===============================================================================
Red Baron II
Historical Overview
By: Dark Vortex (Quan Jin)
darkvortexfaqs@ymail.com
Version 1.2
===============================================================================
This guide may be found on the following sites:
[http://www.gamefaqs.com]--------------------------------------------[GameFAQs]
[http://www.gamespot.com]--------------------------------------------[GameSpot]
[http://faqs.ign.com]------------------------------------------------[IGN FAQs]
[http://www.neoseeker.com]------------------------------------------[Neoseeker]
[http://www.dlh.net]--------------------------------------[Dirty Little Helper]
[http://www.cheats.de]----------------------------------------------[Cheats.de]
[http://www.supercheats.com]--------------------------------------[SuperCheats]
[http://www.honestgamers.com]------------------------------------[HonestGamers]
This guide is copyright (c)2003-2006 Quan Jin
===============================================================================
----[ Table of Contents ]------------------------------------------------------
===============================================================================
1. Introduction...............................................[1000]
2. Overview...................................................[2000]
3. Version History............................................[3000]
4. Legal Disclaimers..........................................[4000]
5. Credits and Closing........................................[5000]
To find a section quickly, press Ctrl-F and type in either the name
of the section along with its content number (ie. 1., 2., 3., etc.)
OR you can use the codes on the far right. Simply type in the
brackets with the code number to get a jump.
===============================================================================
----[ 1. Introduction ]------------------------------------------------ [1000]
===============================================================================
This is a Historical Overview. This means I'm basically giving you a history
lesson. I might've included this in my Strategy Guide for Red Baron II but I
thought it would take up too much room. After all, it's a doozy to read.
You may not find this guide that interesting. However, this guide is for those
looking for references that they can't find in the game itself.
===============================================================================
----[ 2. Overview ]---------------------------------------------------- [2000]
===============================================================================
This historical overview was taken directly from the PDF file manual. This is
for those particular players who didn't get the PDF file manual included with
their game.
================================
A. April 21, 1918 : Amiens Front
================================
When the pilots of JG-1 crawled out of their bunks in the early morning hours
of April 21, 1918, they found their aerodrome at Cappy shrouded in thick, gray
fog. The blanket of mist clung to the ground, making any flying impossible.
Delighted by the break, the pilots gather near their planes to await the events
of the day.
They needed the break. Since March 21st, the men had been in action nearly
every day, fighting with a desperation born from the knowledge that this last,
great German offensive would determine the course of the war. They knew that
their nation had gambled everything -- resources, men, equipment, aircraft, and
money -- on this final effort. At first, it had succeeded. Below the wings of
JG-1s Fokkers and Albatros fighters, the infantry had poured through a broken
British line. German reinforcements flooded to the breakthroughs, pushing the
Tommies back nearly 40 miles. In a war that measured success in yards, 40 miles
seemed a ringing victory. But as JG-1 discovered, it proved to be a hollow
success. Now, a month later, the British had turned to fight, stopping the
advance cold before any real strategic success could be achieved.
All that was left to do was fight on with sheer momentum. Already, gossip
around the mess tables at night told stories of friendly infantry units
breaking and routing; of fighter squadrons running out of gas, rubber, and
oil; of discontent in the ranks. In some cases, the red specter of Socialism
seemed to play a part, boding ill for the future in light of Russia's
Revolution the previous fall. Clearly, four years of stagnant, bloody, trench
warfare had just plain worn out the German army, and now its men were being
asked to do too much.
That was also true of the Air Service, and of JG-1 in particular. For the last
month, they'd been flying four or five times a day. The men were exhausted,
their lives measured in mere days as the inferno over the trenches claimed
pilot after pilot.
For the ground crew, times were nearly as trying. They worked through the days
and nights in a never ending battle to keep the planes airborne. With stocks
of spare parts low, and replacement aircraft a wishful dream, the geschwader's
fighting strength slowly drained away. Just to keep their remaining planes in
fighting shape, parties of mechanics would scour the front for wrecks, from
which they cannibalized all the rubber parts and brass fittings they could
find.
Two things kept these men going: their love of Germany and their love for their
leader, the legendary Manfred von Richthofen.
He was the type of man others instinctively followed. He lead by example, by
devotion to duty, and by sheer force of will. After four years of combat --
first with the cavalry on the Eastern Front, then as a fighter pilot in the
West -- Rochthofen was burned out. Nevertheless, he carried out his duty with
grim determination that inspired all around him. His insistence to stay at the
front endeared him to his men almost as much as it frustrated and worried the
German high command. Richthofen, General Hindenburg once remarked, was worth
at least one full division. He was the soul of the fighter force, the
inspiration to all in the Air Service after three years of battling the
British of Germany's best fighters. Alive, he was a great propaganda asset, a
symbolism of everything the German fighting men stood for in this long and
dreary war. To the core, he was a combat pilot, a hunter of the sky. And that
is why he never let up.
