Josef Jacobs

10 April 2000, 02:40 AM

Why does the Aerodrome hardly contain any information regarding Josef Jacobs? I find it a bit surprising, considering the fact that he was WW1's highest scoring German ace who survived both wars.

10 April 2000, 04:37 AM

You would think that our German friends might have better access to some works on Jacobs and other of the lesser known German greats. If so, perhaps they can make recommendations. Apparently, there isnt much in the way a biography on Jacobs avaliable in English. This is too bad, I always wanted to know more about men like Jacobs, Löwenhardt and Rumey, to name just a few.

10 April 2000, 06:33 AM

Heh Josef was a Dreideckerphile if there ever was one. Didn't he have a 160hp Dr1?

10 April 2000, 03:12 PM

Jacobs was the highest-scoring pilot on the DrI. He flew at least 2 all-black Triplanes, and preferred captured Clerget engines. He offered crates of Champagne to local ground troops who provided him with captured engines!

Rich

leo · 10 April 2000, 04:46 PM

There is a small book, "German Knights of the Air 1914-1919 published by Brasseys and authored y Treadwell and Wood which has info on Jacobs, Rumey and Lowenhardt.

Reinout · 10 April 2000, 11:41 PM

Leo,

I must recommend not to use Treadwell & Wood's book "German Knights of the Air" as it has numerous factual errors! I've bought it myself and have regretted it ever since. The quality is so poor one needs other books to verify the info given. As a good example, compare the bio's of Rudolf Berthold and Hans-Joachim Buddecke and see a blatant error or two. The Rumey chapter also has a huge mistake, by stating he was born in Bavaria.

My recommendation is to leave that book in the stores and save up more money so you can buy a good book instead, like Above the Lines.

As for Jacobs, Neal O'Connor did a few interviews with the good man in the 70's and Volume V of Neal's "Aviation Awards" series has a large chapter on JJ, including many pictures. It's about 40 pages.

Other than that, I only have some scattered info coming from Above the Lines and less notable sources. It is indeed strange to see such a long-lived man being given so little attention. Denver, Colorado (Wings over the Rockies Museum) holds one of Jacobs' uniforms as well as some other items of his while the medals supposedly reside in a private collection (they did in 1990).

Perhaps our own Gary Jacobs has a bead on some other valuable sources?

Kind regards,

Reinout

Immo_Frese · 11 April 2000, 01:41 AM

I must confirm Reinouts comment on "German Knights of the Air". Too much faults in there!

Back to Jacobs. Does anybody know the articles in Cross & Cockade about Jacobs? If I remember right a few articles were written from 1970 - 1980?

VBR, Immo

leo · 11 April 2000, 03:11 AM

Thanks for cluing me in on the book. Unfortunately, I bought it sight unseen an a friends recommendation. I will study his suggestions a little more closely in the future.

leo

11 April 2000, 03:14 AM

Unfortunately I don't have my list of resources with me, but there are a few periodical articles that deal with Jacobs. The biggest is Vol 6 No 4 of the original C&C. Plus there are numerous articles by Steven Lawson (sp?) in Over the Front, and C&CI. In addition, the Windsock Fokker Dr.I Datafile Special has a few blurbs, with photo's and color plates of his Tripes. The first Anthology on the D.VII also has photo's of his Dr.I and D.VII.

Matt Bittner

Vigilant · 11 April 2000, 05:11 AM

If you go to the Cross & Cockade index you can use the Find tool under Edit to locate quite a few Jacobs articles.

This thread reminds me that I promised a forumite last year to send him photocopies of those articles - and forgot! Bugger. Very sorry. If you are reading this and still need them, let me know.

Vigilant