Question about von Richthofen's JG1

[Olham 164]

I'm just re-reading Kilduff's book "THE RED BARON - Beyond the Legend",

and I came across a telegram, which made me curious.

 

When Jasta 11 scored their 200th victory, Manfred von Richthofen ordered a bottle of Champaign

in the evening, and all Staffelführer to his room in the Chateau at Marckebeke, to wait for the

congratulation telegrams to come in.

The first one was from KoGenLuft General von Hoeppner. It read:

 

"After seven months in action, Jasta 11 today annihilated its 200th opponent.

In so doing they captured (a total of) 121 aeroplanes and 196 machine guns."

 

Now my question: does this mean, that from the 200 victories 121 aircraft have been brought down

more or less intact?

 

I had always thought, that the "Richthofen Staffel" had really made the most "kills".

But if I interprete this cable right, then they did not kill the majority of their opponents to this date?

Edited August 26, 2012 by Olham

[Hasse Wind 46]

I think it means that 121 of those planes were in good enough condition to be captured or at least could be reached by the German forces on ground, who would then remove guns etc. from them. The rest must have been too badly wrecked or out of reach of the Germans.

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

I suppose so as well. Additionally, downed Allied planes in good shape could find a second wind serving the Kaiser. When the Germans had nothing to counter the devil Nieuport scouts in 1916, they repaired and repainted a number of such captured planes for military use (some said to have flown still with Allied markings, a pirate's trick). Also, in 1918, Josef Jacobs was one of the last pilots faithful til the end to the Dreidecker, but couldn't find spare Oberursel engines, for the production had been phased out; so he offered to the ground troops bottles of wine for every Allied rotary engine (usually Clerget) brought to him in usable shape. An ironical way to turn the enemy's weapons against him. In the same way, later during WW2, one of the main sources of aluminium for blockaded Germany was the hundreds of Allied strategic bombers downed over the Reich (for that matter, their shape was of no importance).

[Bullethead 12]

Yup, and the vast bulk of WW1 tanks used by the Germans were captured from the Brits. That's the main reason for the white-red-white identification stripes on Brit tanks later in the war.

[Olham 164]

JFM, I'd like to hear your info about my question, as you have done quite a lot of research on MvR.

 

Capitaine, I cannot imagine, that German flyers would have flown aircraft with French markings.

I bet it was rather so that returning pilots reported: "He looked absolutely like a French Nieuport!"

Which indeed was the fact.

 

 

 

British and American fighters had at least one such incident over the Channel, because one type

(Hawker Tempest?) looked like German Focke Wulf 190 A types. The new American Mustang

pilots attacked them and really shot after them. So much for the identification of National Markings.

Edited August 26, 2012 by Olham

[Bullethead 12]

I thought the Germans actually built a direct copy of the Nieuport, called the Siemens-Schukert D.I. Because they didn't ask permission or pay licensing fees, these were "pirated" copies in today's parlance :).

[Olham 164]

Yes, that's correct - the Siemens-Schuckert D.I looked almost identical.

Well, in love and at war...

 

Here is an interesting photo of the "Flugzeug-Fertigmacherei"* in the Trafowerk** Nürnberg.

(* Aircraft Finishing Workshop; **transformer factory)

 

 

[JFM 18]

Olham, that's how I take it, too. 200 victories, with 121 planes landed/crash-landed--i.e., not smashed to pieces, burned up, fell in the lines, etc. This doesn't mean all 121 were repaired and reflown by the Germans. There were isolated cases of that here and there--all of them painted with German identification markings, although I have memory of a sortie flown without them--but most of them wound up on the scrap heap. Some wound up as Staffel "hacks," like Jasta 5's captured Biff. Certainly by the time Jasta 11 was formed (28 September 1916, outfitted initially with Halberstadt D.Vs [and a few Halb D.IIs and D.IIIs], and then Albatros D.IIIs and D.Vs) the Germans had the upper hand on fighter technology and weren't interested in flying captured planes, beyond the novelty of doing so and studying their strengths/weaknesses.

[Olham 164]

I was more interested in the British pilots - not the bloody planes.

What I meant to ask was: how many pilots has Jasta 11 brought down alive?

[Rugbyfan1972 1]

Olham,

 

Have you tried asking this question at The Aerodrome" http://www.theaerodrome.com/index.php someone there may be able to give you an answer?

 

Or if you search the forum, the question you are asking may already have been asked

[Olham 164]

Thanks, Rugbyfan, but I guess JFM knows (if it is known at all); he did a lot of research on MvR.

I only hadn't put the question clear enough.

[Flyby PC 23]

JFM, I'd like to hear your info about my question, as you have done quite a lot of research on MvR.

 

Capitaine, I cannot imagine, that German flyers would have flown aircraft with French markings.

I bet it was rather so that returning pilots reported: "He looked absolutely like a French Nieuport!"

Which indeed was the fact.

 

 

 

British and American fighters had at least one such incident over the Channel, because one type

(Hawker Tempest?) looked like German Focke Wulf 190 A types. The new American Mustang

pilots attacked them and really shot after them. So much for the identification of National Markings.

 

If I remember correctly, when the Spitfire first flew into combat, the first aircraft shot down by Spitfires were two British Hurricanes in a blue on blue attack known as the Battle of Barking Creek.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Otto Kissenberth flew a Captured Sopwith Camel

[Olham 164]

...and shot down an S.E.5a in it - what irony of war and history.

 

 

[Flyby PC 23]

Maybe not that ironic. If the Camel was on his tail, perhaps you wouldn't see the German markings but recognise the shape of an allied plane until too late.

 

There are distances involved before you can discern symbols and markings. The Boulton Paul Defiant got hammered in the early war, (but did much better as a night fighter), but it also had a brief period of initial success because the German fighters thought they recognised the shape of a hurricane, approached for an attack on the rear only to find the defiants turret firing at them. They quickly learned to spot the difference, and it's then the Defiant was in trouble and quickly withdrawn from front line daylight service.

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

Mistakes were often. Nungesser once shot down and killed a young British pilot who had fired at him first. Influenced by military rumors, Nungesser was sure at that moment that he was under attack by a German pirate displaying Allied markings. Shaken by his terrible mistake, Nungesser understood that the green British pilot had probably mistaken his dark emblem for German markings. It's afterwards that he painted large Tricolore strips on his Nieuport to avoid further mistakes.

 

Some planes drew more fire than others due to shapes similar to those of some famous enemy planes. In 1940, several French Potez 63 were shot down by Allied pilots for looking like twin-engined Bf-110. Roger Sauvage, the highest-scoring Black ace ever, was thus shot down by a RAF Hurricane; he could bail out, but stayed amnesic for 4 days. On the Russian Front, the Soviet pilots hated to fly the few Spitfires delivered by the Allies, for no plane in the Soviet order of battle looked closer to the Bf-109, and drew more fire from compatriots...