Von Richthofen: The Legend Evaluated

by Richard Townsend Bickers

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  In the interests of security, his new posting was called Carrier Pigeon Unit Ostend. It was stationed at this seaside resort, but had nothing to do with homing birds: its work was bombing and reconnaissance. It flew two types of aeroplane. In the Albatros CI, the pilot sat in the front cockpit and the observer in the rear, where he had a ring-mounted Parabellum machine-gun that covered both sides and astern of the aircraft and could fire upwards. Their view was improved by a dual-curve cut-out in the upper wing trailing edge and rectangular cut-outs in the lower wing roots. This type of aircraft was used for photographic or visual reconnaissance, artillery observation and light bombing. A bomb load of 70 kg could be stowed vertically in a space between the cockpits. The engine was a 160 hp Mercedes DIII. The aeroplane was 25 ft 9 in long, its maximum speed was 87 mph and its service ceiling 9,840 ft.

  Manfred recorded that he had been ‘fascinated by the name Grosskampfflugzeug’, a large battle aeroplane, which the unit also flew. The first type thus called was the AEG G II, which appeared in July 1915. Powered by two 150 hp Benz Bz III engines, it carried a machine-gun in the front cockpit and a 200 kg bomb load. Some 30ft long, it could attain 85 mph and 12,000 ft.

  Georg Zeumer had joined the squadron some time previously and Manfred was delighted to be able to fly with him again. They spent five or six hours a day in the air. Their first encounter with the Royal Flying Corps, on a sortie in an Albatros C I, was with a Farman that they thought would be easy meat. Some variants of this primitive-looking two-seat pusher reconnaissance machine had been fitted with a Lewis gun for’ard. Its best speed was 65 mph. The Germans attacked and the two aircraft rushed at each other head-on. Manfred managed to fire four rounds, but missed. The Farman turned onto its opponent’s tail and gave it a good burst but also did no damage. After they had chased each other in circles for a while, the Farman departed. The two Germans blamed each other, but eventually agreed that to be fully effective against a target in front the pilot needed a gun, so as to co-ordinate positioning the aeroplane with aiming, and the observer should defend against attack from astern. They did not appreciate that it was also a display of a fact that fighter pilots in both World Wars had to learn: an aircraft slower than its adversary could make this handicap an advantage by turning inside it.

  Manfred’s pleasure when bombing was marred because he could not see the bombs burst, as it meant looking astern and the view was obscured by the aircraft’s wings. One day, after bombing, he gestured to Zeumer to turn and bank so that both could enjoy the spectacle of high explosive blowing up British troops. The propellers on either side were so close to the front cockpit that one sliced the tip off Manfred’s little finger.

  He had bought a pure-bred ‘elm-coloured Great Dane for five marks from a nice Belgian’. He named it. Moritz and took it for a flight — once. ‘He behaved very sensibly and looked around with interest, but my mechanics were angry because they had to clean the aircraft of some unpleasant things.’

  In the third week of September, three of the unit’s Albatros C Is and crews were detached to operate over Champagne, where they found that two Fokker E Is were also based. The latter was the best German single-seater at the time. Zeumer was at once besotted by it and spent as much time as possible flying it. Capable of 80 mph and able to climb to 10,000 ft in forty minutes, its greatest asset was that it was fitted with an interrupter gear, which permitted its machine-gun to fire between the blades of the turning propeller.

  This was the second single-seater to be able to fire through the propeller disc. The first had been the invention of a French pilot, Lieutenant Roland Garros. After much experimenting, he had achieved success by fitting wedge-shaped steel deflectors to the blades, so that all bullets that did not happen to pass between them would be turned aside instead of removing lumps of wood and wrecking the air-screw. However, this reduced the number of bullets that were effective. When Garros shot down his first enemy aircraft on 1 April 1915 and four more during the next two weeks, he revolutionised air combat. On 18 April, on his way to bomb the railway station at Courtrai, he flew so low that one rifle bullet from a German soldier smashed his petrol pipe. Not only was this an ignominious way to be brought down, but it also meant that his invention was revealed to the enemy. The propeller was sent to Anthony Fokker, the brilliant Dutch aircraft designer. Early in the war he had offered his services to the British, but been rejected. He now worked in Germany: five weeks later he had perfected an interrupter gear for the E I. One unavoidable effect was that it slightly slowed the rate of fire; the other was that its timing was sometimes faulty and pilots, including the two most brilliant at that time, Boelcke and Immelmann, sometimes shot their own propeller blades to bits.