Not even after he nearly died did he give much thought to taking some desk
job far from the front, though his superiors urged him to do just that. Nearly
a year before, in July, 1917, he had been in a wild dogfight with Naval Ten
Squadron and some FE2s from a local RFC unit. During the fight, one of the Fee
gunners had shot Richthofen in the head. Nearly out of his mind with pain, and
practically blinded by blood gushing over his eyes, Germany's ace of aces
spiraled down to the trenches below and crash-landed within friendly lines.
Some soldiers pulled him from the wreckage and carried him to a field hospital,
where his wounds were dressed. After a spell at home where he was sent to
recover, he returned to action once again that fall.
Despite his leave, he never really recovered from his wound. Now, months later,
he looked gaunt and hollow. He suffered from terrible headaches that at times
threatened to confine him to bed. Yet, he doggedly pressed on, shooting down
an ever increasing number of allied aircraft, until by April 21, his total
stood at 80 kills.
As the sun rose over Cappy that spring morning, Richthofen appeared at the
flight line to check on his pilots. He was in fine spirits, by all accounts,
since the day before he had claimed his 80th victim. As he toured the scene,
he tripped over a stretcher laid out on the ground. When he looked back to see
what he'd fallen over, he saw Leutnant Wenzl, a young tiger who had just
transferred into geschwader from Jasta 31 at the end of March. Playfully, the
Rittmeister tipped over the stretcher, spilling Wenzl into the mud.
Laughing at their leader's prank, the other pilots plotted revenge. Later that
morning, they kidnapped the Rittmeister's dog, Moritz, and tied a wheel chock
to his tail. Moritz had already seen much of the war, and, in fact, was missing
part of an ear. Some months before, the Great Dane was chasing Richthofen's
Fokker Triplane as it began its takeoff roll. The dog got too close and
collided with the propeller blades, which chopped off a good portion of his
ear.
So it was on the morning of April 21st, Moritz, the half-eared dog came
whining to his master, a wheel chock dragging at his hind legs. The Rittmeister
took the gag in stride, laughing at the sight as he knelt down to free Moritz
from the chock.
Little did anyone know that this would be the last time the Rittmeister's
laughter would ring in their ear.
With late morning came a break in the weather. A strong wind scattered the fog,
and as blue skies appeared over Cappy, the mood at the aerodrome became serious
and businesslike. They'd be going into battle soon, and the men knew the odds,
as usual, would be heavily stacked against them.
The call came shortly after 10:30. A German observation point reported enemy
aircraft heading for JG-1's patrol area. The news sent the pilots scurrying for
their planes. In minutes, two ketten -- flights -- were airborne. Richthofen
led them off in his blood-red Fokker Dr. I.
The men left behind at Cappy anxiously awaited the return of the geschwader's
aircraft, going about their duty as they strained to hear the warm sound of
engines approaching the airfield.
Finally, in the early afternoon, they straggled in. The ground crew watched
the Fokkers swing around the aerodrome, their quirky Oberusel engines coughing
and burping as the pilots hit their "blip button" to slow their planes down
to landing speed.
But one aircraft was missing. The blood-red that belonged to the Rittmeister
was nowhere to be seen.
Through the afternoon they waited for news, despair threatening to overcome
this once happy band of German's elite aviators. As the sun went down that
afternoon, dread filled their hearts. He had fallen behind British lines, and
now all they could do was hope he had been taken prisoner.
When word did come of their leader's fate, it was not what they had all feared.
Their Rittmeister, the great Manfred von Richthofen, was dead.
British guns destroyed the heart and soul of the German fighter force that
April day, and with it, so died Germany's last hopes of winning the air
war.
And yet, something else happened that day, something that none of those present
at Cappy Aerodrome could ever have imagined. With the death of Manfred von
Richthofen, a legend was born -- one that would endure long after they were but
dust in a soldier's grave -- the legend of the Red Baron.
===============================
B. Chapter 1 : Europe In Flames
===============================
One wrong turn changed the course of history. On June 28, 1914, Austrian
Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo intent on attending
army maneuvers in that recently annexed province of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. The results of that visit set in motion a chain of events that lead
to the bloodiest war in world history. Long after the players that day were
dead and buried, the effects of their actions resounded for decades, affecting
the course of both Europe and the United States for generations to come.
It began at the train station in Sarajevo, where the Archduke, his wife, and
his entourage climbed into several open-topped touring carts to begin the short
drive to City Hall, where they would meet Sarajevo's mayor.
Unknown to them, assassins lurked along their planned routes. As the Archduke's
car trundled down the street, one of the killers jumped forward to throw a
bomb. By chance, the bomb missed, bouncing off the car then landing in the
street. It exploded next to the car directly behind the Archduke's, wounding
several of his good friends and staff members. The injured men were rushed to
the hospital while Ferdinand, furious at what had just happened, continued to
City Hall.
Once he arrived there, he greeted the Mayor icily. "So, you welcome your guests
here with bombs?" he asked angrily. The Mayor brushed aside the remark and
welcomed his Austrian dignitary to his city, assuring the Archduke that the
would-be assassin had been caught. The meeting ended with Ferdinand announcing
he wished to visit his two wounded officers in the hospital. This required a
change in plans, which almost, but not quite, saved the Austrian's life.
