10/28/1916 - Blazing a path that many other "aces" will sadly follow in the years to come, the man known as the father of aerial combat for his sky battles between 1915 and 1916 during WWI, the victor of forty encounters with enemy planes (#1 in the war at the time of his passing) and the mentor of the leading fighter pilot of the war, Baron and Captain Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, 25-year-old Captain Oswald Boelcke, while dogfighting over Bapaume, France, suffers a mid-air collision with fellow ace and squadron mate wingman, Lt. Erwin Bohme, that causes Boelcke to crash and die from a fractured skull.
Boelcke
With the assassination by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip, of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of Austro-Hungary,.and his wife, Sophia, the Duchess of Hohenberg, World War I begins in the city of Sarajevo on Sunday, June 28, 1914. Many changes coming as the four year war that will kill over 17,000,000 individuals goes hot on August 2, 1914, the war not only opens up a new arena to combat, but also creates a unique type of warrior never seen before in military history, the fighter pilot. Eleven years after Orville and Wilbur Wright demonstrate powered flight above the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in a heavier-than-air plane that they will name the "Wright Flyer," it quickly becomes obvious that observing military ground movements from above will give whatever country can master the unique battlefield a huge advantage in the war. To prevent "aerial reconnaissance" from favoring one side over the other, planes begin trying to knock each other out of the skies, a progression that leads from pilots and observers for belligerent nations smiling and waving at each other in the air to planes firing on each other with pistols, rifles, and shotguns, throwing grenades at enemy planes, and even using grappling hooks and bricks (the first shot fired from the sky takes place in 1910, when Lt. Jacob Fickel of the U.S. Army hits a three-by-five target with a rifle from 100 feet of altitude, in 1912, U.S. Army Captain Charles deForest Chandler fires the first machine gun from the air. Only a month into the war, the first aircraft shot down by another plane occurs on September 8, 1914, when Russian pilot, 27-year-old Pyotr Nesterov (the first pilot in the world to successfully fly a loop) in a French built Morane-Saulnier Type G monoplane rams an Austrian Albatros B.II observation plane carrying pilot Franz Malina and observer Baron Friedrich von Rosenthal over Lemberg, Galicia (now Lviv, Ukraine). Nesterov however is unable to celebrate his triumph, hitting the Albatros too solidly instead of just giving the fragile plane a glancing blow, both aircraft go down and all three men are killed (not strapped in, Nesterov falls out of his plane and dies the following day from his injures).
Nesterov
Ramming not the solution to aerial combat, the French are the next fliers to try to solve the problem of how to fire a machine gun through the turning of an airplane's propeller. Lending his pioneering aerial prowess to the problem, Eugene Adrien Roland Georges Garros (flying since 1909, before the war begins Garros will set altitude records of 12,960 feet in 1911 and 18,410 feet in 1912, and in 1913 he becomes the first pilot to fly non-stop across the Mediterranean Sea, going from Frejus-Saint Raphael in the south of France to Bizerte, Tunisia in just under eight hours), has his mechanic, Jules Hue, put an armored propeller on his monoplane which deflects the occasional bullet which can't pass through the plane's whirling blades fired from a gas-operated Hotchkiss model 1907 French infantry machine gun designed by Connecticut engineer Benjamin Berkley Hotchkiss. Using the new setup, flying for Escadrille 23 of the Aeronautique Militaire in single-wing Morane Parasol, on a cold and rainy April 1, 1915, Garros becomes the first pilot to shoot down an enemy plane when flying at 4,500 feet en route to bomb a railway station in Belgium, he spots an enemy Albatros about a thousand feet to his left, closes to a hundred feet and by firing a burst of 24 bullets (the Hotchkiss fires a bullet strip that contains 24 rounds ... Garros goes aloft with two strips in each of his boots) at it through a tractor propeller (a plane configuration with the propeller mounted in front of the engine in which the plane is "pulled" through the air) brings the German plane down (despite being hit by a bullet from the German observer's carbine rifle). Afterwards, Garros will drive to the crash site to evaluate the kill. Two more German planes go down before Garros' guns on the 15th and 18th of the month, but then Garros experiences a clogged fuel line that causes him to land behind German lines and become a POW until October of 1918 (escaping by way of the Netherlands and England, he will rejoin the French air force, but sadly, while piloting a Spad XIII on October 5, 1918, the 29-year-old will be shot down and killed by German ace Hermann Habich <seven victories during WWI> flying a Fokker D.VII a month before the war ends and the day before his 30th birthday). Though known as the war's first ace (the designation denotes a pilot with at least five aerial victories to his credit and comes from the French term "un as" denoting a sportsman or a spectacular feat of skill), with only four verified kills, the honor of being the first fighter pilot ace actually goes to 26-year-old French flier nicknamed "The King of the Sky," Adolphe Celestin Pegoud (the first pilot to make a parachute jump out of a plane, thinking he is first, he will fly the second "loop" in an airplane 12 days after Nesterov accomplishes the feat), who downs six German planes between February 5, 1915 and July 11, 1915 (for luck, he carries a stuffed penguin along on missions), before being killed by one of his before-the-war flight students, Unteroffizier Otto Kandulski (still with us as is Garros and his tennis stadium, Pegoud will be honored by Malley Design of Minneapolis with a line of men's aviation watches bearing the first ace's name).
