Did you know?

[Willi Von Klugerman]

This thread is for everyone to post.The thread is for forum members that have information about WWI aviation that is interesting and obscure.

Heres mine!

October 16,1916

A German airman flying a Fokker D.II,flies into some bad weather.He lands,only to be seized.It turns out he landed near Bettlach...Switzerland.

[Chock]

A man of words as well as deeds...

Edward Mannock devised a simple code with his friend Jim Eyles, so that he could include things of interest in his letters home to the UK, which of course he knew would be censored. For example, if you take the first letter of each word in the first sentence of his letters to his friend, they spell out the name of the nearest town to where Mannock's squadron was currently stationed.

So, his letters commence with sentences such as: 'Arrived in real earnest' and 'Answering in return express' ( to indicate Aire), and 'Big roll unexpectedly arrived yesterday' and 'Brother Rastus unexpectedly arrived yesterday' (to indicate Bruay). The repetition of these things in letters is another interesting point; RFC pilots often had to destroy the letters they got from home after reading them, since they were not supposed to leave them lying around when on advanced airfields, and they could not take them into the air either, so it was sometimes difficult for them to keep track of what they had replied to in their own letters with the ones they had got no longer available to read.

Mannock would also write other coded phrases, such as mentioning that he 'needed a new pair of boots', which was code for his squadron being moved to another aerodrome. Often there would be clues as to when and where that might be, albeit usually fairly cryptic unless you knew what the other coded phrases meant.

Mannock was very keen on writing and language, and liked nothing better than a heated discussion on politics or some social issue, as he was very keen on such subjects. He even wrote to the parents of a DFW crewmember, whose aircraft he had shot down in flames in September 1917. It is of course well known that Mannock, like most pilots, was horrified at the thought of burning in the air, although he often made sick jokes about it to disguise that fear, since he was keen to encourage the morale of his fellow pilots.

The story of him writing to that German family is an interesting one: A German flyer dropped a letter to the British infantry, enquiring about a crewmember from the aforementioned DFW Mannock had destroyed (the dead man being Fritz Frech). Mannock got the letter, which was forwarded to him whilst he was on leave in England. In the letter, a German pilot had asked about his friend's fate, and that if he was dead, could they tell him where his friend was buried by dropping several letters over the lines, so that he could pass the information onto Fritz Frech's distraught parents and at least give them some sort of closure.

Mannock was quite open in his dislike for the Germans, although he was actually sickened by the sight of that particular DFW going down, since it was one of the first 'flamers' he'd ever seen, so the request, and the sadness the man's parents were experiencing touched him enough that he did actually write to them as per the request. Several copies of the letter were duly dropped over the German lines, to increase the chances of it being found and forwarded to them.

On the other hand, Mannock could be quite callous with regard to some Germans. He is famously reputed to have said, upon hearing that Von Richthofen had been shot down and killed: 'I hope he burned all the way down', and he refused to drink a toast to Richthofen in the mess that night when other pilots raised a glass to him as a fallen fellow warrior - a tale which appears in censored form in McCudden's Flying Fury, where McCudden reports that: 'I'll not raise a glass to that devil' is what Mannock had said; the real quote being rather more choice in its language, despite Mannock being quite an eloquent speaker.

That eloquence and cleverness is nicely illustrated in this poem which Mannock wrote, which is also tied to an interesting tale:

There was a little Hun
Who ventured O'er the lines,
A risky thing to do,
in these riskiest of times.
Said the airman on his tail,
in a voice so sweet and calm,
'another thousand revs wouldn't do you any harm'.

That particular poem was written about Oblt. Hans Waldhausen, who was downed by Mannock's squadron buddy John Tudhope. Waldhausen was flying Albatros DV 2284/17, which was captured intact. Waldhausen had very cleverly figured out the times at which RFC pilots typically dined in the evenings, and with that knowledge in his possession, he timed quick dashes across the lines to coincide with these meals, so he could shoot down British Kite balloons without much risk of British fighter patrols being about.

So Mannock had arranged with the balloon squadrons to have them send up balloons with no observers in them as bait for Waldhausen, whilst he and a few other pilots skipped dinner and waited on Mazingarbe, which was their squadron's advanced landing ground only a mile or so from the lines. Waldhausen got one of the balloons (which actually did have an observer in it who bailed out), but when the pilots saw it go up in flames, Mannock shouted to Tudhope to go get him. Tudhope had only just landed with an engine which was not giving full revs. Nevertheless, Tudhope took off with his faulty engine and succeeded in downing the sneaky German, who had to force land on the British side of the lines (hence the line in the poem about another thousand revs, which of course would have seen him outpace Tudhope's faulty engined aircraft had his DV not flying been low and slow).

Waldhausen's plane came down intact, but he was in fact lucky to survive, since he had apparently shot at the observer from the kite balloon whilst he was on his parachute coming down, and the troops who captured Waldhausen were in the process of beating the hell out of him when Mannock arrived on the scene and put a stop to it.

Al

[Mad Mac]

Mannock seems a much more interesting and colourful character than MvR, who seems stiff, formal and almost one-dimensional based on the stories I have read. So why is MvR now a legend and Mannock (who had about the same number of aerial victories) almost unheard-of today?

Maybe if Mannock had flown an all-red tripehound?

['14-'18aviationcollector]

Originally Posted by Mad Mac

Mannock seems a much more interesting and colourful character than MvR, who seems stiff, formal and almost one-dimensional based on the stories I have read. So why is MvR now a legend and Mannock (who had about the same number of aerial victories) almost unheard-of today?

Maybe if Mannock had flown an all-red tripehound?

