Fonck - Claims and eyesight?

[ceaserhull]

Clearly the top French aces of WW1 - Rene Fonck was a great scouting ace. A lot is documented about his amazing eyesight and marksmanship. I believe he claimed to have shoot down 6 enemy planes on two occasions - a quite remarkable feat.

My query is how is it with such a remarkable eyesight his victory list (as cited by books i have read about both him and the "Storks") is still full of "E/A's" rather than the name/type of aircraft he shot down? I know aircraft recognition was difficult at times - but the majority of his claims are in categories which are not very specific i.e. "two seater", "scout", "E/A" etc? This contrasts strongly with other top aces from both Germany and the British Empire.

Does anybody know why this is so?

[Gregvan]

Hello Caeserhull,

First of all, welcome to the Forum!

If you'll do a search of the archives here at the Forum, you will find that Fonck is generally a controversial subject who rarely fails to generate spirited debate. There's no doubt that he was a superb marksman with keen eyesight, a highly professional fighter pilot who approached his job with a modern, carefully thought-out and scientific approach. However, there are many who feel he was an arrogant loner, a braggart who over-claimed considerably; others hold much more favorable opinions.

As far as his confirmed victory list containing a lot of indefinite "EA" claims, he certainly wasn't alone in this amongst his fellow Frenchmen. As you've noted, identification of enemy aircraft was a skill that was in short supply in all the air services of WWI. While British, American and German airmen may have been more specific in many of their claims, as often as not these identifications seem to have been in error (for many Germans, almost any British single-seater was a "Sopwith"; for Americans, any German two-seater was a "Rumpler" and any fighter a "Fokker" - at least it often seems so). The French had strict confirmation standards, but they don't seem to have been very particular about the specific types of enemy aircraft being claimed - at least, that's the impression I get from a brief look through "Over the Front" by Frank W. "Bill" Bailey and Norman Franks. There have been some who claim that Fonck was deliberately vague in his claims, so that if any German aircraft was confirmed as having been downed in the general vicinity and time of his claim, he could say "Yes, that's mine!". However, I don't buy this.

A look through the victory claims for many French aces will reveal that "a Boche is a Boche, is a Boche" was the approach they took. Taking a few examples: Lt Bozon-Verduraz of N3 and SPA 3, SPA 94: out of 11 victories, six are merely identified as EA and we're lucky to find that the rest are "two-seaters". Out of Gabriel Guerin's (SPA 15 and 88) 23 confirmed claims, 15 are simply "EA" , four are either two-seaters or "scouts" (chasse),one is a balloon and only two are specifically identified as a Rumpler and a DFW two-seater. I could cite many such examples; Guynemer was certainly an exception, for most of his claims are rather specific. However, most of what I have to go on comes from the aforementioned "Over the Front" and "The French Air Service War Chronology by Bailey and Cony; original French records in some cases may be more specific.

There are certainly others on the Forum who are far better qualified to comment on this than I am. However, I feel that the percentage of Fonck's claims noted simply as EA is more a result of the practice of his particular service and era, rather than any lack of good eyesight or intention to be imprecise.

Greg

[Dan_San_Abbott]

ceaserhull:
Welcome to the Forum. In the 1960s and 1970s, I had the opportunity to interview many WW1 and WW2 pilots. All of them told of some member of their Flight that had extrordinary. The WW2 pilots told of this particular that would call out "bandits at whatever o'clock". A feww seconds later he would call out 6 Focke-Wulfs with some colored noses, no one else has seen them yet. All these pilots has 20/20 plus vision or better. You can't be surprised by the enemy if you see him first.
Rene Fonck's tactic was secure altitude, make a firing pass and keep on going. It was the element of surprise, he used over the enemy. According to Eddie Rickenbacker, he used the same tactic. He avoided turning fights. When asked why? his response was, "He might be a better pilot, than me!"
according to Fonck, his machines were never hit by enemy bullets.
Happy New Year,
Dan-San

[ceaserhull]

Dan and Greg,

Thanks for the response to my query. I agree with both of your observations. however still find it hard to comprehend how such an air ace as Fonck could be so inaccurate with his claims especially as he is reputed to have such a deadly accurate eye sight/marksmanship and the tactics to match.

You could conclude on the more negative side to this aces achievements and prowess. Or am i being cynical?

Cheers

[Lufbery]

Originally Posted by ceaserhull

Dan and Greg,

Thanks for the response to my query. I agree with both of your observations. however still find it hard to comprehend how such an air ace as Fonck could be so inaccurate with his claims especially as he is reputed to have such a deadly accurate eye sight/marksmanship and the tactics to match.

You could conclude on the more negative side to this aces achievements and prowess. Or am i being cynical?

Cheers

You may be too cynical. I've read a number of pilots' accounts, and in some cases, all two-seaters are Rumplers, and all bombers are Gothas. Pilots just did not spend that much time memorizing the different types of enemy aircraft.

Why not?

Although it is hard to imagine in 2008, information was less complete and took a lot longer to disseminate at the beginning of the last century than it does now. Pilots often did not know much about the planes they were flying against. What they did know was often incomplete or even incorrect information passed down from "higher-up." Otherwise, pilots swapped stories and tried to pass on hard won information.

So it probably wasn't poor skill or bad eyesight, but a combination of ignorance and policy that led Fonck to list his encounters simply with "enemy aircraft."

Regards,

Hi,

There is possibly another reason for the lack of details. Fonck seemed to differentiate between his single and two-seat victims on most occasions, so why would some be listed simply as 'EA'? You would think that a pilot of reasonable skill could tell the differences between a scout and a two seat bomber, so maybe the problem was with how the type was reported to higher command. There may have been times when the type was not annotated due to various reasons, so 'EA' was used by the higher command in these cases.

This is just a thought I had when trying to understand how victory lists that exist today ended up the way they did. I have seen several lists for von Schleich in his personal records, some with different locations, a/c types, and even dates!

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Regards,

Darren

[Kilian]

The Germans would sometimes have books that depict allied machines and the own ones. There were for example 2 exemplaries of the book "Flugzeugabbildungen" Edition A for Crews and Edition B for Officers. I suppose they would only depict the different classes e.g: french Breguet Type Doppeldecker not a full range of submodels. Did the french and british have similar books?

[rainbase]

Is it possible that Fonck's lack of specific type ID'ing was simply another aspect of his legendary arrogance? Maybe he felt he just couldn't be bothered to note such specifics; sort of a subtle way to show disrespect toward the enemy pilots he'd destroyed... like they weren't even worth THAT much effort on Fonck's part? Maybe?

Originally Posted by Kilian

Did the french and british have similar books?

Hi Kilian,

Yes they did. Here are a few examples.

Regards,

Darren

[Frank_Olynyk]

Eyesight and recognition are irrelevent in the preparation of a pilot's victory list. What is important is the information in the sources used to prepare that list. The basic source for French victory lists are the daily Resumés issued during the war (classified, of course). These Resumés almost always state only EA or Balloon. In order to go beyond these vague identifications it is necessary to go to the Journal de Marche of the unit, or the pilot's combat reports. Very few of either seem to be in the French military archives. Supposedly some of the Journals de Marche still reside with the decendent of the original unit, and thus are difficult for civilian reseachers to access. French combat reports seem to be every bit as rare.

Frank.