Garros
Pegoud
Armored propellers not the long-term answer to aerial combat either (the steel wedges diminish the propeller's efficiency and bullet hits on the props put stress on the crankshaft of a plane's engine ... after a time, either the propeller or the engine fail and crashes ensue), the German's use Garros' captured plane (a quick thinking German infantryman prevents the full destruction of the plane and it's special propeller and machine gun are saved ... when he next receives his pay, the soldier will find he has been awarded a stipend of 100 marks, a sum equivalent to about six months of pay) to springboard forward in creating a successful firing methodology for dominating the skies over Europe. Several engineers already at work on designing a synchronizer or interrupter gear (the first dates back to 1910) that will pause the flow of forward bullets when the propeller would be hit, 25-year-old Dutch aviation engineer, Anton Herman Gerald "Anthony" Fokker, rejects deflection as an answer after evaluating the propeller and gun (the cooper jacketed bullets that the French use will allow their propellers to survive for awhile, but the steel jacketed German bullets almost instantly eat up their props), and using existing advances by other countries and individuals, quickly comes up with an interrupter gear with a pushrod control mechanism for use in the planes (the newest iteration of the single seat Fokker Eindecker <"monoplane"> is the first aircraft to receive the upgrade) he is manufacturing for Germany (although not in the 48 hours he will claim, historical research after the war will show that his company was already working on a device for six months before Garros' plane is captured). Before the Germans are willing to equip their planes with the new device though, they demand an aerial demonstration ... from Fokker himself, and for incentive, they find the engineer an oberleutnant's uniform, give him proper ID in case he is captured, and send him up over the town of Douai with orders to shoot something down (balking, he is told that if he doesn't go up, he will be drafted by the Germans and spend the rest of the war in the trenches of the Western Front). Dutch and neutral, Fokker goes up, but not into being a warrior war and lacking any kind of killer spirit, he never is able to shoot anything down and by May the inventor manages to slip back to his aircraft factory in Schwerin, Germany. The system nevertheless has a successful test.
The Rescued Prop
Fokker
Wintgens Fighter
Wintgens
Parschau And Dog Pal
Born in Dresden on September 21, 1890, Max Immelmann has a rough childhood, losing his father, manufacturer Franz August Immelman, when he is only seven. With the support of his siblings, a brother named Franz and a sister named Frida, and the guidance and tutelage of his mother, Gertrude Sidonie Grimmer Immelmann, Max grows into an intelligent young man that is fascinated by engines, motor vehicles, and flying machines, enters the Dresden Cadet School at 14, and has plans to make a career as a mechanical engineer. When he is not studying or building models, Immelmann pursues various athletic endeavors and becomes an excellent athlete, along with devoting his free time to dancing, motoring about the countryside, and promoting the cause of aviation. His mother also turns him into a vegetarian and non-smoking teetotaler, traits that don't sit well at first with some of his fellow squadron members (although he will eat meat in the field at the airfields he is assigned to). Until the spring of 1916, he will write home to his mother every day. He becomes a pilot in November of 1914, flying two-seater observation planes without much success (until he is almost killed when a English Farman MF.11 fires a machine gun at him for the first time, putting bullets in his right wing, through the engine bed, and one that nicks the main fuselage spar holding the entire plane together ... for getting his plane safely home, he will be awarded an Iron Cross) assigned to try out one of Fokker's prototype fighters, a change that results in the flier downing his first aircraft two weeks after Winthens initial victory, besting Lt. William Reid who fires a pistol at the German with his right hand while flying with his left hand. It is not much of a defense when Immelmann counters by sending 450 rounds at the Englishman (the encounter lasts ten minutes, chiefly because Immelmann will have to keep unjamming his machine gun, a job requiring two hands), bullets that hit Reid in the arm four times and that knock out the plane's engine, causing it to crash land Behind German lines, Immelmann will then land near the crash and shake hands with Reid, before declaring to the wounded pilot, "You are my prisoner," pulling the man out of the wreckage of his plane and rendering him first-aid. With the victory, Immelmann is off and running and shoots down three more planes in September of 1915. In October, he is sent to Lille, France and becomes known as "The Eagle of Lille" for his single-handed defense of the skies over the city. With his successes, Immelmann will become the first German ace of the war and will invent what becomes known as the "Immelmann Turn" or simply an "Immelmann," a dogfighting maneuver in which after making a diving attack, the attacker climbs back up past the enemy aircraft, and just short of stalling, applies full rudder and yaw to his aircraft, is then able to put himself in position for another diving attack on his foe or go after a different opponent. For such flying, Immelmann becomes the first German aviator to be awarded the Pour Le Merite, which because it is blue and given to Immelman first from then on receives the nickname, "The Blue Max."
Max And His Mastiff Dog Tyras
Immelmann And His Fighter
On January 12, 1916, the same day as his friend, squadron mate, and fellow citizen of the Prussian province of Saxony, Max Immelmann, receives his Pour Le Merite medal for his eighth aerial victory, 24-year-old pilot Oswald Boelcke, also flying a Fokker prototype, shoots down his eighth plane too, and is also awarded a Pour Le Merite. The son of a conservative schoolteacher Wolfram Boelcke and his wife, Kaitlyn Boarsh (the family also includes two older brothers, Wilhelm and Friederich), Oswald is born on May 19, 1891 in the town of Giebichenstein six months after the family returns to Germany from an Argentinian teaching job (the man is also the rector at a German Lutheran school). At three, the youth catches whooping cough that leads to lifelong problems with asthma, but he deals with the affliction much like Teddy Roosevelt does, and throws himself into athletic endeavors that transform him into an accomplished sportsman who plays tennis, soccer, rows, ice-skates, runs cross-country races, swims and dives competitively, climbs mountains (an expert mountaineer himself, Wolfram Sr. will note that his son always heads for the steepest cliffs, "It was when danger threatened that his young soul leaped with joy"), skis, and is his school's best gymnast (in 1914, he also does well enough in the pentathlon to qualify to run the event at the 1916 Olympic Games scheduled to take place in Berlin). When not enjoying physical adventures, he also enjoys squiring the local lovelies around. And somehow he also manages to excel in the subjects of physics and mathematics. As a young adult, Boelcke stands 5'7" in height on a well muscled frame, has blonde hair, is blue-eyed and maintains a easy-going demeanor that makes him popular with the boys, girls, and teachers at his school.
