Seaplane aces?

[Soderbaum]

Thanks Paolo and Jos for the interesting added information..

Some notes regarding the victories for which Christiansen received confirmation...

When the Ehrenpreis was establish in early 1917 by the Marine Air authorities, Christiansen was one of the 24 nominated candidates for receiving it...
The Ehrenpreis like the Ehrenbecher was "created" through a donation from some rich German businessman or nobility.
However, when on 18 April 1917 the first received the decoration, there was only money enough for 19 flyers, so the "unlucky" Christiansen together with four other had to wait further six months...

Apparently, this "pocal" was an expensive "item" already from the start..

Christiansen observer while claiming his first victory, Lt zS Leopold Exner had also been killed meanwhile, but I think that his family received it later on (cant find the date at moment)..

In May 1917 Lt dR MA Christiansen scored his second victory together with Vizeflugmeister Karl Hillger (also his second).

On 1 Oct 1917 Christiansen, now promoted Oblt dR MA, scored his third victory together with Vizeflugmeister Ernst Schwarz (the man with the cigar on a well-known photo). This episode is interesting to read in German documents as they were 100 % clear that the e/a was destroyed...the truth was another thing...
It can be noted that Schwarz never was able to become an officer, and later he was "downgraded" to Flugmeister...

The Curtis on 25 Apr 1918 together with Vizeflugmeister Bernhard Wladicka (his first) was officially confirmed as Christiansens 4th victory.

At last on 18 Jul 1918 Christiansen, and again together with Wladicka shot down a Short as their 5th and 2nd official victory respectively...

From late summer 1917 until EOW the "whole" See I "only" scored 12* victories, three of these went to Christiansen and the other were confirmed to other flyers from See I....for example C25 was confirmed to Panke and Hans? Meyer. ..
Does anyone have Pankes first name or can confirm that Hans was Meyers first name...??

Other flyers from See 1 who scored official victories during this "late" period are Urban and Ehrhardt, Wegner and Giese, Metzing and Walker, Marschel and Neubert, Poppe and Ullmann, Hess and Holm and Wahl and Platte...

*one further was probably confirmed as jzLg, which meant an official status but no individual victory numbers were given...


Gunnar