Hans Roser
Hans Roser (Marburg, 29 March 1893 – Ieper, 25 July 1915) was a German air observer during the First World War. He was a member of one of the Feldflieger Abteilung reconnaissance units tied to a German army unit, with the rank of Fliegerhauptmann.
On 25 July 1915 he was shot down by the British pilot Lanoe Hawker, east of the legendary Hill 62.
The fight
In the beginning of World War I, fire-arms were not common on airplanes. Sometimes pilots tried to shoot at each other with rifles and guns but usually this was too difficult and useless. By the late spring of 1915, the Germans invented the gun synchronizer that allowed a machine gun to fire through the propeller, but at the time of Roser's death the British had not developed a similar system. So Lanoe Hawker put a Lewis Gun at the side of his plane firing at an angle forwards and sideways, so that it could not shoot the blades of his own propeller.
On 25 July 1915 three German planes flew over Allied territory. Hawker was flying alone, but took on all three. The first plane he tried to shoot at was seen to spin downwards but it is not certain whether it crashed. He successfully hit the second forcing it to make an emergency landing. The third plane was less fortunate: it was shot and fell out of the sky, burning and smoking. Roser fell (or jumped, this is not clear) out of the plane and fell to earth. Some reports say that he was captured alive and died later, but this is extremely unlikely as he fell from over a thousand metre.
Hawker was rewarded with a Victoria Cross. Hawker died a year later (24 November 1916), after he had been shot down by the German's Red Baron.
Nowadays
Hans Roser is the only German buried at the Sanctuary Wood Cemetery. His is the only square gravestone, all other gravestones have a bow shape.
In the register of Sanctuary Wood there is an inscription in English: "He couldn't fly without a plane". Furthermore, there are German sentences with more information on the place and date of death and how he was shot.
A Special Memorial at Sanctuary Wood remembers Hans Roser:
"The young pilot, from West Germany, who did not even fight went to the front, unknowing. He has been one of too many, his grave still stands between thousands of others."