That day, a number of pro-Serbian assassins had staked out the Archduke's route
throughout the city. If the first assassin failed, there were backups to
him -- and backups to those backups. The Austrian's route through the city
had been well known, and it was dotted with gun wielding, bomb toting fanatics.
Trained by the Serbian terrorist organization known as the Black Hand, their
goal was to secure Bosnian independence from Austria.
Now, though, circumstances foiled their plot. The Archduke would not be
traveling on his pre-selected route to the army maneuvers. Instead, he insisted
on going to the hospital. He should've missed all the other assassins waiting
for him.
Enter Franz Urban, the Archduke's person chauffeur. Urban had never driven in
Sarajevo before and did not know exactly how to get to the hospital. He tried
his best, though, working through the maze of narrow streets, trying to follow
his maps and instructions. In the end, he got lost.
Somewhere along the way, he made a right turn into a single-lane alley that
was so narrow he could not turn the car around. He went only a few dozen yards
down the alley before he realized his mistake. He slowed the car down, getting
ready to turn it around. Then he saw he would have to back up to the main
street he had left. He touched the brakes just as a shabbily dressed young man
crossed in front of the car a dozen or so feet ahead. Franz watched the man --
a boy really -- look up and see the car.
The boy was a 19-year-old Bosnian Serb student named Gavrilo Princip. Trained
by the Black Hand, he had been posted on the Archduke's original touring
route. When the Austrian had not shown up, Princip got bored and decided to
head for home. Running into the Archduke on this confined back alley was a
complete accident.
Princip capitalized on the chance meeting. Quickly, he pulled his revolver and
stepped toward the car. Shots rang out. The Archduke and Archduchess slumped
forward, bleeding from their bullet wounds. Horrified, Franz Urban jammed the
car into reverse and sped to the hospital. But by the time he arrived there,
both Austrians had bled to death.
Princip did not enjoy his victory. Bosnian police arrested him immediately,
and he spent the next four years languishing in prison before dying of
pneumonia in 1918. He lived long enough to see the war -- to see the millions
killed or maimed -- that  had been touched off by his single act of madness.
And still, none of it would have happened if Franz Urban had not made that
wrong turn. Urban's moment in history lasted but an instant. When it passed,
he disappeared from view and lived out his life as anonymously as any other
average person. Still, his single mistake triggered the events that consumed
Europe in a four-year war that killed millions and destroyed an entire
generation. Entire nations, including Urban's own, were erased from the map
and new ones took their place. In the end, when the shooting finally ceased,
nobody could remember what they had been fighting for in the first place.
In the wake of the assassination, the battle lines were quickly drawn. Soon,
all of Europe seemed to be sucked into the crisis. Austria blamed Serbia for
the assassination and threatened war. Russia, always the "savior" of the Balkan
Slavs, came to Serbia's defense. With Russia now involved, the Germans backed
their ally, Austria-Hungary, to the hilt. With Germany now enmeshed in the
crisis, France came to Russia's aid. As the diplomats fussed and fumed, the
armies began to mobilize. Once that happened, war was inevitable.
Austria attacked Serbia, declaring war on July 28, 1914. On August 1, Germany
declared war against Russia then invaded Luxembourg and Belgium in order to
get to France. Two days later, Germany declared war on France. The next day,
Britain went to war against Germany after learning of that country's invasion
of Belgium. On the 6th, Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia. In the days
that followed, the fighting spread from Belgium to the Balkans, from Alsace to
East Prussia.
And all because of a wrong turn in Sarajevo.
At first, the war delighted Europe. There were mass rallies in support of the
war, and all the old divisions within France and Germany disappeared in a
ground swell of nationalism. Volunteers flocked to the colors, and millions
went off the battle with songs on their lips. Universally, Europe thought the
war would be quick, sharp, and bloodless. A few weeks of fighting, and the war
would be over.
The armies clashed in early August. Wearing brilliant colored uniforms and
fighting with leftover Napoleonic tactics, Europe's legions were in for a
sudden shock. The stand-up, shoulder-to-shoulder fighting their great-
grandfathers had done at Austrerlitz and Waterloo a hundred years before may
have worked fine in the age of the muzzle-loading muskets, but in the age of
rapid fire artillery, machine guns and magazine rifles, they were invitation
to slaughter. And that's precisely what happened.
France first went after its "lost territories" -- the Alsace and Lorraine
which it had ceded to Germany after the 1871 war. In nine days of fighting,
known as the Battle of the Frontiers, the French launched massive human-wave
attacks into the teeth of machine gun and artillery fire. They were
slaughtered by the thousands. By the time the commander of the French army,
Marshall Joffre, abandoned the offensive, 300,000 of his men lay dead on the
killing fields from Mulhouse in the south to Nancy in the north.
Modern technology, as all sides soon discovered, made obselete their battle
tactics.
With the French offensive in the east stopped cold, the German army swept
down from Belgium, threatening Paris from the north. Just in time to help
avert disaster, the British Expeditionary Forces arrived, 100,000 strong. In
its first three battles, the Germans nearly destroyed it.