Boelcke
His love of flying begins when he is only four years old and his father moves the family to the town of Dessau, where a Junkers factory (the Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works) manufactures a variety of German aircraft and airplane motors which the youth gets to watch daily as the companies products are tested in the skies of Saxony. Expected to follow his father into the teaching profession, Boelcke instead decides to pursue a career in the military and learn how to fly. With that goal in mind, he writes a personal letter to Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm, requesting an appointment to military school, and actually gets back a reply in 1911 in which the Kaiser approves Boelcke's appointment but asks that he "complete your grammar school subjects before you report." Complying with the Kaiser's request, Boelcke graduates from Duke Frederick's High School with an Abitur honors degree in 1911. Taking courses to become an officer at the War School in Metz, the youth gets "fair" grades on his written tests, "very good" marks on his oral questioning, and finds himself marked "excellent" for his leadership skills. In July of 1912 he graduates from school, is commissioned an Ensign (very quickly upgraded to lieutenant) and settles into a routine of training recruit telegraphers and chasing after the local ladies (in 1913 while in Frankfurt, Boelcke is impressed when he witnesses an aerobatic flying performance by pioneer French aviator, Adolphe Pegoud), but bored, in June of 1914 he transfers to the Halberstadt Flying School and begins a six-week course to receive his certification as a pilot. His first posting after graduation is to remain at Halberstadt and train 50 rookie pilots in mastering the German Aviatik B.I two-seat reconnaissance biplane. When WWI starts in the summer of 1914, eager to see action, Boelcke connives his way into serving with Feldflieger Abteilung 13 watching over a sector of skies over the front running through the Argonne Forest near Varennes. Working with his older brother Wilhelm as the NCO observer, the pair soon are out-performing the rest of the men in their unit, and both will receive Iron Crosses for successfully flying 40 missions ... Wilhelm with 61 and Oswald with 42 (by contrast in the squadron, the next highest number of sorties after Oswald's count is one active airman with 27 outings). Not wanting the brothers serving in the same unit, let alone the same hazardous plane (and certainly not wanting them together after they outrage their superiors by bypassing the chain of command to argue the situation and threaten the command that if parted they will do no more flying), instead of being court-martialed or shot for refusing orders, Wilhelm is sent back to Germany for leave and Oswald is sent to the newly formed Feldflieger Abteilung 13 operating out of La Brayelle in Douai, France. Less than a month later, becoming the most experienced pilot in his unit just with his transfer, Boelcke becomes a part of Kampfeinsitzerkommando Douai (Combat Single-Seater Command Douai), where he meets and becomes best friends with Max Immelmann.
Boelcke (With Griffin Football Haircut)
LVG C.II Observation Plane
Squadron Lunch - L to R - Lt. Ernst Hess, Lt. Albert Oesterreicher,
Boelcke, And Immelmann
Boelcke and his observer make the unit's first kill on July 4, 1915, when they shoot down a French Parasol observation plane spotting for the artillery (after a chase of thirty minutes, the killing comes quite quickly after seven slugs are put in the pilot, and another three put the back seat gunner to induce their permanent sleep ... both victors will visit the graves of the French fliers and will be very impressed by the bouquets of red, white, and blue flowers that cover their foes' resting places). The Fokker Scourge just beginning, the first and second kills for both Immelmann and Boelcke begin the first rivalry of aerial warriors to shoot down the most planes, and both the German military command and the German newspapers take note (the men, and subsequent fliers will be rewarded for their successes with medals, mentions in dispatches, and private conversations, lunches, and intimate dinners with German royalty and high-ranking military officers ... Immelmann will have dinner with the Crown Prince of Bavaria, the King of Saxony will commission a plate of Meissen china from the Royal Saxon Porcelain Works depicting the pilot attacking an enemy biplane, and he will receive personal congratulatory notes from the Kaiser himself, while Boelcke becomes a favorite lunch and dinner guest of the Kaiser's son, the Crown Prince of Germany & Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm Victor August Ernst). With others in the race too to be the war's top fighter pilot (Germany's Wintgens will have three confirmed victories in 1915, France's Pegoud will be killed after his sixth victory on August 31 of 1915, 24-year-old British aerial innovator Lanoe Hawker will have seven victories before the year is out, three in one day for which he receives a Victoria Cross for bravery, and German pilot Hans-Joachim Buddecke, flying another single-winged Fokker has three kills during the year), Immelmann and Boelcke start the month of September with two victories each. Boelcke goes ahead with #3 when he downs a Morane two-seater on the 9th, with Immelmann catching him with his third victory on the 21st, then Boelcke gets his fourth plane on the 25th, which Immelmann matches on the 10th of October. Then Boelcke goes ahead with victory #5 on the 16th and #6 on the 30th, and Immelmann matches his rival with his sixth kill on November 7th (for their sixth victories, both men will be awarded the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern medal), downing a British Bristol Scout occupied by Captain Theodore Dowson Adams and Lt. Owen Vincent Le Bas (during his contest with Immelmann, Boelcke will also somehow find the time to also win a Prussian Life Saving Medal for the rescue a drowning French teenager while on leave). In December, Immelmann is ahead of Boelcke by one plane, but Boelcke catches him again on January 5, 1916.
