Interview with Josef Jacobs

Dear Friends,
A happy new year to you all!
As there has been some recent interest in Josef Jacobs, I thought that I would post here at The Forum an interview from over 30 years ago with Herr Jacobs; as the actual text is too long for one posting, please bear with me as I shall divide it into five or even six (this is NOT an attempt to run my score up!). What has always surprised me is that no-one here at The Forum has ever, to my knowledge, posted anything from this interview, or, for that matter, was even aware that it had taken place. It's from FIGHTER TACTICS AND STRATEGY 1914-1970, by Edward H. Sims (Harper & Row, 1972).
Enjoy!
Captain "The Gun" Lewis

A RESERVE OFFICER
It was a sunny autumn day in Munich, in 1968, and we go up from the table in the lounge and walked through the lobby of the Hotel Bayerische Hof, outside. Smiling, my stocky, brown-eyed companion extended his right hand. With an auf wiedersehen and a bow, he turned, putting on his hat, and walked briskly away. About five feet nine, a quick walker in a well-tailored blue suit, he didn't look back, and I followed him with my eyes until he disappeared around a corner. He ws seventy-four then, the most successful surviving scout pilot of the Kaiser's Germany. He shot down forty-eight Allied aircraft in the 1914-18 war and survived a long list of incredible experiences, having met many of the best Allied scout pilots in aerial combat. Joseph Jacobs, fifth-ranking ace of the German Flying Service in the First World War, porbably remained at the front on flying duty longer than any other celebrated German pilot.
We talked all morning about air fighting in the First World War, and about the tactics and the great fliers of that conflict, and I thought, as the famous fighter pilot, now a representative of a small crane factory, disappeared: 'There goes a man poorly remembered by his country for a tremendous contribution.'

'I went to the front in 1914 and stayed there for the rest of the war', Jacobs had begun. 'I first flew the Dorner, a very primitive monoplane, in 1912. I left flying school a Hangelar, near Bonn, to join the Army in 1914. I flew as an observer, bomber pilot and artillery spotter-- the Aviatik, LVE, Rumpler and other planes. Once I flew all the way to Paris in 1915. We flew against the French and the British. They fought differently. Usually the French stayed over their lines, or very high. With our weak engines we couldn't get up to them. When they saw a Fokker they fled. This was in 1915, when I joined a Fokkerstaffel in the West, near Laon. It was hard flying.
'In the beginning I sometimes carried bombs-- we threw them over the side with our hands-- ten-kilo bombs. We carried six in the cockpit. I threw bombs on trains on several occasions. We also flew against balloons, which was highly dangerous. When it was very cold the balloons wouldn't burn. We then aimed at the top so that the gas would escape and came around again and ignited them. In 1915 when I began I had only a pistol in the cockpit for amament. We would fly at 10,000 or 12,000 feet, twelve to fifteen miles behind enemy lines. Later in the war I remember flying over Big Bertha, the gun bombing Paris. I've flown with Boelcke, the Eagle of Lille, Max Immelmann, and against many of the great Allied aces.
'In the air war we liked to have height, speed and the sun behind. Mornings we always had the sun behind us in the east. We watched for the French planes and sometimes found one alone. The French ace Guynemer was an individualist. He was faster and surprised many of our pilots diving from above. Most of his victims were taken by surprise.
'The English came to us. Often when we shot down their machines they were sent back to our experts to be tested. The Camel was the best English scout of the war. The English pilots were good, as were the Americans. The best Belgian scout pilot was Willy Coppens.
'With Jasta 22, near Laon, I scored five victories. In June 1917 I became leader of Jast 7 in Flanders. There I scored most of my victories. But I was stationary, not like Richthofen, who was moved to where the fighting was. And when Richthofen lost a pilot he immediately got a replacement.'

I asked Jacobs what he considered the single most important performance factor in dogfighting.
'The most important thing is manoeuvrability. Our three-wing scout was best for this, though slower than the fastest planes of the war. But it could out-turn and outclimb the other fellow. Of course, speed and height-- ceiling-- were very important.'
I asked him what qualities distinguished great scout pilots from average. 'Good eyes was the greatest individual asset. Not just seeing the enemy but seeing the situation, sizing it up correctly and quickly. That was very important. Another important talent for the scout pilot was still hands. With a still hand he could get the maximum from his machine-- glider pilots know that-- and roughness at great speed can damage the aircraft as well as interrupt smooth airflow. For dogfights, the pilot should be a good flier. Individually, then, good eyes, being able to size up the situation quickly, keeping calm and flying smoothly and being able to handle one's aircraft-- those were all characteristics of the best pilots.
'Our best flier might have been Werner Voss, our fourth-ranked ace. He had wonderful eyes and was a wonderful flier and often flew alone. Richthofen, who learned from Boelcke, was our most successful. Richthofen came later and flew in formations, which were the rule by the end of the war. After I had scored about twenty victories I concentrated on helping younger pilots learn. Often it was the younger pilot, who hadn't learned to take care of himself, who was lost very quickly if someone didn't keep a close watch on him on his first flights. In combat, of course, if a pilot has the three assets I mentioned earlier when the first sighting is made-- height, speed, and the sun behind-- he can take on heavy odds. When we had these advantages we sometimes fought ten times our number. In the actual fighting one of the tricks that probably saved my life was the slip-turn, a turn solely with rudder. The wing doesn't go up and those behind don't realize you're turning. A normal, co-ordinated turn is accomplished by aileron and rudder, lifting the wing and turning the rudder simultaneously. But in the slip-turn you're skidding around turn, level, and it's difficult to detect, and the bullets meant for you miss on the outside. Generally, acrobatics are not good in aerial combat. Loops offer no advantage nor does the roll, which reduces speed.
'I ofteh flew against the Spad. It wasn't so good for manoeurvring but it had speed and could climb rapidly and was stable. In the last of the war I often flew as high as 19,000 feet but never bothered with oxygen. We had parachutes in the last of the war, also, which I don't think the Allied pilots had, and parachutes saved my life on several occasions. I was shot up or crash-landed many times.'