By early September, the situation was desperate. The Germans were on the
outskirts of Paris. The BEF had taken huge losses in the last few weeks, and
the French had been bled white defending Nancy. It seemed as if nothing could
stop the German army from taking Paris and fulfilling all the promises that
this would be a short war.
But then, another anonymous figure stepped into the historical spotlight and
changed the course of the war. For the first time ever, that anonymous figure
would be an aviator. France would be saved by the aeroplane.
========================================
C. Chapter 2 : The Rise of the Aeroplane
========================================
"... As experience has shown, a real combat
in the air, such as journalists and romancers
have described, should be considered a myth.
The duty of the aviator is to see and not to
fight."
~ German 1914 staff report
The British knew exactly what the Germans were doing. When the BEF crossed the
Channel into France in August, the troops took along 48 planes -- the entire
strength of the Royal Flying Corps. These primitive machines soon proved their
worth as the "eyes" of the BEF. Each day, the pilots scouted out ahead of the
ground troops, searching out German intentions as they lumbered overhead. At
the end of August, with the situation on the ground growing increasingly
desperate, the aviators brought home a bit of good news.
On the far right flank of the German thrust into France, General Alexander von
Kluck's First Army suddenly shifted its line of advance. Instead of going
around Paris to the west, von Kluck turned his corps southeastward, cutting
inside the capital on his right flank. British pilots Lieutenant A.E. Borton,
Captain D. LeG. Pitcher, and Lieutenant C.G. Hosking all spotted the move,
reporting back to HQ. Word of the change passed up the chain of command until
it reached Marshall Joffre's desk. After studying the situation, he decided
the time was ripe for a counter-offensive against von Kluck's army.
As planning began for the great counterattack, von Kluck made another mistake.
As he moved south across the Marne River, a gap opened between his army and
the Second Army on his left flank. This gap grew wider and wider as von Kluck's
men marched south.
Again, the eagle-eyed pilots and observers of the RFC spotted the mistake.
Again, word of the hole in the German lines sped up the chain of command.
On September 5, 1914, the Battle of Marne began. The French, with the help
of the multi-colored Parisian taxi cabs, moved into place an entire army on
von Kluck's right flank. On the 5th, they went on the attack, surprising the
Germans and nearly overwhelming them. General von Kluck, more concerned with
his advance to the south than any "spoiling" attack the French could launch
on his flank, ignored the brewing battle for two days. Finally, though, on
September 7, von Kluck awoke to the danger and moved swiftly to crush the
French attack. As he did, his forward units had to re-cross the Marne and
swing back north and west to get into the battle.
The hole between von Kluck and the rest of the German army had just grown
bigger. Into that gap flowed the resurgent British Expeditionary Forces as
well as the French Fifth Army. The Germans, nearly enveloped now on both
flanks, knew the game was up. Reluctantly, von Kluck ordered a retreat which
later forced the rest of the Germans to go on the defensive as well. The great
push for Paris had collapsed in failure, as did any hopes that the war would
be a short one.
The aeroplane had helped save France that September. Without the vital
information the pilots brought back from their trips behind the lines, the
Allied armies never would have been in a position to roll up von Kluck's
army. Now, as the war settled into a long stalemate that would stretch from
the North Sea to the Swiss border by Christmas, both sides wondered how else
they would use this new weapon of war. Would the airplane just be used as the
eyes of the armies, or could it be even more useful?
========================================
D. Chapter 3 : The Birth of Air Fighting
========================================
"Just an old fashioned Avro with
old fashioned ways
And a kick that says 'back fire' to you,
An old Mono engine that konks out and stays
When the toil of a long flight is through,
Tho' the pressure will drop, and it loses its prop,
And the pilot's inclined to resign,
I'll rejoice till the day -- that I learnt how to fly
In that old-fashioned Avro of mine!"
~ RFC Squadron Song
The Austrian Baron Rosenthal was the first to die in air-to-air combat. His
victor, Russian Captain Nesteroff was the second. On September 8, 1914, just
as the Battle Of Marne reached its climax, Nesteroff encountered the Baron's
fragile craft over the Eastern Front. Without thought to his own safety,
Nesteroff dove after the Austrian plane and crashed his own into it. Locked
together, the two wooden machines tumbled earthward, both crews dead.
In the early days of the war, Nesteroff's suicidal battle with the Baron
Rosenthal was an aberration. In those first weeks of the war, pilots shared a
sort of kinship that transcended nation boundaries. German pilots who stumbled
across French or British planes would often toss their enemies a jaunty wave
-- and nothing more. For the most part, the Allies did the same.
This sort of honeymoon didn't last much past the Battle of Marne. When both
sides realized the importance of air reconnaissance, air-to-air fighting
became inevitable. Pilots and observers began carrying shotguns, revolvers,
carbines, and even bricks and bottles. Some of the more creative thinkers
hauled aloft machine guns. RFC pilot Louis A. Strange convinced his observer
to bring aboard a Lewis gun on one reconaissance flight. Unfortunately, the
weight of the gun kept the plane from climbing above 3,500 feet -- well below
the German planes Strange had been hunting. When his commanding officer
learned of his idea, he ordered Strange to remove the gun and focus on his
real job -- scouting for the army.