Immelmann's Seventh
Boelcke's Seventh
On the morning of January 12, 1916, Immelmann goes out on patrol and discovers a British observation plane at about 9,000 feet above the town of Bapaume. Engaging the aircraft with a frontal pass, Immelman then extends the confrontation into a turning battle at which his Fokker is superior to the British Vickers. One hundred scoring rounds later, wounded, his observer dead and his plane on fire, Lt. Herbert Thomas Keep manages to crash land and get clear of his plane. Watching the Vickers burn, the pilot is surprised when just a short time later he is joined by Immelmann. Kemp will have a short talk with the victor, "You are Immelmann? You are well known to us. Your victory today is another fine sporting success for you." The Vickers is Immelmann's eighth victory of the war and he is the top fighter pilot in the world ... for a few minutes. Unbeknownst to Immelmann, at about the same time northeast of Tourcoing, Boelcke gets into a dogfight that lasts over thirty minutes as the planes each maneuver to find the best firing position, a contest Boelcke wins for his eighth victory also (Buddecke is claiming nine planes shot down at the time, but four can't be confirmed). That night at mess, both pilots will receive the first two Pour Le Merites of the war to be awarded to fliers (later in the war, it will take twenty kills to get the medal). Both men become instantly famous and can't walk the streets in any town in Germany without a crowd gathering.
The Blue Max
For four months, though Boelcke has been sent to the Metz area in anticipation of the Battle of Verdun beginning, the Immelmann versus Boelcke rivalry for top aerial ace goes on as two days after being awarded the Max, Boelcke gets his ninth victory over a British B.E.2c near Flers. February is uneventful for both pilots as rainy weather and an intestinal ailment keep Boelcke grounded, and Immelmann discovers that his area of the front is empty of opponents (unless they fly in a group of ten planes or more) because his abilities have filled the enemy with fear. With new planes on both sides appearing at the front and a change in the weather, both pilots will have plenty of targets to fire upon in March as Boelcke becomes the first pilot in the war to down ten planes. On the 13th of the month, the two men again draw even with each other at eleven confirmed victories, but Immelmann goes into the lead on the 19th when he has a victory in the morning and gets another in the late afternoon, a Bristol Scout and a B.E.2c falling to his guns (visiting one of the pilots in the hospital, Immelmann will be given a letter for delivery to the British flier's family and friends ... a letter that Immelmann flies across enemy lines to drop on the man's home airfield). As March ends, both men have thirteen victories.
B.E.2c
Bristol Scout
Also in March, Boelcke is given command of Fliegerabteilung Sivry (Flying Detachment Sivry), a squadron of six fighter planes. And he connects his squadron's activities to a nearby front line observation post establishing the first tactical air direction center. The month will also find him submitting his evaluation of the new Fokker Eindecker, and he pulls no punches in describing the aircraft as having inaccurately mounted guns and a underperforming rotary engine. On his own, he also submits a memorandum to his new friends in the German high command on how the country is misusing it's airpower, calling it "wretched." Reacting to the air superiority of the Germans and soon ending the Fokker Scourge, in 1916, the French begin flying their new biplane single seat fighter, the Nieuport 11, while the British introduce aeronautical engineer Geoffrey de Havilland's latest fighter, the single seat pusher biplane, the Airco DH.2 that fires forward from outside the width of the propeller turning (and in turn, the Germans will replace the quickly growing obsolescent Fokker E.III with the Halberstadt D.II single gun and the twin gun Albatros D.1 biplane fighters).
German Captured Nieuport II
Airco DH.2
Halberstadt D.II
Albatros D.I
Meanwhile, Immelmann begins to allow the race with Boelcke and the constant danger of flying fighter missions to affect his nerves and judgment (a fellow pilot will describe him as being "a bundle of nerves" who only seems to find joy when playing with his pet dog, Tyras, who also sleeps nightly in the pilot's bed). Becoming somewhat vain (in the air he wears an old tunic and equally ancient velvet trousers, but on the ground he is dressed immaculately), the pilot has multiple pictures taken of himself everytime he receives a new award as his squadron begin addressing him as "your exalted Majesty." And the awards continue as Immelman takes over the top spot from Boelcke with his 14th victory on April 23rd, Easter Sunday of 1916, when he sends a British Vickers F.B.5 into the ground. Thinking two easy kills will be his, two days later Immelmann attacks a pair of the new British Airco DH.2 fighters from the English No. 24 Squadron working in tandem (Lt. Andrews and Lt. Manfield) and is almost shot down when rounds hit the German's fuel tank, the plane's struts, the Fokker's undercarriage, and the fighter's propeller, escaping going into a nose dive of over 1,000 yards (Immelmann will describe the encounter as "not being nice business"). On April 28th, Boelcke catches Immelman with 14 confirmed victories, and passes his friend with his 15th kill on May 1st, sending a French biplane into the ground. His 16th, 17th, and 18th victories all come in May too. Out to increase his total once more, Immelmann in the company of two fellow FA 62 pilots, attacks a formation of five British two seat observation biplanes and two British Martinsyde fighters. Flying the last variant of the Fokker single wing fighter, Immelman puts himself in position to down his 15th enemy aircraft, but instead, experiences a large jolt when he triggers the Fokker's twin machine guns. The Fokker horribly vibrating, Immelmann cuts the fuel and ignition on his plane and discovers that a malfunction with the synchronizer gear has caused his own guns to shoot off half of his propeller, which in turn has wrenched the engine out of alignment. Nose heavy, a moment later the plane begins a spiraling descent that barely allows Immelmann to crash land beside the Cambrai-Douai road. On Sunday, June 18, 1916, flying with 15 victories (he shoots down a British Scout on 5/16/1916), Immelmann's luck will be even worse.
