Excerpt below from "Eagles in the Sun: A History of Jasta 24, The Kaiser's Eagles" published with permission of the authors, to whom we are deeply indebted
Chapter 3: Blood On Our Hands: The Fokker Scourge
As discussed in the last chapter, the Eindecker's introduction to the air war is generally marked as the advent of the first, true fighter. It's appearance may have caused serious concern with the Entente's aviators, but at home it created a feeling best described as hysteria. In the eyes of the public, the "Fokker Scourge", as it became known, was thought to be mostly a consequence of inferior British equipment flown by heroic British pilots who, in the name of one young aviator, were "sent [to the front] to die." The popular British press termed the available British planes "Fokker fodder", and while that may have been true with respect to the severely outclassed RAF BE2, the RAF FE2b and Airco DH2 aircraft that were beginning to make their appearance at the front by early 1916 were more than a match for the Eindecker. As a matter of fact, subsequent flight trials by Entente pilots of captured Eindeckers concluded that the Fokkers were inferior in performance to some of their opponents. The famous Max Immelman, the first pilot to be awarded the "Blue Max", the order Pour Le Merite that was nicknamed after Oberleutnant Immelman, was after all shot down in a dogfight with two Fees in June 1916; surely evidence that the Fee could hold its own against a Fokker. So what caused the Fokker scourge? German tactics surely had something to do with it--Oswald Boelke was to pen down the famous Dicta Boelke later in that year--but the formation of Jastas still was to come. The answer, many modern historians believe, was a combination of superior German tactics and training and inferior training for British pilots, many of which were rushed to the front little or no experience on any flying machine other than a few hours on trainers and possibly led astray by Major Lanoe Hawkers "attack everything". A good example of the level of training that young British pilots received when they had to face their German counterparts can be found in the previously unpublished letter of a young member of what was to become Jasta 24, Leutnant Rainer Maria Rilke (letter part of authors' private collection, and translated by the authors). The illustrations on the following pages are based on the descriptions of the aerial combat by Ltn. Rilke.
"Dearest Mama,
Hans has come to visit me on his way home for convalescent leave (I am sure his wound will heal nicely but will leave a scar to make the young girls back home at the next ball swoon--Hans always was the lucky one), and has kindly agreed to deliver this letter to you, personally. This will be much faster than the post, and also will avoid our friends, the war time censors. Just don't tell Papa, you know how he gets whenever he thinks one of this boys is trying to bend the rules. "Military rules! War time!" I can hear him bellowing. Just in case, I will not include a date or location in the letter. Hans can fill in any details.
I am proud to tell you that I have my first victory under my belt! Four days ago I was chosen to fly one of the rare missions into enemy territory (you may remember me telling you last Christmas how we have orders not to take our fine machines into enemy territory so that the enemy cannot copy our superior technology). The French use balloons to take artillery officers high up into the air with binoculars so they can rain shells on our poor boys in the trenches. So when my colleague Leutnant Thomas Dirnberger and I got the call, we agreed that come what may, we would do everything we could to take down the balloon to spare our boys in the trenches. After all, Hans is there! (Well, I thought he was--I had not yet heard that he had been wounded).
We made a Bienenstrich [ed: straight line or course] to the coordinates we were given. We had been told that there would be anti-aircraft guns and machine gun nests guarding both the approaches and the balloon itself, but God must have heard your prayers; we did not encounter a single one. When we arrived, the balloon was up in the air, hanging there like a big fat sausage. I couldn't wait to prick it!
We approached the balloon from the back, Thomas on the left side of it and I on the right.
All of sudden Dirnberger cut in front of me, heading to the right. I jerked my rudder and ended up on the left side of the balloon, so he and I changed sides. I was wondering what had gotten into Dirnberger when I saw a lone British fighter to the right. I am not sure what he was doing there, but clearly Dirnberger had seen him and decided to engage. The two planes quickly closed and exchanged fire.
In the meantime, I had myself lined up for a strafing run along the side of the balloon to pepper it from back to front.
Meanwhile, the British pilot, who clearly was an undertrained novice, rammed poor Dirnberger! (I know that some people may think that the British pilot rammed Dirnberger on purpose, but I can promise you, no aviator in his right mind would risk his craft and life so (except possibly some crazy Russian)--remember what happened to poor Wilhelm in training? You know, the one with the cute Dackel [ed: Dachshund, i.e., Wiener Dog]).
Clearly, that collision must have damaged Dirnberger's plane severely. He came around for another pass at the British swine when suddenly his plane just seemed to explode!
I had no time to mourn my comrade (later we got a letter from the Red Cross--Thomas Dirnberger was injured severely but survived the crash! He was badly burned when he set his wrecked plane on fire so it would not fall into enemy hands. He will heal completely, but when released from hospital will be shipped to England as prisoner of war. With heroes like him on our side, how can we lose?)
I kept my finger on the firing stud, stitching a line of holes across the length of it, just like your sewing machine in a piece of fabric. The long burst gave extra damage to the sausage, and gas was streaming out of it like juices from a bratwurst. Ha!
The British pilot turned towards me. I could see that the collision and Dirnberger's shooting had damaged his plane--there was fabric flapping in the wind. I have to say that the British pilot was gallant--he closed straight at me ignoring the condition of his plane. Meanwhile, the ground crew was working like mad trying to pull the balloon down.
But gallant though he may have been, the British pilot was a fool, or untrained, or both--in order to get a shot at me, he flew straight at the balloon and collided again, this time with the balloon!
He did not make it this time.
Which left me with plenty of time to take another pass at the balloon.
It finally collapsed into itself and came down in a hail of flames. The ground crew were running like little ants! I was considering peppering them a bit for good measure, but decided that getting my plane back home was more important. [ed. note: middle row is +1 damage]
I made it home without any problems. The Kommandant included me in the day's dispatches, and my victory is now official! So I think I can say that your "little boy" has gotten a tiny measure of success to add to the family laurels. That should please Papa!
Hans is eager to get on the way, and so I will close this letter,
With my dearest affections,
Your son,
Rainer
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