- Latest News!!! -
please scroll down the page for older news

September 22,  2005

I had been ordered to find out the strength of the enemy occupying the large forest near Virton. I started with fifteen Uhlans and said to myself: "To-day I shall have the first fight with the enemy." But my task was not easy. In so big a forest there may be lots of things hidden which one can not see.

I went to the top of a little hill. A few hundred paces in front of me was a huge forest extending over many thousands of acres. It was a beautiful August morning. The forest seemed so peaceful and still that I almost forgot all my war-like ideas.

We approached the margin of the forest. As we could not discover anything suspicious with our field glasses we had to go near and find out whether we should be fired upon. The men in front were swallowed up by a forest lane. I followed and at my side was one of my best Uhlans. At the entrance to the forest was a lonely forester's cottage. We rode past it.

The soil indicated that a short time previously considerable numbers of hostile cavalry must have passed. I stopped my men, encouraged them by addressing a few words to them, and felt sure that I could absolutely rely upon everyone of my soldiers. Of course no one thought of anything except of attacking the enemy. It lies in the instinct of every German to rush at the enemy wherever he meets him, particularly if he meets hostile cavalry. In my mind's eye I saw myself at the head of my little troop sabering a hostile squadron, and was quite intoxicated with joyful expectation. The eyes of my Uhlans sparkled. Thus we followed the spoor at a rapid trot. After a sharp ride of an hour through the most beautiful mountain dale, the wood became thinner. We approached the exit. I felt convinced that there we should meet the enemy. Therefore, caution! To the right of our narrow path was a steep rocky wall many yards high. To the left, was a narrow rivulet and at the further side a meadow, fifty yards wide, surrounded by barbed wire. Suddenly, the trace of horses' hooves disappeared over a bridge into the bushes. My leading men stopped because the exit from, the forest was blocked by a barricade.

This is a quotation from the English edition of "The Red Air Fighter", published in 1918. I only now discovered that this English edition is incomplete, compared to the original German edition from 1917, which is also in my possession. There had been an event near the crossing of "Croix Rouge" that had been completely omitted in the English edition but included in the German edition. The English edition mentions only this: At the entrance to the forest was a lonely forester's cottage. We rode past it. and stops here. But after the same sentence in the German edition a report follows about a sneak attack on von Richthofen and his men that I translated for you below:

Suddenly a shot fell from a window of the house. Yet another soon after it. From the bang I immediately recognized that it was no shot from a rifle but from a shot gun. At the same time I noticed disorder of my patrol and immediately suspected a Franctireur (partisan) attack. Getting down the horses and surrounding the house was one. In a somewhat dark room I recognized four or five chaps with hostile eyes. No shot gun was to be seen indeed. My anger was great in that moment but never in this life I had killed a human before so I must say that this moment was extremely uncomfortable to me. Actually I should have put a bullet through the Franctireur's head. With that shot he had put a load of pellets into the belly of one of my horses and he wounded one of my Uhlans on his hand. In my poor French I yelled at the swines, threating them to kill them all if the culprit won't report immediately. They noticed that I was serious about it and that I wouldn't hesitate to let the deed follow my words. How it then actually happened, I don't know anymore today.  At all events, the poachers were suddenly out of the back door and vanished from the ground. I shot after them but missed. Fortunately we had surrounded the house so that they couldn't escape. I immediately ordered to have the house searched for them but none could be found. Maybe the guards behind the house didn't watch out well enough, but the house was empty anyway. We still found the shotgun standing at the window and we had to take revenge on a different way. Within five minutes the whole house was ablaze. After this intermezzo we continued.

This is the first difference that I found between the German and the English editions of "The Red Air Fighter" so there may be other. I wonder why this report had been omitted in the English edition. Maybe it was to avoid the English reader from getting too upset about the truth behind the German invasion of Belgium where they committed atrocities against the Belgian civil population. They also randomly shot French POWs because they didn't want to make prisoners, and near the station of Arlon at Schopach bridge the Huns executed 125 innocent civilians, 119 of them being from the village of Rossignol where one of the bloodiest parts of the Battle of the Frontiers plaid on August 22.1914. All in all, the French Army lost more than 30,000 men on that day which became the bloodiest day of the whole conflict for the French. And thousands of innocent civilians, mostly women and children, had been slaughtered by the Germans. The village of Ethe was set ablaze to take revenge for an attack on passing German troops that had been done from civilian houses - but it were regular French troops hidden inside the houses that shot at the Germans, not civilians. The Germans however set the houses ablaze, randomly shooting civilians who fought the fires to save their homes, driving many of them back into the burning houses to burn them alive as they wanted to escape. It is known that the Uhlan regiment No 19 had been involved into the reprisals and that single members of that regiment killed innocent Belgian youngsters. But how far Manfred von Richthofen's Uhlan regiment No.1 had been involved into such action is hard to find. After all of the research that I have done regarding the Battle of the Frontiers, the Uhlan regiment No.1 appears like a ghost regiment to me because there is almost no information to be found about it in Belgian and French sources. But the mentioning of at least one reprisal action against civilians in von Richthofen's book seems to prove that he too was involved in the dirty deeds of the invading Germans at the beginning of World War One.