Immelmann
Leading a four plane patrol, Immelmann's bullets force down a British F.E.2b two seat observation plane of the 25 Squadron near the town of Arras. His plane having taken damage to it's struts and wings in the dogfighting that results in Immelmann's 16th victory, and not yet repaired by the time another patrol is launched in the late afternoon, the flier borrows a reserve fighter at his base and takes off to join his comrades. In the skies above northern France, Immelmann encounters a massive dogfight covering over 30 square miles of air, with four Germans mixing it up with four F.E.2bs, two more Germans to the northeast attacking another four British observation planes, while two more Fokkers head northeast too to even out the combat odds, and as if aerial confusion isn't intense enough, German anti-aircraft guns pump shell after shell into the melee of planes overhead. Spying possible prey as he arrives at the scene of the clash, the man known as "The Eagle" spies his next target, sets off a white flare to tell the flak positions below to momentarily cease fire while he attacks, and then dives into an attack on the F.E.2b piloted by 2nd Lt. John Raymond Boscawen Savage. Unleashing strikes on the British plane, Immelmann mortally wounds Savage (the observer will survive) and brings down his foe for victory number 17, then pulls away to look for another opponent. Spotting a F.E.2b piloted by 2nd Lt. George Reynolds McCubbin (with Corporal James Henry Waller as his second seat gunner), Immelmann begins the upward turn maneuver he has made famous, but as Waller fires at him as he passes by, the German's fighter pitches up bucking and flapping as it stalls over its left wing, and then suddenly breaks in two behind the cockpit. Plunging into a death dive, the wings of the plane tear off and the wreckage falls 6,000 feet to the ground. There will be no 18th victory for Immelmann and the pilot is only identified by the initials embroidered on his handkerchief and by the Pour le Merite found around his broken neck.
Savage
Last Dogfight
The Remains Of Immelmann's Fokker
The ace gone at the age of only 25, the official cause of his death is different for the British and the Germans. While several British pilots will claim the victory, the RFC's commanding officer, Hugh Montague Trenchard, examines the reports of the fight and gives credit for the kill to McCubbin, who is wounded in the arm during the air battle and is recovering in a British hospital (McCubbin will receive a Distinguished Service Order), while Waller will be promoted to sergeant and is given a Distinguished Conduct Medal (he is also awarded the Russian Medal of St. George, First Class). Not satisfied that Immelmann could be killed in aerial combat, the Germans examine the wreckage of the ace's fighter and come to a different conclusion ... the synch gear on Immelmann's machine gun has failed and he has shot his own propeller off with disastrous consequences (the Immelmann family believes friendly fire from German anti-aircraft guns has done the deed). Whatever the cause, the German nation is horrified at the loss of their star pilot as he receives a sombre state funeral in his hometown of Dresden. Honor still to be found among the men battling in the skies, on the day of Immelmann's funeral, a British observation plane occupied by British pilot Allister M. Miller and gunner Howard O. Houp flies over the dead German's home field and drops a wreath on the runway which contains the message: "We have come over to drop this wreath as a tribute of the respect the British Flying Corps held for Lieut. Immelmann. We consider it an honor to have been detailed for this special work. Lt. Immelmann was respected by all British airmen, one and all agreeing that he was a thorough sportsman.
The Funeral
McCubbin Recovering
Funeral over, worried that he might lose his other ace, Kaiser Wilhelm II grounds Boelcke after the Prussian shoots down his 19th plane of the war. The pilot is not happy despite the Kaiser disregarding army regulations prohibiting the promotion of individuals to Hauptmann until the age of 30 and making Boelcke that rank ten days after his 25th birthday for his twin victories, #17 and #18 on May 21st, the youngest captain in the entire German army. The new captain's ire increases when he is ordered to share his aerial expertise at headquarters with the officer charged with reorganizing the German air service from the Fliegertruppe (Flying Troops) to the Luftstreitkraffe (Air Force), General Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen. The results of their talk though and Boelcke thoughts about air combat result in his writing down his rules for fighter pilots, which become known as Dicta Boelcke. Containing eight simple rules for aerial combat the ace has come to through hard won experience, the dicta are:
- Always try to secure an advantageous position before attacking. Climb before and during the approach in order to surprise the enemy from above, and dive on him swiftly from the rear when the moment to attack is at hand.
- Try to place yourself between the sun and the enemy. This puts the glare of the sun in the enemy's eyes and makes it difficult to see you and impossible for him to shoot with any accuracy.
- Do not fire the machine guns until the enemy is within range and you have him squarely within your sights.
- Attack when the enemy least expects it or when he is preoccupied with other duties such as observation, photography, or bombing.
- Never turn your back and try to run away from an enemy fighter. If you are surprised by an attack on your tail, turn and face the enemy with your guns.
- Keep your eye on the enemy and do not allow him to deceive you with tricks. If your opponent seems damaged, follow him down until he crashes to be sure he is not faking.
- Foolish acts of bravery only bring death. The Jasta (squadron) must fight as a unit with close teamwork between all pilots. The signals of its leaders must be obeyed.
- For the Staffel (squadron): Attack in principle in groups of four or six. When the fight breaks up into a series of single combats, take care that several do not go for one opponent.
Distributed throughout the German air force in pamphlet form (two years before anything similar is published by the French or British), Boelcke's rules become the world's first tactical air combat manual (at the same time, the ace promotes the idea of fighter schools for flying novices and a reorganization of fighter planes, pilots, and ground assets into squadrons). Rules completed, Boelcke is then sent on a tour of the Balkans in July of 1916, just days after the British begin their Somme Offensive in which three million men will fight for over four months, with almost 900,000 becoming casualties, and the British challenging the German's air superiority (as the Somme Battle begins, the British will have air assets of 185 planes, while the French have 201 more, confronting them though, the Fokker Scourge over with, are 129 German planes, of which only 19 are fighter planes).
