Minelaying Friedrichafens ?

[Regulus]

Hi,

Did anyone ever hear about this ? Seems it was done on the Eastern front or Ostsea.
Never heard of anything before !

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[JohnMacG]

There's a few lines, no more than that, in 'Germany's First Air First air Force' by Peter Kilduff.
Three big FF41A twin-engined floatplanes were used out ot Seeflugstation Windau for bombing and mine-dropping.
I quote (from LtnzSee Wolfram Eisenlohr): - 'While laying mines, we flew at altitudes of 6-8 metres. To maintain this low altitude over the water, we used a sort of Schleppantenna (trailing aerial). When the tip of the aerial touched the water, a small light went on in the pilot's cockpit, so that he could be sure that he was not flying too high over the water.
'Reconnassance flights were usually carried out alone; that also held for minelaying flights, which were carried out mainly at night to avoid enemy defensive fire.'
There's also this 'Wolfram Eisenlohr also participated in another aviation first : the destruction of a warship by aircraft laid mine. As he noted "With the help of Friedrichshafen torpedo aircraft on 7 September 1917 we were able to lay 750Kg sea mines. I was the first one on the German side to drop them. About a month after laying this mine barrier (26 September), the Russian destroyer Okhotnik hit one of the mines and sank.'
Apparentlt the crew of this warship prevented their officers from getting into the lifeboats - this was JUST before the revolution - and they went down with their ship. The outbreak of the revolution ended the naval air war in the Baltic

[Regulus]

Thank you very much John !

I am still wondering why I never found any report that this was done also by Seeflugstation Flandern I or II. Perhaps it was never done from Flanders but that would be really bizar.

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