Others continued to try. On October 5, 1914, French Sergeant-Pilot Frantz went
aloft in a Voison biplane with his mechanic, Corporal Quenault. Over the lines
that morning, Franz spotted a German Aviatik at about 3,500 feet. He closed
on the unsuspecting German until Quenault, armed with a light machine gun,
found the range and opened fire. The Aviatik dove away, turning northward for
its own lines. Frantz would not be deterred. He followed the German while
Quenault snapped out short bursts from the gun. In his haste to catch the
Aviatik, Frantz accidentally overshot it. As he passed on by, the German banked
away from the Voison and tried to run. Frantz reversed his turn, ending up
behind the Aviatik. Quenault poured rounds into the ungainly German plane,
even as the pilot tried to climb away from them. But Quenault's marksmanship
was too good. The German plane, riddled with bullets, fell into a dive. The
pilot fought the controls all the way down, pulling the nose up three times
before losing it again. Finally, the Aviatik plunged into a small copse of
trees, where it exploded.
Running to the scene of the crash, one observer recalled, "The motor was
almost entirely buried in the ground, the fuselage was twisted, and the wings
were broken into a thousand pieces. One of the aviators lay quite dead three
yards away from the motor. The second, the observer, with beautiful hands
exquisitely cared for and perhaps, a great Prussian name, was caught under the
red motor, now a wreck in flames. He seemed to us to attempt to pull himself
out, but the movement was probably convulsive; he looked at us, clawed the
earth with his hands, and died before our eyes."
The honeymoon was over. The air war was about to get dirty.
==========================================
E. Chapter 4 : Deflectors and Interrupters
==========================================
"A sort of mystery surrounded the Fokker...
rumour credited it with the most fantastic
performance! It could outclimb, outpace, and
outmanoeuvre anything in the R.F.C. You were
as good as dead if you as much as saw one..."
~ German 1914 staff report
The land war on the Western Front remained a bloody standoff throughout 1915.
Both the French and the British launched offensives of their own. Always, the
attacks succeeded in gaining a little ground, but no attack made the
"breakthrough" all involved sought.
Poison gas, a new and deadly weapon, was tried by the Germans for the first
time even during a local attack outside the city of Ypres in April, 1915. The
gas caused panic among the British and French troops, sparking a stampede to
the rear. A four-mile hole opened in the lines as men threw down their weapons
while fleeing the terrible gas clouds. Seventy thousand Allied soldiers fell
during that attack, but the Germans could not exploit their success. Not
expecting such a reaction from the Allies, the German high command had not
backstopped the attack with enough reserves to achieve a decisive victory.
The Allies responded with gas attacks of their own, though none succeeded like
the German one that April. By late 1915, the Allies had lost close to a half a
million men for no gain at all in a series of vain offensives. The year ended
with the lines drawn as they were the previous December.
While the ground war grew increasingly and futile, the air war evolved through
1915 into a battle between technology and tactics. As each side developed new
planes, new refinements, and new weapons, the other side scrambled to develop
tactics to counter these new threats. It was a race begun by a young French
daredevil named Roland Garros, and it would not end until the Armistice in
November, 1918.
Before the war, Roland Garros was a well-known figure in aviation circles. As
one of France's air pioneers, he had entered nearly every contest and race in
Europe, winning acclaim for his incredible feats. He was the first to fly
across the Mediterranean Sea, a risky proposition at best in that age of fussy
engines and flawed designs. He later entered and won Paris to Rome and Paris
to Madrid races, and in 1911 he won the Grand Prix d'Anjou.
When the war broke out in 1914, Garros was in Germany. Worried he that he might
be arrested, he abandoned his belongings and took the first train to
Switzerland. He returned to Paris as fast as he could, where he offered his
service as an aviator. Along with many other pre-war daredevils, the French
Air Service assigned him to M.S. 23, a squadron flying early Morane
monoplanes.
During the first winter of the war, Garros began thinking up new ways to shoot
down German observation planes. He concluded that the best way would be to
mount a machine gun on the nose of his plane so that he wouldn't have to carry
an observer to shoot the gun. If the machine gun were fixed to fire forward,
Garros could aim the gun by simply pointing his nose at his target. A great
idea with one huge flaw: the propeller was in the way.
For several weeks, Garros and his mechanics tinkered with one of the Morane
monoplanes, trying to come up with a way to protect the prop from the machine
gun. As they experimented, they discovered that only about 10% of the bullets
fired ever hit the prop blades. If they could just take care of that one in
ten, their idea would work.
They settled on what they called a "deflector system." By mounting steel wedges
onto the back of each propeller blade, any bullets that would normally damage
it would just ricochet off. The wedges were angled so that the bullets would
not fly back and hit the pilot.
In the spring of 1915, after weeks of experimentation, Garros and his new
weapon took to the air in search of a victim. Once aloft, he headed for his
primary target, a railroad station outside of Ostend which he would bomb.