Lieth-Thomsen
Whether an act or real, wined and dined by high ranking military officers and important politicians Boelcke appears to enjoy his time in the east as the ranking German war hero of the time. A six week holiday mixed with a celebrity tour and dusted with military facility inspections (the ace will spend time with Turkish Ottoman Empire leader and military officer Enver Pasha and Ottoman Empire military advisor, German General of Cavalry, Otto Viktor Karl Liman von Sanders), Boelcke is joined on many of his revels by his good friend Oberleutnant Hans-Joachim Buddecke (a three day beach vacation at the ancient Greek town of Smyrna is very much appreciated and enjoyed by both fliers). Germany to Vienna and Austria, then on to Budapest and from there a mail steamer takes him to Constantinople. On July 30th, the fighter pilot visits the Gallipoli battlefield (during his visit to Turkey the ace also gets a tour of another new weapon in the German arsenal, receiving a walk through of an Unterseeboot, the submarine U-38), but when he returns to Constantinople he receives new orders to return home ... his absence from the front has been noticed by trench-serving Germans that have begun to grouse about why there only seem to be British planes in the skies over France. Returning to France by way of Bulgaria, the Russian Front, and Germany, Boelcke gets to visit with his brother Wilhelm before receiving his latest orders, with all haste, form and lead by the principles he has established, a fighter squadron of the best German pilots available (it will be known as Jagdstaffeln 2, and still in operation decades later, will be called Jasta Boelcke).
Leaving Base For His Inspection Tour
In the reorganization of the German air force to regain air superiority on the Western Front, six existing Combat Single-Seater Commands are expanded into fighter squadrons, while a seventh is to formed from scratch by Boelcke, who is to lead the unit and can recruit pilots from other units. Based on the recommendations of his brother, the ace's first choice is a Prussian aristocrat and former cavalry officer that will eventually supplant Boelcke in fame and aerial victories as the man becomes "The Red Baron," Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (though he doesn't survive, Richthofen will end the war as the war's ace-of-aces with 80 confirmed victories ... asking his commander directly how he has been so successful against the British, Boelcke will laughingly respond, "Good heavens, it indeed is quite simple. I fly in as close as I can, take good aim, shoot, and then he falls down."). The commander's second choice is a champion swimmer, an expert ice skater and skier, and a premiere alpinist of the time, along with being a civil engineer before becoming a flier during the war, Erwin Bohme (the former engineer for German East Africa's Usambara Railway will score 24 aerial victories before perishing in November of 1917 at the age of 38), Boelcke future friend, wingman, and inadvertent contributor to his mentor's death. Boelcke starts with four empty buildings in the Velu Woods and a fledgling squadron of three officers and 64 other men of various ranks, but no aircraft. By September 11th, there are eight pilots in the squadron and four planes. As the squadron slowly comes to life, Boelcke begins transforming the unit into a likeness of himself (he sums up his leadership style by stating, "You can win the men's confidence if you associate with them naturally and do not try to play high and mighty superior."). The men receive training on firing and trouble-shooting the machine guns that will be mounted on their planes, must attend lectures are given on aircraft recognition and the attributes of various types of planes being flown by the Germans' opponents, and they familiarize themselves with the fighters they will be flying. Then the fliers begin learning aerial tactics covering the duties of a leader and a wingman, attacking in pairs, formation flying, spacing themselves no more than 65 yards from each other to prevent aerial collisions, and acting on the principles in Boelcke's Dicta. Meanwhile, the squadron's commander flies solo missions in the morning and increases his victory total to 26, scoring double victories against the British on the 14th and 15th of the month. On the 16th of the month, six new Albatros D fighters are received by the squadron (the biplane is faster, can climb quicker, and has a higher ceiling than anything in the French or British inventories, and it is equipped with two synchronized machine guns in its nose) and after a day becoming familiar with the planes, the squadron is ready for it's first mission on the 17th.
von Richthofen
Bohme
The Albatros D.II
While each individual Boelcke picks for his squadron differs, the majority will bear certain traits that combine to make a fighter pilot. Guts, the capacity to make quick decisions, aggressiveness, attitude, confidence, endurance, and "good hands" allowing the flier to fly and fight at the same time (the same attributes will be found in the ranks of French, British, Canadian, and American pilots, and in the fliers of other countries such as Japan as the century progresses). As noted in a 1918 survey by Dr. T. S. Rippon and pilot E. G. Manuel of 61 English aviators, the typical combat flier of the time is an unmarried male youth under the age of 25 that has excellent eyesight, is in good health, is high-spirited, and has outstanding coordination with favorite pastimes being mixes of speed and movement like driving race cars, motorcycles, and horseback riding, along with playing a wide variety of sports, dancing, enjoying a riotous evening now and then, and of course, chasing women (natural history, music, and theater also prove to be reliable pilot amusements). Not an occupation for everyone, the first fighter pilots of the war will have a higher casualty rate than individuals serving in infantry units, and the life expectancy of a pilot at the front is about two weeks ... and even the best and most experienced fliers are subject to falling as is reflected in realities such as these:
*Manfred von Richthofen (German) - 80 victories, dead at 25
*Erich Loewenhardt (German) - 54 victories, dead at 21
*Werner Voss (German) - 48 victories, dead at 20
*Fritz Rumey (German) - 45 victories, dead at 27
*Heinrich Gontermann (German) - 39 victories, dead at 21
*Max Ritter von Muller (German) - 36 victories, dead at 31
*Georges Guynemer (French) - 54 victories, dead at 22
*Maurice Jean-Paul Boyau (French) - 35 victories, dead at 30
*Edward Corringham "Mick" Mannock (British) - 73 victories, dead at 31
*James Thomas Byford McCudden (British) - 57 victories, dead at 23
*Robert Alexander Little (Australia) - 47 victories, dead at 22
*George Edward Henry McElroy (British) - 47 victories, dead at 25