  Neglected by Zeumer, Manfred began flying with another highly experienced pilot, Oberleutnant Paul von Osterroth, a pre-war regular, who had joined the air service immediately on completing his cadet training. Shortly after the brief fight with a Farman, they spotted another of the same type about five kilometres inside the French lines. Its occupants were oblivious of danger while Osterroth approached close enough for Manfred to start shooting. He fired 100 rounds before his gun jammed, but that was enough to send the French aeroplane spinning down, to crash in a shell crater. This was never credited to him as a victory, because the High Command acknowledged only aircraft shot down behind German lines and confirmed by independent German witnesses.

  As October began, there was more redeployment of the flying units. Manfred returned briefly to Ostend before he was transferred to Rethel, on the River Aisne, 135 miles south-west. The unit had its own train, so that the whole complement of air and ground crews, luggage, equipment, aircraft (wings detached from the fuselage) and spare parts could be moved quickly from any part of the front to another. This journey had a radical effect on his future.

  Germany’s two leading fighter pilots were Hauptmann (Captain) Oswald Boelcke, with four victories, and Oberleutnant Max Immelmann, with five. Since April 1915 they had been in the same unit, No. 62 based at Douai, which was equipped in May with the Fokker EI. They shared a house and had common characteristics: both were thorough and methodical, treated air fighting as a science, systematically worked at its basic principles and arrived at the best ways of applying them. As a result of their discussions, Boelcke propounded a doctrine that, in essentials, remained valid through all the decades during which single-seater fighters fought each other with machine-guns or cannon.

  Boelcke’s fighter pilot’s gospel began with the basic essential that, when opening an attack, he should have a great height advantage and the sun behind him.

  The rest of his principles were:

  • He should make use of cloud to conceal his approach.

  • His objective should be to get so close to his target that he could not miss it, yet be in a position where the enemy could not bring a gun to bear on him. In a fight between two forward-firing single-seaters, this means being astern, and slightly above, the other aircraft. A single-seater fighting a two-seater that has a rear machine-gun needs to position itself behind and slightly below.

  • If attacked from ahead, a pilot should turn directly towards his adversary. This presents the smallest target and reduces the time in which the other man can aim and shoot.

  •If attacked from behind, a pilot should bank into the tightest possible turn. This makes it difficult for the enemy to get on his tail; and, if he turns inside his enemy, he has a chance to get on his tail.

  Boelcke, with his greater number of flying hours and more mature character than Immelmann, was the world’s first great fighter tactician.

  He belonged to a different unit from Manfred but was on his way to Rethel aboard the same train. In the dining car, Manfred recognised him from photographs he had seen in newspapers. It was then that he asked him to explain the secret of his success and received the half-jocular reply about getting very close to the target before shooting. For the rest of the journey Manfred courted Boelcke’s friend
ship: they played cards and talked for many hours until eventually his new friend advised him to learn to fly a Fokker in order to improve his chances of shooting the enemy down.

  In October, the Germans had equipped three units, among them the one that Boelcke commanded and on which Immelmann served, with the Fokker E2. This, with its 100 hp Oberursel engine that gave it 100 mph and a 12,000 ft ceiling, which it could reach in thirty minutes, had entered service in July. While Immelmann stayed at Douai, Boelcke went to Rethel to take part in the newly introduced barrier patrols: singletons prowling along the Allied front, waiting to pick off enemy aeroplanes with the E2’s now established dive out of the sun. He was operating in the French sector.

  As soon as Manfred’s unit was installed at Rethel, he pestered Zeumer to teach him to fly in the spare time when he himself was not on sorties in the Albatros C I and Zeumer was not flying the Fokker E I. There was a dual control aircraft on the aerodrome, in which he began his instruction. By the 10th of October, his instructor deemed him ready for his first solo. Manfred was not so sure, but had to accept his friend’s opinion. All went well until the landing, when he made a common error of judgment and, as the RAF would say in a later war, ‘bent’ the nose and undercarriage. His next flight was completely successful and he confidently underwent a proficiency test two weeks later, which entailed taking off, describing an accurate figure of eight, and landing, five times. He failed.

