The Germans did claim the bomber as destroyed and gave credit for the victory to Lieutenant Ernst Suess, a sixty-seven-victory ace. That morning Suess had picked up his pregnant wife at the train station in Oldenburg so they could spend Christmas together. During his attack on The Pub, his plane was damaged and Suess bailed out. According to his comrade, Viktor Widmaier, Suess’s parachute failed to open and his comrades found him, dead, in a field west of Bremen.
