Raoul Stojsavljevic

Raoul Stojsavljevic (28 July 1887 – 2 September 1930) was an Austro-Hungarian World War I flying ace credited with ten aerial victories. His later career took him to postwar service in aviation both military and civilian. His older sister was the painter Mileva Roller and her husband was the artist Alfred Roller (1864–1935).

Pre-World War I Stojsavljevic was born to an ethnically mixed marriage in Innsbruck, his father being a Serb from Velika Popina in Croatia, his mother, Adelheid Hohenauer, being Austrian. His elder sister Mileva became a noted artist. He attended a military middle school before he graduated from the Theresian Military Academy on 18 August 1908 and commissioned a leutnant in Feldjaegerbataillon No. 21. By 1911, in addition to his duties as a company officer, he was a corps ski instructor. In 1913, he transferred into aviation. On 13 April, he began pilot's training. The First of May brought a promotion to Oberleutnant. On 2 July, he qualified as a pilot with Austrian certificate 114. On 14 October 1913, he participated in the first flight over the Alps from Vienna to Gorizia. Stojsavljevic's appointment as a field pilot followed on 7 April 1914. On outbreak of war, he was in Flik 1, stationed on the northeastern front in Galicia.

World War I Stojsavljevic in front of his Hansa-Brandenburg D.I fighter in 1917. While spending a period gaining experience flying reconnaissance for Flik 1, he survived a landing accident on 31 July 1914. It was while flying his 49th sortie that he was brought down by a snow storm and captured by the Russians on 16 February 1915. He and his observer had managed to burn their plane; on the 22nd, they escaped. They spent the next two months dodging the Russians, finally repatriating themselves upon the successful Austro-Hungarian Gorlice-Tarnów Offensive capture of Lemberg on 22 June. While amongst the missing, Stojsavljevic was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class on 28 May 1915. The Military Merit Cross followed on 19 July 1915.

As a result, Stojsavljevic was attached to Flik 34, which operated the Hansa-Brandenburg D.I fighter. Although he mastered the H-D, it was at the cost of a lingering knee injury suffered during a landing accident. Still, he managed to become an ace flying an H-D, on 13 February 1917.

Post World War I Upon the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Stojsavljevic declined Yugoslavian citizenship and became an Austrian. He served in the Volkswehr and Flugpolizei until 1921. He made an attempt to start commercial air service between Vienna and Budapest, but was closed down by the Allied Control Commission. He returned to Feldjaegerbataillon No. 21 as a major in 1922. In 1925, he founded and directed the new Innsbruck airport. In 1927, he founded a commercial airline; the following year, he joined the pioneering airline ÖLAG.

On 2 September 1930, he flew a Junkers F.13 through thick fog into the Krottenkopf mountain. He was buried with full honors.

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