Hi Mad Mac,

That is a very interesting point! I have often wondered about it myself. I think the reason that MvR is so much better known is that he was made famous by the media, which would have been driven primarily by the German Military, and their propaganda. He was esentially one of the first, if not the first Superstar ctreated by the media in my opinion. Even many young people now have heard of him! .... and as you said, the all red tripehound would have helped a lot too! It's all part of the flamboyant image, and one of the factors that would have made him instantly recognisable in the air. I am sure that allied pilots would have dreaded the sight of that all red tripehound, almost certainly with the exception of the most aggressive of allied aces.

['14-'18aviationcollector]

The Rumpler C.IV flown by Ltn Oskar Seitz had twin machine guns - a Parabellum and a Lewis gun.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention ... I have access to an original Fokker D.VIII propellor. All the stamps are in German except for the engine name - le Rhone. There might be some explanation for this - I have a theory but I don't know exactly why they didn't use the German name for the copy of the le Rhone - Oberursal.

[Chock]

Richthofen's fame and the fact many people have heard of him in comparison to other aces is as you say, probably a result of the hero culture the Germans promoted in WW1 for their flyers, with Sanke postcards, and glowing newspaper reports etc helping to place him in popular culture. Conversely, the official British attitude was that all pilots were assumed to be doing the best they could, so even the notion of an 'ace' was not officially acknowledged, although obviously if they handed out medals, the high scorers were probably going to be the main ones getting them, so naturally the press would make something of it, but usually in a much more reserved fashion.

In France, Guynemer was held in much the same regard as the Germans held Richthofen, and this did receive quite a lot of officially sanctioned promotion, so he is well known to a lot of French people even today, unlike British aces; if you stopped someone in the street in Britain today, I daresay most would be hard pressed to name any British WW1 flyer, with the possible exception of the fictional Biggles character, which just goes to show what popular culture can do for you.

A lot of British flyers in WW1 were actively against the culture of handing medals out for victories, since the air war was regarded as a 'team effort' by most of them. Many pilots - including Mannock - were also of the opinion that shooting down aircraft was not the only criteria worthy of admiration in their flyers, since it left out the artillery and bomber pilots, who were often taking more risks for less adulation, and many fighter pilots were in a position to appreciate those efforts too, since a lot of them had served in the land forces prior to getting into aeroplanes, so they knew the worth of the less glamorous flying tasks.

In the case of Mannock, what is most interesting about him, is that he was initially regarded as cowardly by his fellow pilots when he first joined the RFC. He took his time to learn the craft of war flying, eschewing the zeal younger flyers often displayed for the experience he had from being rather older and wiser than most young flyers, so that he could explore the best approach to take to air combat. Quite a few pilots regarded his constant air testing of his guns and tweaking them as a pose, to create the impression that he was keen. Amusingly, when he started gaining victories, he took the mickey out of those accusations, by having a yellow spinner put on the front of his Nieuport; meanwhile the mumblings that had been heard about him being 'yellow' were rapidly replaced with admiration and a desire to be in his flight. Such tales make Mannock seem very likable, and that's what most people who knew him confirm.

But oddly enough, on the whole I think Richthofen comes across as quite likable in his Red Air Fighter book, and I suspect that he might not have been so very different to other aces who are regarded as more 'human', yet the promotion of him as a fearless warrior hero in German popular culture at the time might have worked against him on that score, in that we regard him as somewhat cold and calculating by comparison, which again shows what popular culture can do for you. We feel that we know what he was like, but one look at the things Mannock did in the air shows that he too was certainly what could be called cold and calculating when it came to air combat. In this we can see that fame is often a double edged sword when it comes to the regard we hold people in.

Al

[Chock]

NM - double post glitch

Al

[rexee]

One summers afternoon in 1917 Grahame Donald attempted a new maneuver in his Sopwith Camel. He flew the machine up and over, and as he reached the top of his loop, hanging upside down, 6000 feet above the ground, his safety belt snapped and he fell out. He was not wearing a parachute; they were not issued to pilots in the belief their availability would impair their fighting spirit.

Hurtling to earth, with nothing to break his fall, Donald's death was seconds away—but it didn't come. In an interview given 55 years later he explained, "The first 2,000 feet passed very quickly and terra firma looked damnably 'firma'. As I fell I began to hear my faithful little Camel somewhere nearby. Suddenly I fell back onto her."

The Camel had continued its loop downwards, and Donald landed on its top wing. He grabbed it with both hands, hooked one foot into the cockpit and wrestled himself back in, struggled to take control, and executed "'an unusually good landing".

[Lufbery]

I'm going to have to learn more about Mannock!

[Lufbery]

Originally Posted by rexee

One summers afternoon in 1917 Grahame Donald attempted a new maneuver in his Sopwith Camel. He flew the machine up and over, and as he reached the top of his loop, hanging upside down, 6000 feet above the ground, his safety belt snapped and he fell out. He was not wearing a parachute; they were not issued to pilots in the belief their availability would impair their fighting spirit.

Hurtling to earth, with nothing to break his fall, Donald's death was seconds away—but it didn't come. In an interview given 55 years later he explained, "The first 2,000 feet passed very quickly and terra firma looked damnably 'firma'. As I fell I began to hear my faithful little Camel somewhere nearby. Suddenly I fell back onto her."

The Camel had continued its loop downwards, and Donald landed on its top wing. He grabbed it with both hands, hooked one foot into the cockpit and wrestled himself back in, struggled to take control, and executed "'an unusually good landing".

I'd say you're full of it, but I've read that story before! What luck.