I intervened to ask Jacobs when he came closest to death or capture during the war.
'It was probably in December 1917. You know, something interesting happened last year (1967) concerning that flight. I won the Pour le Merite because of it and last year was the fiftieth anniversary of the award. A television producer made a film of the fight and afterwards I got a telephone call from another German pilot who had seen me go down that day in 1917. In the fifty years since we had never met! There are only five of us alive who wear the Pour le Merite with the fifty-year gold crown.
'I was a lieutenant then, flying the Albatros D-V and led eight in all that day. We were stationed in a small hunting house near the Wyuendaalevelo Schloss near the German-Belgian border, not far from Lille. The little house was in a park and the Unteroffizier came in that morning with a good report on the weather. The report came from Paris each day, six or seven o'clock. We had a ready room out on the field, near the D-Vs, about 800 yards away. We had a car to carry us to the aircraft. After 1917 reports of enemy planes crossing the lines came to us from the front by telephone, and then we would start out to the aircraft immediately. At this time we were flying with the Fourth Army. A report came in that enemy bombers were heading for Brussels. We were to intercept them before they got there. It was good weather and we were soon off. Soon they came into view and I successfully engaged their leader. Then I went after another English pilot, but someone-- friend or foe-- hit me in the scrap. My motor was gone and the wind was very strong-- blowing me towards the west . I was barely able to maintain control and knew that I would have to crash-land. I did my best to make the D-V reach German lines but I was in a bad way and came down about seventy yards from them. Yet I had been lucky. The German line at that point stuck out into the enemy's in a salient. Had I landed to the left or right, even a hundred yards, I would have been taken prisoner. The Albatros flipped over on it back when I touched down, but I managed to get out, then scrambled back to our lines. That was close-- almost a victim in the air, almost a victim in the crash and almost captured by the enemy. It was getting dark and very cold when I finally reached safety.'

Turning to service in the Second World War, I suggested tactics had changed a bit with faster and more powerful aircraft. Jacobs, who had also served in the Luftwaffe, agreed, but felt manoeuvrability had still been important in the last war. He asked, 'Did you know the Russian Rata could out-turn the Me.109?'
'I never did get along with Nazis, Göring and the others. I remember once Göring telling some of us that when the Americans got into the war our pilots would be able to shoot them down easily because they would lack experience. I answered we were already fighting some of them flying for the R.A.F. and that our pilots reported they were excellent. One of my captains was with me and he joined in, supporting my view. Göring didn't want to believe what was coming.'
The highest-scoring living German ace of the First World War reminisced about the famous scout pilots on both sides. 'We heard more about Coppens, Guynemer, Nungesser, Navarre, Ball and McCudden than the rest. Of ours, Voss was very good. Boelcke was probably the best. He taught us much and Richthofen learned from him. I thought Gottfried Banifeld was one of the war's outstanding scout pilots. He flew with the Austro-Hungarian Navy, though one of his legs had been badly shattered in a crash before the war. He contributed much to the morale of fellow pilots. Hauptmann Godwin Brumowski, of the Austro-Hungarian Luftfahrgruppen, was of course credited with forty-one victories.'
Jacobs sketched for me the formation German scout squadrons favoured in the last of the war, explaining the reason its V-shape. Ten scouts might comprise the V, with the leader forward, and inexperienced pilots just behind. The best pilot flew in the rear, between the two widened legs of the V. Each aircraft, counting back from the piont of the V, was stacked higher. Groups (Gruppen) were also stepped up higher from the lead group.

Jacobs sketched formations and answered questions with the quickness of a man in his forties (as I had noticed about other scout pilots of the 1914-18 war). He demonstrated in the sketches how guns fired and exactly where they were located on German scouts, in detail.
Of his awards, he is proudest of the Pour le Metite, which entitles him to wear a small gold crown above the medal so popularized in films, which is sometimes called the Blue Max. But though he had won his country's highest award in the First World War and served again in another, he lives a modest life today and doesn't receive a pension.
As he wrote down the names of the other four First World War pilots who now wear the gold crown on their Pour le Merite medals-- Laumann, Degelow, Osterkamp and Christiansen-- he seemed amused at my astonishment that, at seventy-four, he didn't receive a pension for his outstanding service to Germany in the war.
'You see, I was only a reserve officer', he said.

[Ginger.]

Captain Lewis,
Recently I was bought a small model of an all black Triplane,the box said it was flown by Lt. Josef Jacobs.I had never heard of him.
After reading this I will look on the little model with new respect.Let me be the first to congratulate you on sharing the text of the interview with us.

[leo]

Thank you for the most interesting interview. I was most interested concerning his comments on AH aviation. Banfield with 9 victories is considered a better flier than Brumowski with 35-40. That seems to be the case in Austria, also. The only mention of any flier at the Arsenal Museum is of Banfield.

Was banfield of British ancestry? Does anyone know?

[Cigogne]

One of his ancestors emigrated from the Britain to serve in the Austro-Hungarian Navy and the family stayed there.

Cig