This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this siteplease consider making a donation.
Site Home
WW2 Home
Add Stories
WW2 Search
Library
Help & FAQs
WW2 Features
Airfields
Allied Army
Allied Air Forces
Allied Navy
Axis Forces
Home Front
Battles
Prisoners of War
Allied Ships
Women at War
Those Who Served
Day-by-Day
Library
The Great War
Submissions
Add Stories
Time Capsule
TWMP on Facebook
Childrens Bookshop
FAQ's
Help & FAQs
Glossary
Volunteering
Contact us
News
Bookshop
About
228842Keith Thiele DSO, DFC.
Royal New Zealand Air Force
from:Christchurch, New Zealand
Keith Thiele
Keith Thiele was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and three Distinguished Flying Crosses During missions in 1942 and 1943, Thiele twice brought damaged Lancasters home on two engines after the aircraft were badly damaged by enemy fire. Fellow flier Sergeant R J Campbell referred to Thiele as "the best little bomber pilot in the whole RAF and every one of us looks up to him as a little tin god". He became legendary in his squadron for weaving his cumbersome bomber through German searchlight and flak barrages as shells burst all around. All the time, Thiele would be singing some New Zealand song over and over, Campbell said in a US magazine interview. "I would not like to go out in any kite now that did not have Keith at the controls," Campbell said. Thiele flew 56 bomber missions before converting to fighter planes. He wrote himself once that "Hitler came to [his] rescue" in 1939 as he had achieved nothing at school and was heading for an aimless existence. In early 1945, he was given command of 3 Squadron, flying Tempests from Holland. He destroyed two enemy fighters before he was shot down by flak while attacking trains in Germany, narrowly escaping lynching after landing by parachute. Slightly wounded, he was taken prisoner but was only held captive for a few weeks before escaping from a hospital and getting back to Allied lines to rejoin his squadron.
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them
Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area?
If so please let us know.
Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.
Celebrate your own Family History
Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.
Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.
The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items.
The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.
If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Hosted by:
Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
- All Rights Reserved
We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.