter von Schleich.
Thom marked the fuselage of his Albatros with a large black capital block ‘T’ with pronounced serifs to identify himself in the air. In addition, the ‘T’ was the customary squadron marking of a vertical black stripe and a vertical white stripe just aft of the cockpit (the ‘T’ itself was on the outside wall of the cockpit). The ‘T’ may have stood for triumph, and Karl Thom reeled off eleven of them! He even scored a triple win on September 18, 1917… and double victories on September 19th… and the 22nd!
October 1917 brought some changes. Jasta 21 received Oskar Freiherr von Boenigk as the new commanding officer. Also, the Fokker D.VII replaced the Albatros D.V as the plane of choice.
On October 11th, Karl Thom was awarded Prussia’s AND Germany’s highest decoration for valorous enlisted men, the Military Merit Cross. Previously, he had been awarded the Member’s Class of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern. Despite the honor, Thom managed only one victory for the month of October… and zero for November!
As December 1917 began, Thom’s dry spell ended with one confirmed victory and another unconfirmed. Then on December 23rd, he was wounded by a bullet to the leg while undertaking the usually hazardous duty of attacking an observation balloon. Not surprisingly, Thom was unsuccessful in his assault.
In June 1918, Thom shot down five enemy aircraft, beginning with his 15th overall win on the 11th. July saw him victorious six more times. One of his triumphs was over Quentin Roosevelt (the youngest son of former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt) on July 14, 1918.
Thom scored wins on August 1st and 4th, bringing his official overall tally to twenty-seven. By doing so, Thom became the leading ace for Jasta 21. All but four of his victories were against the French.
But on August 11th (the day he was commissioned as a lieutenant), Thom was severely wounded in the hip and sent to hospital. By this time, the war had turned against Imperial Germany… and Thom remained sidelined for months.
Still in hospital on the first of November 1918, Thom was awarded the Pour le Mérite, Germany’s highest award for commissioned officers. Five days later, he rejoined Jasta 21. Then on the day Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the throne and fled to Holland (November 9th), Thom crashed yet again, suffering multiple fractures. Finally on November 11th, the armistice was signed in Compiegne, which ended the fighting.
Decades after the First World War ended, Karl Thom served with the Luftwaffe during the Second World War. But as the Soviets laid siege to the East Prussian capital of Königsberg, he disappeared under obscure circumstances in the Baltic port town of Pillau (just west of Königsberg) on March 3, 1945.
Karl Thom was fifty-one years old.