OE3AH 1938 Austria

Operator: Anton Habsburg

Radio ZS in it's February/2019 prints a story by Dennis Wells, ZS1AU, about his father's QSO with former Archduke of Austria, Anton Habsburg (Austrian spellig) with whom he allegedly had "the very last QSO" before he had to flee from the troops invading his castle. Pictures are from the G4UZN collection and photographs downloaded from the internet.

The story is nice but completely untrue. Habsburg who insisted on his title although nobility was abolished in 1918 - I still had to call him, at every visit,  "Kai-Ho", short for "Kaiserliche Hoheit" Your Royal Higness) lived in Sonnberg Castle, near Hollabrunn, Lower Austria, and was President since 1934 (when he became licensed) of the Austrian ham society ÖVSV. In 1938, a day before German troops invaded Austria, he welcomed them with "Heil Hitler", and as a passionate aviator trained German Air Force pilots whilst his wife stayed back home withe the children. In september 1944, long before the Soviet troops neared Austria,  he led a last training flight, told his students "You'll go back on your own as part of our training" and left Austria with the whole family for Bran Castle. He was asked to leave Romania after the King's demise, in  1947, and went to Argentine, where he operated with an old royalist's callsign, LU6BS. Here he divorces, his wife founded a Christian Order in the USA. in 1954 Habsburg returned to Austria but did not dare to go back to his castle, which was now in the Soviet Sector,  settled in Mondsee, in the American Sector, where he died, in 1987.
We have a little contribution at: http://www.dokufunk.org/amateur_radio/history_oe_1/index.php?ID=9696#A9696 and a huge file.

Anton Habsburg was an enthusiastic aviator. Returning to Austria from Spain (where he sold Ford cars) he applied for a radio license for his plane. There was no legal procedure foreseen for civil aviation. On the other hand: he was a former Archduke (!) you can't simply disregard his request. So they were happy when he withdrew his application and decided to become a ham instead. He nevertheless conducted "experiments" with the plane's (Romanian) call as callsign.

Habsburg OE3AH wanted a Swiss pilot license, too and had to prove a certain number of flight hours. On one occasion he obviously visited HB9CE and worked from his station. He did not hold a legal OE Call at that time (they were all withdrawn after the Nazi occupation in March, 1939, and he had to apply for his new/old call in 1955, after Austria's regained independence.
HB9CE: *1903-06-14 †March 1949 - Electrocuted in his shack. Most famous for his rare operations from Liechtenstein (HB1CE, HE1CE)

YPAAI must have been Anton's plane's callsign.

QSL Patrick Rigg Collection
Info Courtesy of OE1WHC, QSL Collection at DokuFunk, Vienna, Austria