*Albert Ball (British) - 44 victories, dead at 20
*Roderic Stanley Dallas (Australia) - 39 victories, dead at 26
*Francesco Baracca (Italian) - 34 victories, dead at 30
*Michel Joseph Callixte Marie Coiffard (French) - 34 victories, dead at 26
*Francis Granger Quigley (Canadian) - 33 victories, dead at 24
*Kurt Robert Wilhelm Wolff (German) - 33 victories, dead at 22
*Karl Allmenroder (German) - 30 victories, dead at 21
*Karl Emil Schafer (German) - 30 victories, dead at 25
*Samuel Frederick Henry Thompson (British) - 30 victories, dead at 28
*Frank Luke Jr. (American) - 19 victories, dead at 21
Guynemer & Ball
On Sunday afternoon, September 17, 1916, Boelcke leads four other fliers on the squadron's first combat mission over Equancourt, France. Following the doctrine he has established, Boelcke drops down on a British F.E.2b two-seat observation plane and sends it into a crashing spiral for his 27th victory ... his men also drop four more English planes, including Lt. von Richthofen shooting down his first plane of the war (he will also start giving himself 2-inch silver cups engraved with the date, time, place, type of plane shot down and the name of the pilot ... there will be 60 in the Baron's collection before he does away with the affectation not because of any horror about celebrating death, but because his Berlin jeweler can no longer get war blockaded pure silver and anything else just won't do ... for his first kill, he also takes his first wreckage souvenir to display in the trophy room of his parents' home ... the observation plane's machine gun), another F.E.2 observation plane, killing its.pilot, Lt. Lionel Morris, and observer, Captain Tom Rees. Following the group's first mission, Boelcke starts the tradition of debriefing his men when they return to the airfield. Rainy weather on the 22nd aggravates Boelcke's asthma deeply enough that he can't fly, but he refuses to go to the hospital and instead follows his men's mission from the Jasta 2's airfield, and helps coordinate the squadron's transfer from Bertincourt to Lagnicourt when British artillery begins falling too close for comfort. Gratified that his training is producing results, he is proud when his men fly six sorties wihout him, but under the guidance of Oberleutnant Gunter Viehweger, shooting down three planes. Okayed to fly again and back in command, Boelcke closes out September by shooting down his tenth plane of the month on the 27th, for his 29th confirmed victory of the war. Summing up the activities of his squadron for the month, Jasta 2 is credited with flying 186 sorties, 69 of which result in combat, combat that finds Boelcke and five others shooting down 25 planes. As requested by the Kaiser and the German high command, the German ace has wrested aerial superiority from the British on the Somme front at a cost of four casualties. In October, Boelcke and the squadron will battle even harder to maintain their advantage ... and there will be more casualties.
Boelcke's Biplane
Boelcke
Boelcke In His Flying Kit
Members Of Jasta 2 - L To R - Lts Stefan Kirmaier (11 victories ... dead at 27),
Hans Imelmann (6 victories ... dead at 19), Manfred von Richthofen
(80 victories ... dead at 25), Hans Wortmann (2 victories ... dead in 1917)
After a full day of flying and paperwork, a weary Boelcke goes to the squadron mess for a little down time, but leaves when some of the unit's pilots rollick too loudy. Retreating to his room, he growls to his batman about too much noise as he sits and silently stares into the fireplace flames heating his room. Not invited but welcome anyway, his best friend in the squadron Bohme shows up and the two men have a quiet conversation about life and the war until an orderly knocks on the door and suggests the men retire as they have an early morning patrol to fly. The next morning dawns misty with lots of clouds, not ideal flying conditions, but the group goes up on four missions, each led by Boelcke, and in the afternoon the captain flies a fifth patrol before returning to base. Interrupting a chess game he is playing with Bohme, at 4:00 in the afternoon the squadron receives a request to fly a sixth patrol in support of a local infantry advance before night falls and operations are over until tomorrow. It is all Boelcke needs to hear and he quickly takes off again, leading Bohme, von Richthofen, and three other Jasta 2 pilots towards the town of Flers, where the fliers discover and attack two Airco DH2 fighters from the RFC 24 Squadron commanded by Captain Lanoe Hawker, one piloted by 21-year-old Canadian ace Captain Arthur Gerald Knight (the Red Baron's 13th victim, he will be killed by von Richthofen on December 20, 1916) and the other by 23-year-old Lt. Alfred Edwin McKay (he will be killed by Pour Le Merite ace Carl Menckhoff on December 28, 1917).
Knight & McKay
Visibility poor and the air bumpy with invisible obstacles, six more German fighters arrive in the area. Overkill apparent, the late afternoon plays out differently as von Richthofen goes after McKay, while Knight tries to escape Boelcke and Bohme as the Germans attempt to trap him between their guns. Meanwhile, the other German fliers swirl about like vultures as they await their own turns to go after the British pilots. Closing on Knight after five minutes of dogfighting, Boelcke and Bohme are suddenly surprised when McKay's fighter cuts in front of them while the pilot desperately attempts to get away from von Richthofen. Maneuvering instantly to avoid a collision with the British fighter, Boelcke and Bohme swerve away from McKay but find they are now only feet from each other. Now trying to escape colliding with each other, Bohme pulls the nose of his fighter up and Boelcke lowers his, but the fliers are too close to each other and with a sudden jolt the biplanes graze each other with Bohme's undercarriage lightly touching the tip of Boelcke's upper wing on the left side. A death blow, the fabric on Boelcke's upper wing tears from the contact, his ride loses lift and the Albatros spirals downward through a cloud, the wing finally tearing off as it is is buffeted by turbulence while still 1,500 feet in the air. Fighting to gain control of his fighter, Boelcke is amazingly able to make a soft crash landing of the Albatros near a German artillery battery outside the village of Bapaume. The crash appears survivable, but in Boelcke's haste to get aloft for a six sortie, he has failed to put on a crash helmet or safety shoulder harness. Hitting the ground, the captain's head snaps forward and makes violent contact with one of the plane's machine guns, fracturing the pilot's skull and killing him instantly. Boelcke dies as the leading fighter pilot of the war with his victory totally frozen forever at 40 triumphs ... he is 25-years-old.