  On 15 November he was sent to the flying school at Döberitz to train as a fighter pilot. For relaxation he used to fly to a friend’s estate, where he could land, to shoot wild pig. Sometimes he stayed overnight for a moonlight hunt. He passed his final examination on Christmas Day and was able to get home that evening, where his sister and brothers had already assembled with their parents. For nearly three months more he had to continue flying practice when the weather allowed before he was considered proficient enough to join a squadron.

  CHAPTER 6 - THE FIGHTER PILOT

  On 16 March 1916 Manfred reported to Kampfstaffel (Battle Squadron) 8, whose establishment was six aircraft. It was stationed at Metz and, flying the Albatros CIII, which was slightly faster than the CII, operated on the Verdun front against the French. Command of two-seat fighters had passed from the observer to the pilot, but this was not enough for Manfred, who wanted to shoot at the enemy, too, not merely position the aircraft so that his observer could do so. He copied what some RFC pilots had first done in 1914 and many Frenchmen adopted later, he had a machine-gun, pointing forward, mounted on the upper wing. It was not until 26 April that he was able to use it. He sighted a Nieuport 11 below, a nimble single-seater on which a Lewis gun similarly mounted was standard. He dived, took the pilot by surprise and shot it down. It landed in a wood behind the French lines, so, once again, he was denied credit for a victory; however, it was mentioned in the official report for that day, although his name was not stated. He wrote at once to give his mother ‘the good news’.

  Boelcke had returned to Douai in December. He and Immelmann entered the new year with seven victories each. On 12 January 1916 Boelcke won his eighth and Immelmann caught up with him the next day. They both held the Iron Cross, First Class and now received their country’s highest decoration, Pour le Mérite, known as the Blue Max for its colour. It bore a French name because this was the only language that Frederick the Great, King of Prussia 1740-1786, who instituted it, could speak.

  In the eyes of German fighter pilots, these awards set a precedent and they all strove to reach eight victories, in expectation of being similarly honoured.

  An arbitrary standard of excellence among fighter pilots had first been set by French journalists. Before the war, they used the term ‘ace’ to describe Adolphe Pégoud, who was acknowledged to be France’s best pilot. He was undoubtedly the most experimental and among the bravest: the first to fly inverted and the first to perform an outside loop, which became known as a hunt. This is so dangerous that it has always been forbidden in the RAF, except for test pilots when flying specific types. He was shot down and killed in 1916.

  Air fighting, because of its novelty and the false glamour that reporters attributed to it, made better reading than ground battles. Likening fighter pilots to armoured knights who fought each other to the death with lance and sword, but chivalrously spared a wounded and unhorsed opponent who had fought well, was a romantic absurdity. French journalists who extolled their own fighter pilots’ achievements elevated all who scored five kills to the status of ace. The Aviation Militaire did not at first recognise this, but tacitly had to accept it. In time the term insinuated itself into official use. Commandant Tricornot de Rose, who commanded the French squadrons on the Verdun sector, seeing the value of it in maintaining morale, duly began to publish his pilots’ scores.

  The RFC disapproved of personal publicity and discouraged it. The British, with their ideal of team work or play and modesty about individual feats, approved only of praise directed at a squadron. Most commanding officers did not like having brilliant individualists in their units. As the war advanced, fighters fought in pairs, threes, four, sixes and whole squadron strength of twelve. It was also regarded as invidious to elevate the value of fighter pilots’ work above that of bomber, reconnaissance and artillery observation air crews.

  The adulation of outstanding British fighter pilots began in 1916, when the public first read in newspapers about nineteen-year-old Lieutenant Albert Ball, a religious youth who was as ruthless as Manfred von Richthofen. He had joined No. 13 Squadron in February to fly BE2cs, which were outclassed by almost every other type at the Front. Although the squadron’s main task was artillery spotting, in April he enabled his observer to shoot down an enemy aircraft and forced two others to land.

