Broken Wings

The tragical death of Heinrich Gontermann.

Heinrich Gontermann was born in 1896 as the son of a peasant family from Westphalia. At the begin of the war he was a rider of an Ulan regiment. By the end of 1917 he was transferred to the air service, following his ardent wish to finally become a combat pilot.

Gontermann made his first contact with Fokker Singleseaters in June 1916. From Tergnier he wrote to his parents:

"In the past time I was throwing bombs at the observation school and practiced machine gun firing. Hope to make my first fly on Fokker in one of the next days."

In April 1917, as Gontermann became the leader of Jagdstaffel 15, he belonged already to the well known German aces. He thoroughly dealed with fighting techniques and studied the enemy airplane types. He also showed a special talent in aerobatics and counted as being the best marksman among the flyers. He was a specialist for the attack from the dead angle, where he approached his opponent as close as possible before he pressed the trigger of his guns. Some enemies he disabled with only 5 shots.
Gontermann scored 39 aerial victories, of those 18 was enemy balloons. He shot down balloons in rows, two on either the 9th and the 17th of August. On August 18th he got even four balloons plus an airplane. On leaflets thrown by the British he was called "specialist in balloons" and among the Germans he was known as "Die große Ballon-Kanone (the big balloon gun)". Note: The designation "ACE" was first introduced by the Allied. Successful German pilots was designated as "Kanone (gun)".

Gontermann was counting as being formal and standoffish. All to often he let the superior hang out, allowing only his own opinion to count, whereby he only had few friends. After his 36th victory he showed clear signs of overstress, for what he was send on leave for one month for relaxation. He only came back to the front on September 24th.

As the pre-serial models of the Fokker Dr.1 - the Fokker F.I - arrived at the front he was still in a weak psychological condition. He appeared to be nervous and he was sleeping badly. He also showed weakness in leadership. On September 29th, he barely returned from an aerial fight with 27 holes in his plane. While he was on leave, Gontermann made an official trip to the Fokker factories in Schwerin, where he chose a Triplane for himself. From the front he wrote to the homelands on October 12th: "My Triplane is now ready to fly. Waiting only for good weather for flying, which is missing here since eight days".

On the 17th of the month he reported about a sickness, keeping him away from flying: "I have a touch of dysentery..... I'm grounded until the 22nd of the month". But he just couldn't await it to finally fly his new airplane although he refused to believe that his condition of health was still serious.

In his next letter he reported: "Now I'm up on my legs for the first time again. It's going well and I think about test flying my Triplane within six days". In his last received letter he wrote about his first test flight in his Triplane: "The day before yesterday I was flying my fantastic Triplane - but at quite a bad weather. I hope the crate will prove it's worth better on the front than the one of Richthofen where the dear Wolff was shot down with, and Voss, who was shot down with the Triplane as well. However, I will reach out with all of my calmness and with all of my care".

He seemed to sense that the introduction of the Fokker Dr.1 didn't stand under a good star. With one of his following flights a series of disastrous accidents happened, leading finally to the grounding of all planes of that type.

On October, 29 a certain Lieutenant von Karnap arrived at Jasta 15 which was stationed at the front of Aisne, close to Marne. He provided a detailed description of the personality of Gontermann as well as of the circumstances of his crash. "In his appearance of his tall and slim body, which was build very regular and strong, he left only the best impression. He looked a little pale but his great vitality and his bright freshness was striking. He wore the short fur-lined flyer jacket and under its collar one could see the wonderful blue of the Pour-le-Mérite shining through.

Von Karnap also reported about the unassuming nature of Gontermann. He didn't smoke and was very easy going with alcohol. All those present stood completely under the impression of his charming personality.

After a visit by the chief of staff of the neighbor army, Gontermann appeared at the airfield of La Neuville at about 04.00 o'clock the afternoon of October 30 to see off his visitor. Von Karnapp reported: "At the airfield stood, ready for takeoff, the machine of the squadron leader (Gontermann). It was a new type, which came only days ago from the homeland. At the same time one flight of the squadron prepared for takeoff to the front with the wing. Gontermann prepared for flying too. He pulled the thick and warm flyer overall over his uniform and put on his goggles. Then he put an anti-frost salve onto his face to protect him against the great cold at high altitudes because <<< I am a careful flyer >>> he said. Then he climbed into his new machine - calm, sure and radiant of happiness. After a few moments only he started and very soon he had climbed to a remarkable height. He seemed to feel great joy in showing his spectators what a fighter pilots of our days knows of diving, circling, and looping.  For all of us it was a great pleasure to watch the airplane gliding in the bright sun and to follow all of its maneuvers with ones eyes. But suddenly we saw how pieces of canvas detached from the machine, how it became unstable, how it rolled... and dove straight down to crash on the ground.

Being a layman I first believed it was just another maneuver of the great flyer but a dreadful scream of the gentlemen next to me opened my eyes. The fall of the machine was inevitable, despite of all efforts of the flyer. Breathless, with the smashing feeling of human faint in such cases, we saw the airplane crashing to the ground in a mighty bang. We hurried to the place, and found the celebrated hero laying in his blood inside of his machine.