Last Photo
About To Collide
Collision
Fighting control issues of his own, Bohme pulls away from Boelcke's descent and is barely able to return to base missing his undercarriage. Landing without wheels, Bohme flips the biplane over, but being strapped in, survives the crash. On the ground a distraught Bohme is inconsolable as he cries over his role in the death of his best friend and thinks about blowing his brains out with a pistol (while his own crash landing is completely forgotten). Calmed down by the rest of the squadron (Bohme will blame himself for the accident for the rest of his short life), the engineer turned fighter pilot will fly again in November and in the months ahead will reach a victory total of 24 enemy planes, win an Iron Cross, First Class, be awarded the House Order of Hohenzollern, spends time in a hospital recovering from being shot in left arm, commands Jasta 29 and Jasta 2, is awarded a Pour Le Merite, and is killed on November 29, 1917 with a love letter to his fiancee Annamarie that he'd been unable to post in a pocket of his burnt and bloody flight suit (kept as a victory souvenir by a British soldier, Annamarie will finally get Bohme's last letter in 1921 ... in 1930, Bohme's letters to her will be published by Professor Johannes Werner under the title, "Letters From a German Fighter Pilot to a Young Maiden"). That evening at the Jasta 2 airfield, a British plane flys over and drops a wreath with a simple message upon it: "To the memory of Catain Boelcke, our brave and chivalrous opponent. From the English Royal Flying Corps."
Jasta Mess - Boelcke Is At Far Right With
Bohme Behind Him
A national hero dead, as German begins mourning the fall of the fighter pilot, Boelcke, despite being a Protestant, receives a massive sendoff at the Cambrai's "Virgin of Tenderness" Catholic Cathedral on October 31, 1916 (it is filmed for later viewing by the German public in movie theaters). At the head of the funeral procession, Manfred von Richthofen will be honored to walk carrying a cushion displaying Boelcke's many decorations. Six huge black horses pull a flower covered carriage containing the ace's flag draped casket as fighters criss-cross slowly overhead (there will be tributes from French, Italian, and British POWs that survived encountering the ace, including a wreath from victim #20, Captain Robert Eric Wilson and three other British prisoner pilots that is addressed to, "The opponent we admired and esteemed so highly."). In attendance at the event will be Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, First Army commander, General der Infanterie Fritz Theodor Carl von Below, and a host of other German royalty and military officers, two of whom will give speeches. Ceremony over, the funeral procession marches to the train station through an honor guard firing rifle salutes. A day long journey by train takes Boelcke back to his hometown in Dessau, Germany where another funeral for the flier takes place at St. John's Church on the 2nd of November featuring more royalty, military officers, and family in attendance, another von Richthofen walk with the fallen ace's medals, a funeral oration from Prussian General Moriz Freiherr von Lyncker, comments from General Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen, and a flying tribute in which the pilots passing over the gravesite cut their engines and silently glide over the grave of their fallen friend. Boelcke is buried in a memorial tomb at Dessau's Ehrenfriedhof (Cemetery of Honor).
Boelcke In State
Boelcke's Funeral
Inside The Church
Boelcke's Tomb
Von Richthofen (R) And His Brother
Gone, Boelcke still is an influence on military aviation. Flying skill and leadership on display almost daily, the man known as "The Father of Air Combat" is the progenitor of air-to-air combat tactics, fighter squadron organization, early-warning systems to alert fighter squadrons of enemy movements, creation of the first fighter school training pilots (Jastaschule), and in his success against the British and French, he becomes a hero to his fellow pilots and to the German people, while at the same time being respected (and copied) by his opponents. During World War II, a medium bomber wing of the Luftwaffe is named "Kampfgeschwader 27 Boelcke," a Luftwaffe barracks in Thuringia is named the "Boelcke Barracks." There is also a "Boelcke" Street in Berlin, and another barracks named for the ace in the town of Koblenz, on a "Boelcke" Street, another "Boelcke" Street out of the town of Kerpen will have yet another "Boelcke" Street running northwest to two more barracks named for the ace, one of which also will have an officer's clubhouse named for the Prussian. The pilot, along with being featured in books and magazines about aerial combat, also has to date over 160 books written about his combat adventures, the best being "Oswald Boelcke: Germany's First Fighter Ace and Father of Air Combat" by R. G. Head, "An Aviator's Field Book" by Oswald Boelcke, "Knight of Germany: Oswald Boelcke, German Ace " by Johannes Werner, and "Oswald Boelcke - The Red Baron's Hero" by Lance J. Bronnenkant. The present-day German Air Force fighter-bomber wing, "Taktisches Luftwaffengeschwader 31" (Tactical Air Force Wing 31) has Boelcke's name on its coat-of-arms and the wing conducts a yearly pilgrimage to the ace's grave on the anniversary of his death. At the wing's homefield of Norvenich Air Base, Boelcke is memorialized with murals on base buildings, hall portraits, a bust of the man at the entryway to the base's headquarters, the base magazine being named simply "Boelcke" and the pilot and one of his Fokkers are on display on the static display of the tail section of a German bomber. And the pilot is the frequent subject of paintings and a number of collectible coins featuring his planes, himself, or both.
Norvenich Air Base
Boelcke Coin
Coat Of Arms
Perhaps the most famous fighter pilot of all time, Manfred von Richthofen, should have the last few words on his teacher and mentor, Oswald Boelcke. The Red Baron will say of his squadron leader, "It is remarkable that everyone who knew Boelcke imagined himself to be his one and only friend ... he was equally amiable to everyone and neither more nor less to anyone." And upon Boelcke's death, von Richthofen will comment, "I am only a fighting airman, but Boelcke was a hero."
Rest in peace, Hauptmann Boelcke!
It Begins!
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