Introduction

As this book got published in late 1916, the war was still raging, hence the military and technical information provided is very sparse due to military censorship of the content. There was, however a very detailed biography about Oswald Boelcke written in the early 1930's. The author, Professor Johannes Werner, had access to all of the personal letters that Oswald wrote to family and friends - letters that included a lot more information than the information allowed to be published with "Hauptmann Bölckes Feldberichte" in 1916. Sometimes only excerpts of the original letters could be published in that book. Names of strategically important locations got abbreviated or even changed and only first letters got used, but thanks to the more detailed information provided by Professor Werner those details can now be included in the translation of the original "Feldberichte". Additional information to the original text of the "Feldberichte", are printed in blue Italic fonts. Comments made by the author are printed in green. If the additional information is too extensive to be included in the text, it is marked with a number in black bold Italic fonts and can be found at the respective Appendix page under that number. This was done to avoid disturbing you in your reading of the original story. You may always jump back and forth between reference points and the corresponding explanations at the Appendix pages. To enhance navigation, each page now holds links to all sections of this translation. The name of the section you are currently reading is highlightened in  Black with white text  to show you always where you are. The grayed out sections are not available yet.

"Hauptmann Bölckes Feldberichte" was translated into the English language already in 1917 which got reprinted in 1991. Please notice that this is a NEW translation of the original German text, not an illegal copy of the translation published in 1991!  Apart of the English translation from 1917, there was also a translation done in the Norwegian language in 1917 which is shown here on the right. Many thanks to Knut Erik Hagen who send me the scan of the Norwegian front cover.

You may have noticed two different spelling methods of the name of the Bölcke family. Originally spelled with the German "Umlaut" 'ö', the  fact that Oswald Boelcke's name is spelled with "oe" originates in Oswald's preference for the Latin language which lead him to write his name in Latin letters only. You may hear the correct pronunciation of Oswald Boelcke's name in German in either the MP3 format, or WAV.

Please notice that this translation is still under construction and will take some time to finish, hence it may contain errors in both grammar and spelling. It will of course be read proof and edited when finished.

Gaston Graf, June 2005

 O.B. Main Page - Entry Page - Introduction - Preface 
Section 1 - Section 2 - Section 3 - Section 4 
Appendix 1 -  Appendix 2
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Copyright©  by Gaston Graf, 1998-2005
Page revised: 04-06-05