Along the way, though, he came across a lone Albatros two-seater, intent on
spying behind Allied lines.
His original mission forgotten, Garros turned his Morane-Saulnier monoplane
after the German. He crept up on the unsuspecting plane from behind, a tactic
that confused the German observer. Then came the clatter of Garros' Hotchkiss
machine gun. The observer fought back with a carbine, but it was really no
contest. The Albatros burst into flames and crashed. Garros, horrified by what
had happened, later reported, "I gazed below me a long time to convince myself
that is was not a nightmare."
Garros' jury-rigged experiment had just given birth to the first true fighter
planes in aviation history.
For eighteen days, Garros terrorized the local German units on the Belgian
coast. German pilots, filled with rumors of new French superweapons, began
avoiding all monoplanes to the outrage of their commanding officer, one of
whom accused his aviators of having the "hallucination of old women."
Garros' one man war ended almost as quickly as it had begun. After shooting
down three planes, he himself fell victim to a German bullet on April 18, 1915.
With his fuel line severed, he coasted down for a crash-landing behind German
lines. Before he could burn his craft, German soldiers appeared and took him
prisoner. His precious machine had fallen into enemy hands.
Garros remained a prisoner until January, 1918, when he and another French
pilot escaped from their captors and made their way to England. Upon returning
to France, Garros rejoined the French Air Service, not realizing the tremendous
changes that had taken place between his daring experiment and his return to
combat. After flying only a few missions, the Germans shot him down again. A
great pioneer of air combat technology had died at the hands of the weapons
he helped invent.
Though Garros started the air combat revolution, it was the Germans who refined
his ideas, making them both practical and deadly. In April, 1915, when Garros
went down behind the lines, the Germans captured his Morane-Saulnier. After
local officials examined it, they realized Garros' plane was an incredible
intelligence coup. Quickly, they packed it up and sent it to young Tony Fokker,
a Dutch aircraft designer working in Germany.
The German Air Force asked Fokker if he could duplicate Garros' invention.
Fokker agreed to have a look, but instead of copying the deflector gear, he
improved on it. Later, Fokker claimed that his novel idea came with a flash of
inspiration. More likely, however, was the fact that the German Air Service
provided Fokker with the details of a synchronizing system patented in 1913
by LVG engineer Franz Schneider. In exchange for Fokker's time and effort, the
Air Service apparently promised to protect him from lawsuits.
It took only a few days for Fokker to work through the kinks of the new system.
Instead of protecting the propeller, Fokker built a system of gears into the
machine gun and engine that would ensure no bullets were fired when the
propeller blade passed in front of the barrel. Fokker called his invention the
"Interrupter Gear."
Earlier in 1915, his company had been hired to build a lightweight, single-
seat aircraft whose chief attribute was speed. Fokker copied the Morane-
Saulnier design and even used a license-built built version of the French
Gnome rotary engine -- the Oberusal. Now, with his Eindeckers aircraft just
reaching production stages, Fokker married his interrupter gear to it and
created the world's first true fighter plane.
When the first Eindeckers arrived at the front in mid-May, 1915, they were
allocated in penny-packets to the existing reconnaisance units. Initially, the
German pilots balked at the Eindecker's capabilities. Having learned to fly on
slow, awkward biplanes, or the Austrian Erich Taube, the speedy Fokker proved
to be a difficult adjustment. Compared to the Aviatik and the early Albatros
two-seaters, the Fokker was far more maneuverable, unforgiving, and quirky.
Fokker realized this problem early on and helped establish a training school
to teach the proper techniques needed to fly his creation.
The transition period lasted until early August, and for some reason the
German Air Service doubted the effectiveness of Fokker's new aircraft. In some
cases, the interrupter gear malfunctioned, shooting off the propeller blade
and killing the pilot in the ensuing crash. After three fatal crashes in July
and August, the Air Service forbade its further use. It even disbanded Fokker's
training school at Doberitz.
The Air Service very nearly killed the best weapon at its disposal by its
overreaction. Two pilots, however, stepped in to save the day. They were Max
Immelmann and Oswald Boelcke.
On August 1, 1915, a flight of nine British Be2 "Quirks" flew over the German
airfield outside Douai. The Allied planes surprised the German the German
pilots, who had been napping in their quarters nearby. Max Immelmann, a
talented twenty-five year old pilot from Dresden, awoke to a "terrible row."
When he reached his window, he spotted the British planes passing overhead,
dropping bombs on the airfield. He telephoned for a car at once so he could
get to his plane.
While waiting for his ride to the airfield, Oswald Boelcke, a smart Saxon with
one kill already too his credit, buzzed by on his motor bike, heading for the
airfield and his awaiting Fokker Eindecker.
Boelcke and Immelmann were F.F.A 62's two best pilots. When the squadron
received a pair of Eindeckers earlier in July, their commanding officer
assigned both of them to fly the new planes. Immelmann had only been flying
the Eindecker for three days, but his raw talent as a flier would more than
make up for his lack of experience on this day.