  In May he was posted to 11 Squadron, which had eight FE2bs, four FB5s and three Bristol Scouts: all inferior to the enemy fighters that preyed on them. However, the squadron was being re-equipped with the Nieuport 11, which performed better than the Fee, Gun Bus and Bristol Scout. It was armed only with a Lewis gun on the upper mainplane, but this had the new Foster mounting: a curved rail along which the gun could be slid down towards the cockpit to make reloading easier. This was still a primitive arrangement compared with the interrupter gear that the Germans and French were using. The British were trying out two similar mechanisms. The first was the Vickers-Challenger, which had been tested with a Vickers gun on Royal Naval Air Service Sopwith 1½-Strutters, two-seat reconnaissance fighters — an apparent contradiction in terms. This was soon replaced by the better Scarff-Dibovski gear.

  Ball’s letters to his parents reveal him as immature and naïf, but he displayed the cunning of a born stalker and superb marksmanship, although his upbringing was diametrically different from Manfred’s.

  On 10 July he wrote home, ‘You ask me to let the devils have it when I fight. Yes, I always do let them have all I can, but really I don’t think them devils. I only scrap because it is my duty, but I do not think anything bad about the Hun. He is just a good chap with very little guts.’

  This accusation was a wild generalisation, for the average German airman did not lack courage. He continued, ‘Nothing makes me feel more rotten than to see them go down, but you can see it is either them or me [Trent College had evidently neglected his grammar] so I must do my best to make it them.’

  Flying a Nieuport 11 he proved his exceptional skill by shooting down an Albatros AI. In July he joined 60 Squadron. His twentieth birthday fell on 14 August. By the end of that month he had flown eighty-four sorties shot down sixteen aircraft and destroyed an observation balloon.

  The Foster mounting was convenient but not perfect. On 15 September his combat report stated that after he had fired one drum from fifty yards at an Albatros reconnaissance type, ‘the gun on the Nieuport came down and hit me on the head, preventing me from following the HA[1] down.’

  He never hesitated to take on several opponents at a time, single-handed. On 21 September he met six Rolands flying at about 90 mph.
His customarily impersonal combat report, which reads as though the machine were flying itself, says: ‘HA seen N of Bapaume in formation. Nieuport dived and fired rockets.[2] Formation was lost. Nieuport got underneath nearest machine and fired a drum. HA dived and landed near railway. Nieuport then attacked another machine and fired two drums from underneath. HA went down and was seen to crash at side of railway. After this the rest of the HA followed the Nieuport towards the lines and the Nieuport turned and fired remainder of ammunition after which it returned to the aerodrome for more. Second machine was seen to crash by Lieut Waters.’

  On 25 September:

  Two formations came along, Nieuport attacked the first. The HA ran with noses down, but, when another formation came near it turned towards the Nieuport. The Nieuport fired one drum to scatter the formation after which it turned to change drums. One of the drums dropped into the rudder control and for a few seconds the Nieuport was out of control.

  Nieuport succeeded in getting drum on gun and attacked an Albatros (two-seater) which was then flying at its side. Nieuport fired 90 rounds at about 15 yards range underneath HA. HA went down quite out of control and crashed. The remainder HA followed Nieuport, but in the end left. In order to keep them off at a safe range, Nieuport kept turning towards them. Each time this was done HA made off with noses down.

  He might have fired those ninety rounds without changing drums: in the spring of that year Lanoe Hawker had introduced a double drum — two forty-seven-round ones welded together.

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  By now Ball had been promoted to captain and awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Military Cross.

  His fighting style makes an interesting contrast with Manfred’s.

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  It was not only in action that Manfred displayed occasional rashness. During the spring and early summer of 1916 there were several thunderstorms over the Verdun front. One day he had to fly from Mont, where he was stationed, to Metz on business that did not involve an observer, so went alone. As he prepared to return to base, a thunderstorm was brewing. He wrote later, ‘I had never tried to fly through a thunderstorm, but could not resist the experiment’. Several experienced pilots advised him not to take off, but he ignored them because he thought he would seem timid if he heeded their warnings. His route took him across the Moselle mountains and through valleys where a high wind was causing tremendous turbulence, rain was hammering down and lightning was sizzling around him. ‘It was like riding a steeplechase over trees, villages, church towers and rooftops. I believed that death could come at any moment’, but added that there had been beautiful moments to compensate for the fright.