heat of battle

I quote this from an article I was reading "the German leaders aircraft had a green tail,yellow fuselage and red nose.There was a large K on the top wing and an inverted white V.His flight all had red noses and yellow fuselages but different coloured tails-green,red,light blue,black,yellow and black and white striped. Their first encounter with 56 was on 23rd November. On 19th December Mayburry of 56,who had 21 victories,was shot down by "Green tail." On 18th February 1918, McCudden in turn shot down "Green tail."
Can any of you experts enlighten me as to which Jasta these Albatri belonged. I know Jasta 5 all had green tails,in the heat of battle did Mac get the colours the wrong way round? seeing as 56 usually hit what they aimed at I can't see the pilots being that wrong.
I have just finished reading "Brief Glory" in it there is a photograph of the German pilot who shot down Rhys Davids,his 4th victory.It surprised me that such a veteran pilot should be knobbled by a relative beginner.Would this have anything to do with the state of mind of a fighter pilot. I recall reading that Mannock warned "Taffy" Jones that he was reaching the stage where he thought himself indistructable, and this was the most dangerous time for a scout pilot. I wonder if this is what happened to young Rhys Davids.

Dear Twoflags,

All Jasta 5 pilots had red 'noses', many of them yellow fuselages, but last part of it had all kind of different colors and personal markings, the tail was green wit a red border. I think the words tail and afterpart of the fuselage got confused here,
Mayburry was possibly shot down by Jasta 5's VFW. A. Weber, who claimed an SE5 that day at 14.30 hrs near Havrincourt forest. 56 Sqdn flew this kind of planes.
The victory of McCudden was on Jasta 5's VFW Martin Klein near Beaurevoir France, his plane had red cowling, yellow fuselage with a green band before the German cross, and in the middle of the green band was a star with 8 points, and of course the typical green tail with red bordering.
About the sqdn leaders aircraft with the K and white upside V i don't know who it could be.
Hope this is some help.

Regards

Johan

". I recall reading that Mannock warned "Taffy" Jones that he was reaching the stage where he thought himself indistructable, and this was the most dangerous time for a scout pilot."

I've read a lot on this and the general consensus is that Mannock is talking about what is now known as combat fatigue. One of the symptoms is carelessness, which I'm guessing Mannock equates to "Indestructability".

If one is to look at many of the surviving aces you'll find that they were:

A)extremely lucky
B)Got lots of Rest/R&R

Look at the deaths of many of the great aces and I think you'll see they suffered from combat fatigue.

Ball
MvR
Luke
Boelcke

The list goes on and on.

cheers lads as regads this subject iam a new starter-take a sprog under your wing facts mythts or legends i want to know it all!!!!

[Darryl]

"Facts, Myths, Legends"

Start with the myth that Klein was Mac's victim on 18/2/18. Have a look at the thread not so long ago about GT and in particular Alex Revell's replies.

It has been years since it became quite evident that Julius Kaiser was Mac's "green tail" on that day and Von Stein the "blue tail". The confusion arises from comments by Von Hippel in about 1963.

If you are to match up claims and victories, get yourself a good map of northern France and at least check the feasibility of your theories.
Blindly quoting as facts, points mentioned in old books serves no purpose.

regards to all

Darryl (who is evidently having a bad day)

[Ron_F]

Killratio beat me to it!

Yes, it would seem newer facts that Kaiser was most probably the victory that day.

As far as Kleins markings go, i have no reference of a red nose per se, but von Hippel does state a K on the wing, and ive got an artist rendering of his machine in magazine of it. it does have the star, but no red nose per se, a red spinner with just a few inches of the fuse red. Many of the Jasta 5 artist conception i have have red spinners, but also a variety of color schemes. in the heat of battle, i doubt it is easy to pick out exactly what each plane looked like.

we were discussing it about a month or so ago on the forum.

As killratio knows, i tend to question/use alot of sources. Hence my remarks in that thread. :]

Ron F.
aka Ronbo

wish i had found this forum 6 months ago i put on a wargame at a show recently and painted green tail and his mates in bright yellow planes with tails of many colours!mac's flight had green se5s all in 1/72 scale! my own daughter shot me down all weekend i'm now poorer but wiser.