Recently I had been visiting the locations again with my Belgian friend Daniel Habran who lives in the region and knows the locations perfectly. He took me to the woods near Rossignol to show me still existing trenches and machine gun positions of the Germans. When using a metal detector he often finds buttons of German and French uniforms in or near those trenches, and a lot of empty cartridges, packs of German and French ammunition and sometimes even slugs.The buttons often have still pieces of fabric attached to it. Buttons that are mute witnesses of the fierce man to man fighting that had been going on now 91 years ago.

A typical German trench at the edge of the forest near Rossignol..Note that the trench had not been deep nor had it been fortified with logs. From here the Germans took the French under fire.	The Germans must have had about the same view on the village of Rossignol that one still has today. I found square shaped fence wire grown into the trees. The wire wasn't old enough to be from the time of WW1 but one can see clearly that not much has changed since August 22, 1914.	A tpyical German machine gun position near the road to Suxy. The region is full with such retangular shaped holes where the Germans placed their machine guns to take the advancing French troops that came accross that road unter fire.

Below is an actual map showing you the crossing of Croix Rouge. In 1914 it had been surrounded by a dark forest and on the edge of that forest stood the house of the forester, which is marked by a red dot on the map. The house had been rebuild and existed still in the 1950s. Sometimes later it got broken down to make room for the enlarged crossing. The house stood almost on the same place as my car - the red Mercedes C-Class T-Model than you can see on the photos. Also marked on the map by a little house is the actual restaurant called "La Sapinière". If you will ever visit the region don't hesitate to drop in and have a beer and a good meal at Croix Rouge.
.

Click the photos to load a larger version of 1024x768 pixels in a new window!

The red and silver cars stand at about the same place where the house of the forester stood in 1914. Restaurant "La Sapinière" is left of the place from where I made this photo.	My car with my friend Daniel. The blue road sign points to the direction of Virton at 8km.

The place where the house of the forester stood is now a parking space.	The restaurant "La Sapinière"

The road to Ethe. "La Sapinière" is on the left.	Another view of "La Sapinière".

The Karaoke house of "La Sapinière".	The restaurant "La Sapinière" (right) with its Karaoke house (left).

The place where the house of the forester stood is on the left where the cars are parked.	The road down to Ethe. The place where the house of the forester stood is on the left out of the picture.

August 09,  2005

July 25, 2005

July 19, 2005

WARNING 

FRAUD ALERT ON eBAY GERMANY and eBAY UK !!! 

Dear visitor of Jasta Boelcke,

please be aware of an eBay user with the name zeusleo who offers old and rare WW1 photos via ebay.co.uk! July 13 I won the auction for a photograph that had been depicted of being an old photo of Oswald Boelcke. The scans provided to illustrate the auction was this:

Oswald Boelcke German Pilot Ace photo portrait

This is an old photo portrait of Capt. Oswald Boelcke the German Pilot Ace of WW1
Measures 10 x 15cm approx see scans

Although one could believe this was really an old photo, the photo that had been delivered to me reveals the truth. It is in fact nothing but a poor inkjet reprint on old paper! One can see that already with the eye. Scanning it at 1200dpi makes it even clearer. The scan blow is showing Boelcke's head and the typical striping of poor quality inkjet prints. 

So you are warned!  DO NOT BUY FROM zeusleo on eBay! 

The scanner wasn't clean as I scanned the print but I didn't feel for  cleaning it so I left the dust on the picture to show that I did not alter it in any way before I posted it on this page.

July 17, 2005

I took the Boelcke Field Reports offline again because I decided to re-work the whole project. I seriously plan to do a new illustrated edition of the Field Reports that will be enhanced with many good photos as well as additional details that could not be published with the censored first edition. I still don't know if the project will be published as a printed book or as an eBook on CD. However, details about the progress of my work will be made available on this website indeed. I sincerely hope for your comprehension to take the actual translation of the Field Reports offline. I did so because I don't want other to steal it from my site to  publish it under their name.

June 19, 2005

Started translating the entry from July 4, 1916 of the Boelcke Field Reports, SECTION 3. Oswald welcomes the Americans in the skies above Verdun....

June 12, 2005, in the late evening

Finished the entry from June 2, 1916 of the Boelcke Field Reports, SECTION 2. Now translation of section 2 has been completed. Additional details will be added later.

June 12, 2005, 

Added the entry from May 9, 1916 to the Boelcke Field Reports, SECTION 2 and begun translating the entry from June 2, 1916.

