How close am I? Call 1800 OH.........!!!!

[Darryl]

I thought I’d share a couple of excerpts from a “Combats in the Air” report that show just how close things got. Remember that distances in the air are deceptive but even give these guys a 100% margin for error and I should still be heavily indebted to my drycleaner!

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24 Squadron OP 11000ft east of St Quentin.


6) Whilst on patrol 8 enemy scouts were seen coming out of the sun. When they opened fire, Lt Cowper did a climbing turn under the tail of a Pfaltz (sic) and fired 50-100 rounds at 20 yards range. The Pfaltz turned over and was last seen falling over and over.

7) Lt Mark turned and got end on at the nose of another Pfaltz which however did not fire. Lt Mark fired 30 rounds at 70 to 30 yards range and then zoomed over him on to the flank of a D5 firing 120 rounds down to almost colliding point. Lt Mark had not the time to watch the effect on the first machine (can’t imagine why not!!!) but the second turned over and went down mostly on its back.

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Lt Mark seems to have been an avid fan of the erstwhile CO’s doctrine ‘Attack everything’.

He once dived so hard at a target that his SE5 began to shed all of the fabric from a wing. He pulled away and headed for the lines but on his way down saw another aircraft with an EA on its tail. He attacked this but it turned on HIM. Luckily the other pilot shot it down and Mark managed to crash-land his, by now, barely controllable aeroplane this side. His SE5 however burst into flames on impact and was struck off charge. Mark scrambled free unhurt!!!!! He survived the war.


Just some ‘flavour’ of the olden days

Regards to all

Darryl

[Soderbaum]

Interesting,
If you have the date and time for this action,
there is a good possibility to identify the German
pilots, participating in this combat..

[Darryl]

Hi,
you should be right!!
Unfortunately we are DEEP in OOC territory here.
More by E-mail.

For everyone else, the action occured 18/02/18 at around 2.30pm.

regards

Darryl