Immelmann reached the airfield ten minutes after Boelcke took off after the
British Quirks. He fumed impatiently as he waited for the ground crew to roll
his Fokker out of its shed, then climbed aboard once it was ready to go.
Finally, well behind his comrade, Immelmann took to the skies, ready to test
Fokker's fussy, but potentially deadly, interrupter gear.
Immelmann climbed to about 6,500 feet when he saw Boelcke abandon his attack
on two Be2s. Boelcke dived away from the British planes and did not return to
the action. Immelmann later discovered Boelcke's gun had jammed.
With the Quirks split up into at least three groups, Immelmann climbed after
the two Boelcke had been stalking. Then he spotted another British plane
slightly below him, dropping bombs on Vitry. He turned toward it and gave
chase. Diving down, he opened fire on the Be2, firing 60 rounds before his
gun jammed. He broke off to clear it, noticing that the other two Quirks were
now closing in on him. He freed up his machine gun and made for his original
target. Two more times in the course of the fight his guns jammed. Yet, his
marksmanship carried the day. In the end, the Quirk fell off into a long,
shallow dive which Immelmann followed, firing his gun whenever he could get the
jams cleared. Four hundred and fifty rounds later, the Quirk crash-landed in
German territory.
Eager to meet his foe, Immelmann landed in the same field. Unarmed, he
approached his two enemies cautiously, yelling, "Prisoniers!" In French at
them. They offered no resistance, and the pilot held out his right hand to
shake Immelmann's.
"Bonjour, monsieur," Immelmann said, but was surprised when the Allied pilot
responded in English.
"Ah, you are an Englishman?" he asked.
"Yes," came the reply.
"You are my prisoner," Immelmann said.
The Englishman, appearing unruffled, offered Immelmann congratulations, "My
arm is broken. You shot very well."
As the German looked over his prisoner, he discovered that one of his bullets
had smashed the Englishman's forearm. Indeed, he had shot very well.
The Fokker Scourge had begun.
Throughout that fall, Boelcke and Immelmann made life miserable for the
British pilots in Flanders. Together or individually, they would roam the skies
over the trenches, looking for Allied recon planes in their Fokker Eindeckers.
On August 19, 1915, Boelcke scored his first kill in his monoplane fighter.
Immelmann scored again on the 26th, and by the end of the year had seven
victories. Boelcke finished the year with six. As their scores mounted, both
men became heroes to the German people. Starved for good news in a war filled
with seemingly purposeless slaughter on the ground, Germany embraced their
young air heroes with pure adulation. When, in January, 1916, the Air Service
awarded both men the Pour Le Merite -- the most prestigious Prussian award for
bravery in battle -- their rise to fame seemed complete.
Not only did they become national figures, Immelmann and Boelcke set the tone
for the next eight months in the skies over the Western Front. Following their
example, other pilots began stalking Allied planes in their speedy Eindeckers.
Soon, though there were fewer than sixty Fokkers at the front at any one time,
the British and French Air Service fell into a panic over their losses. Other
Eindecker pilots, including Ernest Udet and Kurt Wintgens, also began taking
a toll on Allied planes. The French, who had been bombing Germany for months
without serious losses, suddenly had nine planes shot down in one mission.
Other attacks suffered the same fate, forcing them to abandon daylight bombing
raids.
As the Fokkers made their presence known, Allied morale plummeted. Even the
sight of a distant monoplane was enough to cause an Allied pilot to cut out for
home. Missions were not being completed, and the myths surrounding the Fokker
grew and grew until Allied aircrew were convinced it was an unbeatable super-
weapon.
Allied leaders knew only two things could stop this German onslaught. First,
new planes had to be deployed that could beat the Fokker. Second, tactics had
to be developed to counter the Eindecker threat. In the meantime, the French
and British pilots would have to take their losses, buying time with their
lives until the next generation of aircraft arrived at the front. For nearly
six months, the Allied pilots waited and bled, knowing that the Germans for
the first time had command of the air over the Western Front. As the war went
on, the battle for that command would grow both furious and bloody.
========================================
F. Chapter 5 : The Swing of the Pendulum
========================================
"You seem magnetically attracted to any German
aeroplane you see, and never weigh the
situation. I saw one of your machines take on
one Fokker, then two Fokkers, then three
Fokkers, before being shot down at Lille."
~ Captured German Pilot Lt.
Baldamus to his British
interrogators.
Major Lanoe Hawker was no stranger to air combat. In early 1915, he earned the
Royal Flying Corps' second Victoria Cross, England's highest award for bravery.
Hawker, a small, sensitive man prone to fits of depression, mounted a Lewis
gun on the side of his Bristol scout and went hunting for targets. He found
two German planes, one of which he shot down and the other he forced to land
behind German lines. He did it by aiming the gun off to the side outside the
propeller's arc.
That sort of ingenuity and agressiveness convinced the RFC to give Hawker
command of the world's first true fighter squadron. It almost proved his
undoing. Hawker had been flying in combat since the war began with No. Six
Squadron. When the RFC ordered him to England in the fall of 1915, Hawker was
the last original member of his squadron. Everyone else had been killed or
wounded.
