Airmen from No. 462 Squadron RAAF stand next to the tailfin of a German ME10 night fighter, Schleswig, Germany, 19 June 1945. After the war some RAAF aircrew visited Germany and identified significant war artefacts for sending home to Australia. Among these objects was one of the tailfins from this aircraft, flown against the men of Bomber Command by Germany's top night fighter ace, Major Hans Wolfgang Schnaufer, dubbed the 'Ghost of St Trond' after the airfield in Belgium from which he often flew. The tailfin is marked with 121 RAF 'roundels', each roundel indicating the successful shooting down of a bomber, and each roundel is also marked with the date of the event. It is unclear how many Australian airmen might have been shot down by Schnaufer, but among them were the crew of Halifax LV919 of No. 466 Squadron RAAF. All seven of the bomber's crew died when Schnaufer found them on an operation against the railway marshalling yards at Hasselt on 12–13 May 1944. Schnaufer survived the war, dying in a car crash in France in 1950, and one of the tailfins from his night fighter is on display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. [For full list of bombers shot down by Major HW Schnaufer see www.luftwaffe.cz/schnaufer.html; AWM P03060.001]
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