Gerhard Thyben


 * La Violencia (Colombian Conflict, as instructor)

Gerhard Thyben (24 February 1922 – 4 September 2006) was a German former Luftwaffe fighter ace and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves during World War II. A flying ace or fighter ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat.

Gerhard "Gerd" Thyben flew 385 combat missions and claimed 157 aerial victories. He claimed 152 victories on the Eastern Front, including 28 Il-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.

Biography
Gerhard Thyben was born on 24 February 1922 in Kiel. He volunteered for military service in the Luftwaffe in late 1940 and by summer 1941 gained his pilot's licence.

On 8 May 1945 he claimed his last victory over the Baltic Sea. He shot down a Petlyakov Pe-2 that was almost certainly looking for German refugee ships escaping from the besieged Courland Pocket. Thyben caught the reconnaissance Pe-2 at 07:54 and achieved what very well might have been the last Focke-Wulf Fw 190 victory of World War II. The Pe-2 crew, consisting of Starshiy Leytenant Grigoriy Davidenko, Kapitan Aleksey Grachev, and Starshina Mikhail Murashko were all killed in the engagement. Thyben surrendered to the British on touching down. Following his release in 1946 he traveled to Spain and Argentina before serving as an instructor with the Colombian Air Force.

Awards

 * Iron Cross (1939)
 * 2nd Class (25 May 1943)
 * 1st Class (10 July 1943)
 * Ehrenpokal der Luftwaffe (31 August 1943)
 * German Cross in Gold on 24 October 1943 as Feldwebel in the 6./JG 3
 * Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves
 * Knight's Cross on 6 December 1944 as Oberleutnant and Staffelkapitän of the 7./Jagdgeschwader 54
 * 822nd Oak Leaves on 8 April 1945 as Oberleutnant and Staffelkapitän of the 7./Jagdgeschwader 54