Gontermann was still alive as they pulled him off the wreck but he suffered from worst wounds he received as he got smashed against the locks of his guns at the impact. He died despite of an emergency surgery.

Like a paralyzing blow this accident hit the squadron. The commander of the air units of the seventh army, Hauptmann Stahr, officially informed about the death of Heinrich Gontermann but without mentioning the real circumstances of the accident. "Gontermann left us, unbeaten, by a bad blow." 

After the report of Leutnant Arnzen, leader of the technical Staff of Jasta 15 and eyewitness of the event, the accident happened on performance of aerobatics, where the wing structure broke apart with the Triplane going out of control. At an altitude of 700m (about 2121ft) Gontermann flew two loops, then entering a dive into a hard left turn. He gave left aileron and left rudder. Both wingtips became instable. At an altitude of 300m (about 909ft), the right aileron broke with a cracking noise, then the upper wing broke apart. Gontermann was unable to recover from the vertical dive, despite of applying full elevator. The right aileron was first to break in flight, the wing followed. 

Arnzen also gave a detailed description of the wrecked Triplane. After his statement all of the control panels was still intact, except but for the broken aileron. The right aileron was broken in its middle, it's suspension bent about 20 degrees but it was impossible to say if it got bend already in the air or on impact of the aircraft on the ground. All ribs and wingtips was supposed to be gone already in the air. The box spar of the upper wing however got damaged only on the impact on the ground. Arnzen explained the gone ribs with both wingtips being put under a to high pressure. Due to the dive into a hard left turn, the wingtips was exposed to such a high pressure they could not withstand. At the same time the aileron suspension must have collapsed. Also cracks happened inside of the whole wing construction.

After Arnzen neither a failure nor overstress of the material was the reason for the accident, but a constructional flaw . He proposed several modifications to reinforce the whole wing construction.

Other, similar crashes followed the crash of Heinrich Gontermann. Only one day later, on October 31, Leutnant Günther Pastor from Jasta 11 crashed in his Dr.1 121/17 as parts of his upper wing broke off. He did not survive. Construction flaws could also have been the reason for the crash of Vize-Feldwebel Josef Lautenschläger from Jasta 11, who died in the wreck of his Dr.1 113/17 on October 29. It was said he got killed by friendly fire because German troops confound his Dr.1 with a Sopwith Triplane but the damage shown on his wrecked aircraft lead to the opinion that the true reason for his crash was construction flaws again.

Following these accidents the Fokker Triplane got grounded for investigation of the circumstances. Manfred von Richthofen eye witnessed the crash of Leutnant Pastor. He and the Chief of his Technical Staff, Leutnant Konstantin Krefft, ordered to check all available Triplanes immediately. They found CONSTRUCTION FLAWS! Reason was a hasted production and poor inspection tests. Richthofen gave his report to the commission of investigation from Adlershof, which arrived at the front together with Anthony Fokker.

The question was: Was the new cantilever wings fully developed or was a careless assembly responsible for the crashes?

The new struts stabilized the wings in the area of the box spar but obviously the whole wing construction was not rigid enough. The rear part of the ribs and the weak ailerons which was mounted on a weak spar did not resist the high stress occurring in extreme flight maneuvers such as a dive into a tight turn. The upper wing of the Triplane had to carry about 57% of the pressure working on the whole wing construction. 

But the main reason for the crashes was not only to be found in such construction flaws. Richthofen together with Krefft arranged for having the canvas removed of the top wing of that Triplane which had flown the most hours. Moisture - a natural consequence of exposure to the weather - had caused damage inside of the wing. One discovered instable joints at the rear end of the wing as well as warped wood and loosen ribs. Similar damage could be found at the examination of a second Triplane where the lower wing was about to dissolve.

The wings for the Triplane got assembled at the Schweriner Perzina-Piano Werke. On assembly of the wings the wood was only poorly treated with a wood preserver or it was not threatened at all because one did not expect the aircraft to have a long life.

For the ability to operate from right behind the frontline the units often transferred to a different airfield. As a result the aircraft was often left without fixed hangars and therefore exposed to the weather. Only after discovering the damage caused by moisture a greater number of wooden hangars got requested by Manfred von Richthofen.

Anthony Fokker was in a bad situation now. Nobody believed his apologies as he said production was only forced after the wish of higher authorities. In fact he had written a letter to his business director Friedrich Wilhelm Seekatz where he mentioned that it became possible now to double the production through simplification and efficiency measures.

On November 6th, Fokker received first instructions to enhance the wing construction of the Triplanes. Several reinforcements got installed, the wooden construction received an overall painting of wood preserver and the canvas received a waterproof treatment. Stress tests was made, finally satisfying the officials. The final report about the modifications was dated November 28, 1917. After that day the grounding order got lifted for the Fokker Dr.1. and the type proved well to be a reliable partner in battle. 

Copyright© by Gaston Graf, 1998-2002
last updated: August 29, 2002