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At the beginning of the war, the aircraft was
primarily used for reconaissance missions and still unarmed. German and
Allied crews meeting each other in the air was often greeting,
waving hands. Later weapons was taken aboard but it was mostly carabines,
pistols, hunting rifles or even bottles and bricks. Some of the more
creative crews haulet aloft machineguns, like the RFC pilot Louis A.
Strange, only to realize that the weight of such heavy weapons prevented the
still weak aircraft from climbing. Others continued testing, like the French
Seargent pilot Frantz, who started with his mechanic Corporal Quenault in a
Voisin biplane. In the morning hours of that October 5, 1914 Frantz suddenly
spotted a German Aviatik flying at about 3500 ft. He closed on until
Quenault found the range and opened fire with the light machinegun they
carried with them. The Aviatik dove away for its own lines but Frantz
followed him, with Quenault snapping out short bursts from his gun. In a
haste to catch the enemy, Frantz accidentally overshot the Aviatik. The
pilot of the Aviatik banked and tried to run. Franz reversed his turn,
ending up behind the enemy. As the Aviatik tried to climb away, Quenault
poured rounds into it. Quenault's markmanship was to good for the German to
escape. The Aviatik - riddeled with bullets - fell into a dive. The pilot
fought for the controls, pulling the nose up three times before loosing it
for good. Plunging into a small cope of trees, the Aviatik exploded. An
observer of the scene later recalled: "The motor was almost entirely
burried in the ground, the fuselage was twisted and the wings was broken
into a thousand pieces. One of the aviators lay quite dead three yards away
from the motor. The second, the observer, with beautiful hands exquisitely
cared for and perhaps a great Prussian name, was caught under the red motor,
now a wreck in flames. He seemed to us to attempt to pull himself out, but
the moment was probably convulsive - he looked at us, clawed the earth with
his hands, and died before our eyes". The dirty war in the air had
begun!
The first Fokker singleseaters arrived at the front in mid-May of 1915 but
the pilots still doubted its capabilities. Having learned to fly on slow,
awkward aircraft most pilots found it extremely difficult to fly the new
Fokker which was far more maneuverable and unforgiving to fly than the early
Albatros or Aviatik two-seaters. But this wasn't the only problems Fokker
encountered with his new creation. Sometimes the interruptor gear
malfunctioned and after three fatal crashes in July and August the German
Air Serice forbade its further use. Even the recently established Fokker
training school at Döberitz was disbanded. By this overreaction the leading
heads of the German Air Service nearly dumped their best weapon.
But there was two young German pilots saving the day: Oswald Boelcke and Max
Immelmann! Both men being very talented and ambitious they soon scored their
first victories flying Fokker monoplanes of the E-type. One after the other
enemy aircraft fell to their guns. By the end of 1915, Immelmann was
credited with seven victories, Boelcke with six. Of his six victories,
Boelcke scored only five flying the Fokker Eindecker. His very first victory
he scored flying a two-seater, with Ltn. von Wühlich being his observer.
During this epic fight against a French Parasol monoplane, Boelcke
demonstrated what a brilliant tactician he was as he maneuvered his aircraft
to give his observer the best possible range of fire. Ltn. von Wühlich
awarded the E.K.I for his shooting skills. Out of 83 rounds fired, 27 hit
the enemy aircraft, the pilot was his 7 times and the observer was hit 3
times.
As the scores of Boelcke and Immelmann mounted, they rose to the new heroes
of the German nation. When in January of 1916 they was awarded the
"Pour le Mérite" their rise to fame seemed complete.
Notice: The official postcard picture of Max
Immelmanns Fokker E.III (above) had its LMG08 machinegun was well as
its Oberursel Rotary engine erased due to strict censorship.
Also note that he was not awarded the Pour le Mérite yet, as this picture
was taken. Max Immelmann certainly was the most prominent victim of a
malfuntion of his interruptor gear. As he shot off his own propeller he
crashed and died in the wreck of his singleseater. Manfred von Richthofen
once had to land his triplane because of sudden vibrations of his propeller
which was the result of bullets damaging it.
With Boelcke and Immelmann the German pilots had found their heroes.
As more and more Fokker Eindeckers was delivered to the front more and more
pilots began taking their toll on Allied aircraft. Among them new talents
like Kurt Wintgends and Ernst Udet rose to fame. Allied morale plummered!
Allied pilots spotting an Eindecker from a distance often cut out for home,
resulting in more and more missions not being completed. The myths
surrounding the new Fokker Superweapon lasted until the Allied finally
managed to capture an intact Fokker Eindecker in early 1916. Test flying the
mysterious Fokker, the Allied discovered that it had only limited
maneuverability, compared to the latest Allied types arriving at the front.
Only as the Allied squadrons got aware of these facts the psychological
threat of the Fokker ceased. Now it was the Allied who copied the
interruptor gear from the Germans...
copyright © Gaston Graf, September 2000
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