Command in England did not go well at first. With all the fighting he's seen,
Hawker sometimes appeared on the verge of a total mental breakdown. The strain
of his new position pushed him even closer to that edge. Nevertheless, this
tough former engineer knew his duty, and carried out his responsibility well.
By December, 1915, No. 24 Squadron was ready to go to France.
Equipped with the new Airco DH-2, Hawker's men would be the spear point of
the RFC's response to the Fokker Scourge. Relatively fast for its time, the
DH-2 carried a single machine fixed to fire forward. To solve the problem of
firing through the propeller, British designers gave up on their own version
of the interruptor gear and just moved the engine behind the pilot. This
pusher design solved the problem admirably, but created others. As Hawker's
men discovered, the DH-2 had some nasty habits. Its unreliable engine tended
to catch fire, which usually meant the end for the unfortunate pilot. Worse,
it spun easily, an especially bad characteristic in an age where nobody knew
how to recover from a spin. With their usual grim humor, the pilots nicknamed
the DH-2 the "Spinning Incinerator."
Hawker's Squadron, as the outfit was nicknamed, went into action in early
February, 1916. He taught his men to be aggressive -- "Attack everything,"
he once told them. After arriving in Flanders, the squadron's DH-2s sought
out the dreaded Eindeckers and brought them into battle. Though the DH-2 had
many problems, it was far superior to the Fokker monoplane. Soon, as other
DH-2 squadrons arrived at the front, the German Fokker menace gradually
evaporated.
In early 1916, the French captured an intact Fokker Eindecker. After test
flying it, they discovered the plane had only limited maneuverability,
especially compared to the latest Allied types arriving at the front. When
these facts filtered down to the squadrons, the Fokker at last ceased to be a
psychological threat.
Instead, they were hunted until the Germans were nearly driven from the skies.
Resurgent Allied airpower had crushed the Fokker Scourge.
=====================
G. Chapter 6 : Verdun
=====================
"Victory was to be bought so dear as to be
almost indistinguishable as defeat."
~ Winston Churchill
On February 20, 1916, a crushing bombardment -- the biggest ever seen in
human history -- all but wiped out the forward French guarding the strategic
position of Verdun. The next day, eight German divisions attacked on a narrow
front, grinding their way through the remains of the French defense. By
nightfall, good progress had been made on every sector.
The biggest and most important battle of the war had just begun.
As the battle raged below, a new struggle unfolded in the air. For their
offensive, the Germans had amassed four observation squadrons, 14 balloons,
and some 20 Fokker Eindeckers. The Eindeckers were charged with protecting
the artillery-spotters as they went about their vital task.
When the battle began, the Eindeckers cleared the skies of all French machines.
Outnumbered, and with their aerodromes under heavy artillery fire, the French
squadrons fled to Verdun for safer areas. However, the retreat did not last
long. At the end of February, Colonel Bares took command of the shattered units
around Verdun. General Petain, head of the ground forces in the Verdun sector,
ordered Bares to hold and seize air supremacy at all costs. The brutal
artillery barrages had to be rendered ineffective, and the only way to do that
was to shoot down the German spotter planes.
Bares immediately called for reinforcements until he had almost 120 planes
under his command. By early March, he had eight reconnaissance, two artillery,
and six fighter escadrilles at his disposal. To lead the fighter squadrons,
he chose Major Tricornot de Rose, a pre-war aviator who was France's first
military pilot. An experienced leader, whose drooping moustache had made him
a well known figure in the Air Service, de Rose set to work reorganizing the
fighter escadrilles to carry out their mission.
The first important change came on March 21. Prior to Verdun, aviation units
had always been under the control of the local army commander. Now, the French
tried a new system. After de Rose collected no fewer than fifteen fighter
squadrons under his direct supervision, Marshall Joffre took his group out of
the major chain of command. Instead of reporting to the local ground
commanders, de Rose reported directly to de Bares, who in turn answered only
to Joffre himself. This way, the immediate need of the army commanders would
not interfere with the overall objective: air superiority over Verdun.
Major de Rose, with his chain of command secured, soon modified the very way
his fighter squadron did battle in the air. Until Verdun, Allied fighters had
patrolled the front in small numbers, just as the Germans had done with their
Eindeckers. Lanoe Hawker and No. 24 Squadron started to change that in Flanders
when they flew missions as a squadron. At about the same time, Major de Rose
ordered his squadrons to do the same thing.
No longer would there be single plane patrols over Verdun. Instead, de Rose
taught his escadrilles to fly and fight in formation. He developed escort
tactics and worked out effective ways to intercept incoming German aircraft.
His experiments and their applications led to the first truly homogenous
fighter squadron. It did not take long for his ideas to spread through the
French Air Service, as Hawker's did in the RFC.
The new tactics, combined with new aircraft like the Nieuport 11, went a long
way toward saving France that grim spring. On the ground, the Germans slowly
advanced toward Verdun, taking huge losses but grinding up the French army
in the process. In the air, the Germans lost their brief control of the air