June 10, 2005, 

Added the entry from April 29, 1916 to the Boelcke Field Reports, SECTION 2. Boelcke's number 14 had fallen.

June 08, 2005, in the late evening

Added two more entries to the Boelcke Field Reports, SECTION 2, 54 more pages to go.

June 08, 2005

Continuing with the translation of Captain Boelcke's Field Reports! I added the entries from January 14 and March 16, 1916 today. Go to the Boelcke Field Reports, SECTION 2, and read how Oswald Boelcke got his victories number 9, 10 and 11.

June 05, 2005

At last I continued the translation of the Boelcke Field Reports! I added the entry from January 8, 1916, as Boelcke and Immelmann both were after a squadron of 10 British aircraft that attacked their airfield with bombs. The Boelcke page is accessible from the ACES section. The new entry can be found at the end SECTION 2 of the translation. Please keep in mind that the translation is still far from being finished. It must be re-read and probably partially re-written before it can be considered to be a completed work. Oswald Boelcke himself didn't care much about Grammar and the correct use of time forms therefore you will notice that he often mixed present and past. Also he had quite a chaotic stile to write his letters, often using sort of a funny slang that is hard to translate.

June 02, 2005

I added a photo of Annamarie Bruening (the fiancée of Erwin Boehme) to the Boehme page at the ACES section. Also the background of the Boehme page had been changed. With many thanks to Mr. Aaron Weaver who send me name and photo of Miss Bruening as well as the nice color portrait of Erwin Boehme.

Annamarie Bruening

June 02, 2005

I added a new link to the NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE to the links page as well as a new photo of the Fokker Dr.1 prototype V.5 to the aircraft section -> FOKKER DR.1. The photo had been provided to my via Terry Phillips.

Fokker Dr.1 prototype V.5

May 31, 2005

I just finished uploading an article about the only Latin American pilot in German Air Services - Carlos Meyer Baldó, also known as Karl Meyer. You can find that article at the ACES page.

Enjoy!

May 11, 2005

Because I am a user of MSN Messenger 7 I decided to make use of the 10Mb of space that MSN offers to its users. You now can find the latest news about me, my family and the region where we live at this link: http://spaces.msn.com/members/quaffit/ . I'll see to keep the blog up to date, adding more and more information to it. If you want to meet me online please search MSN for ""quaffit@hotmail.com", then add me to your list. Please notice that I will have to confirm that your address may be added to my list. I can assure you that I will only permit serious users to be added to my list. If you see me online but get no answer to your message this is because I am afk - away from keyboard. If this happens, please try again later, or send me an email.

May 3, 2005

Ralf Trylla from Switzerland contacted me to ask me for details about the Fokker D.VII flown by Lt. Johann Janzen, Jasta 6 because he intends to build a big scale radio controlled model of it Unfortunately I have no information about Janzen so I ask you, dear visitor, if you have any details about Janzen's aircraft? You may contact Ralf via his modeling website at http://www.blackwaters.ch/flyingcircus.htm.

May 1, 2005

I'm happy to support Bruce McCullough with quotations from my translation of Ernst Udet's book "Ace of the Iron Cross". Living in New Zealand, Mr. McCullough is the G.G.Grandson of James McCullough 1820-1910, who was the G.Grandfather of Tom Campbell Black. Now, you ask who Tom Campbell Black was? Well, if you want to find out more about this great adventurer and what his story has got to do with Ernst Udet you should not hesitate to visit the website of Mr. McCullough at http://www.tomcampbellblack.150m.com/ . It's a most detailed and fascinating story about the life of Tom Campbell Black.

February 23, 2005

Added a photo of Max von Müller in his Albatros DVa to the Max von Müller page at the ACES section.

January 30, 2005

Added an alternative email address to the CONTACT page for the case my Jasta Boelcke address won't work. If you are serious about contacting me but your mail bounces or if you won't receive an answer from me within two days then please make use of my other email address at the CONTACT page. 

January 26, 2005

Added some information to my personal little WEBMASTER page.

January 22, 2005

As promised, the Erwin Böhme page had been updated with important information regarding his death over Zonnebeke. But read for yourself and click on ACES!

January 16, 2005

Usually a visitor should be allowed to write an entry to a guestbook that will automatically appear at the guestbook page after the form had been send. But Spam became a growing problem and spammers always find new methods to misuse guestbooks for their purpose. This lead me to the decision to stop using a guestbook script. In the future all guestbook entries - positive or negative - send to me by the visitors of Jasta Boelcke will be manually added to the guestbook page by myself. 

Upcoming projects: detailed information about the death of Erwin Böhme will be added soon.

I hope for your comprehension and wish you a nice time at my website.

Gaston Graf, webmaster

Home

© Gaston Graf, 1998-2003
page updated: 07/25/2005 10:24:03 PM +0200