The Fighters

[Pips]

In my favourite 'second-hand' bookstore I've found a real treasure. It's titled "The Fighters, The Men and Machines Of The First Air War". Written by Thomas R. Funderburk in 1965

What makes it such a wonderful read IMHO is that it covers the whole war period through the eyes of both single and two-seater pilots, with many first hand accounts. Not only the usual big names either, although they are there. And the icing on the cake is that stories by French pilots feature prominantly, most unusual for an English book. In fact the book is wriiten using French sources most, followed by German, American and lastly English. Very refreshing!

Below area couple of examples.

Rudolf Stark's musings in the book caught my eye, especially since reading about him in Greg Van Wyngarden's excellent 'Pfalz Scout Aces of World War I'. There are several stories related by him in the book. One deals with his posting to Jasta 34b, just after he had been transferred from a Two-seater squadron near Verdun in late January of 1918. He is still very much the greenhorn as a fighter pilot at this time

"One day on patrol with two squadron mates, Stark was left behind when the other two spotted a French Caudron and went after it. At just that moment Stark caught a glint in the air above him and looked up to see a Nieuport diving on him. The Frenchman opened up with his machine gun and Stark went into a hard turn, his ears filled with the sound of bullets cracking through the fuselage behind him. The Frenchman was on his tail an s stayed there, putting in short bursts. A blow to his shouldr caused Stark to lose control of his Pfalz for an instant and it dropped into a spin. He recovered, and as he straightened out ,the rattling behind him started again. He turned and twisted this way and that trying to work close to the German lines where he hoped that the threat of German ground fire would drive the Frenchman away. He was dizzy from his frantic stunting when he thought he was safe and risked a look around. No Nieuport in sight. Greatly releived made his way home and landed. Contrary to what he expected the Pfalz was not so badly shot up at all - in fact there were only sixteen bullet holes in the fuselage, but that didn't account for all the noise. Stark found that his shoulder strap had been shot loose and one end had been flung out of the cockpit, the buckle rattling against the plywood fuselage during the wild aerobatics. Other than the initial burst by the Frenchman, it had been the noise of the buckle banging against the fuselage that had so panicked Stark."

Rudolf Stark eventually became an ace, but he had to master his imagination first!

Another story deals with Starks opinion of the Pfalz.

"I always felt much more secure flying the Pfalz than the Albatross. The armament was the same, with two synchronized Spandau machine guns. The engine was a 160 hp Mecedes. While the top speed and climb were comparatively slow to the D.V, the Pfalz D.III offset these drawbacks to a large extent by it's manoeuverability, which was excellent in comparison, very light and responsive; and it's ability to hold together in a dive, which was perfect. The Pfalz could be thrown around with abandon and nothing would give way. Whereas in the Albatross one always had to keep in mind the weak lower wing. The cockpit was more comfortable too, and the view from it superior to that of the Albatross.

In Jasta 34b we built our tactics for fighting around gaining a superior height advantage and using the great diving speed of the Pfalz to initiate attacks and to zoom up afterwards to gain another advantageous position. However if we were caught at a disadvantage, such as at a lower height by a superior enemy, things got very sticky indeed as we did not have the speed to run away. Then we just stunted like crazy men, using the Pfalz' excellent manoeuverability and toughness to survive. Unless an opportunity presented itself to dive away out of the fight one was locked into continuing until either one was victorious or the enemy flew away. Fortunately only the Camel could out manoeuver a well flown Pfalz."

There are more stories but I thought those two were quite interesting. <g>