Victory markings.

[CharlesNungesser]

Dear Fellow Pilots,

Could you please tell me what kind of markings you use on your aircrafts for air victories and where you put them? Do you show that you had been lucky in air combat when you return to your base, like doing a roll or so?

[gregoire]

I have not seen any kind of victory marking in ww1 aircraft. what I have seen are bullet hole marking. the fix is made in the same of a roundel if the adversary was french or british and of a german cross if the adversary was german.

In fact the only exemple of victory mark I have seen were in post war US plane (some cross painted over the ring of the hat in a ring squadron. If I recall correctly (and I have a bad memory) it was on post war Se5 and not on Spad (but I can easillty be wrong)

>Do you show that you had been lucky in air combat
>when you return to your base, like doing a roll or so?

Cobby wrote that if they had been in a combat they came straight down and landed. They didnt know if a bullet had weakened a spar or not, better to let the ground crew go over the aircraft first before stunting it. Cobby also wrote that they avoided stunting their aircraft for no purpose as they didnt know if the stress would add up so that their aircraft would fail in combat, they preferred to think along the lines of not "using up an aircrafts strength". I assume it is along the lines of not using up an aircrafts luck too.



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[rammjaeger]

>Do you show that you had been lucky in air combat
>when you return to your base, like doing a roll or so?

Manfred von Richthofen wrote in "Die Erfahrungen im Luftkampf" (The Experiences in Air Combat):

"I have forbidden the following aerobatics over the airfield: Looping, spinning and turns in low altitude."

So I would expect a pilot doing these or other stunts in JG I would get very fast red ears after landing if the Rittmeister would have caught him.
Nevertheless Iw as reading that some pilots liked to show their victories with flying some additional passes over the field, making the engine roar or shaking the plane a bit etc.

Clearminded action and orders are one thing but emotions and happiness about the own success another.

[Lufbery]

Dear Fellow Pilots, *

Could you please tell me what kind of markings you use on your aircrafts for air victories and where you put them? Do you show that you had been lucky in air combat when you return to your base, like doing a roll or so?

Well, personally, I don't have an aircraft, and the only marking on my automobile is a bashed-in right front fender where some dork hit my PARKED car while I was otherwise occupied inside a convenience store. >

Regarding aircraft markings in WWI: I've seen many instances of creative unit markings and personal markings (like Nungesser's black heart), but I've not seen personal victory markings on planes.

However, it seems to have been common practice for pilots to take trophies from their kills when they could -- usually a piece of fabric showing the insignia. MvR had the rather macabre habit of having a silver cup made for each of his first several kills (until silver got too scarce for him to continue the practice).

I hope this helps,

[Graeme]

Barker marked the victories that he achieved in Camel B6313 with a horizontal white stripe on the forward interplane strut, certainly on the port side and probably on the starboard as well.

Graeme

[Barrett]

The 94th Aero's pilots did paint crosses either on the hatband or inside the cocked hat--Hamilton Coolidge's fabric is displayed at the Champlin Museum. Otherwise, I think that the 22nd (?) painted a row of tombstones along the bottom of the fuselage on some/all of its SPADs, but perhaps only after the armistice.
An Italian SPAD pilot, Sgt Cabruna, had crosses painted on the turtledeck of his aircraft--I believe it's mentioned in the new Osprey S.7 book.

[Gregvan]

There are quite a few examples of "victory markings" used in WWI, particularly among the American Squadrons.

As far as a "victory roll" or something similar, in his recent Osprey book on Spad VII aces, Jon Guttman says that , upon returning from a successful hunt in his Spad, Guynemer would open and close the throttle of his Hisso engine to produce a sound that resembled the words "J'en ai en" (I got one of them !). He also writes that after downing a two-seater in "revenge" for the death of Guynemer on 14 Sept 1917, Fonck returned to the Groupe's airfield and did the same throttle manipulation to produce Guynemer's hallmark sound - and was reproached by his comrades for a tactless faux pas !

As mentioned above, in the 94th Aero pilots often marked their victories with black iron crosses painted within the hat band of the squadron insignia; this practice was also adopted by other USAS Squadrons, though in many of them the victory markings were not applied until after the Armistice when the mechanics and pilots had time on their hands. In the 95th Aero, they sometimes painted iron crosses surrounded by horseshoes on the squadron emblem (a kicking mule) to signify victories. In the 22nd Aero, Jacques Swaab's famous Spad "Mayer III" had ten iron crosses painted around the squadron's comet insignia - though this was probably done after the Armistice.In the 13th Aero, they painted nicks in the scythe blade carried by the unit's "Grim Reaper" emblem for each pilot's victories. The 49th Aero had a wolf's head insignia, and sometimes victories were marked by iron crosses painted within the wolf's mouth. Even the two-seater units got into the act; the 91st Aero Squadron had Salmsons decorated with a knight chasing a red devil, and victories were often marked as crosses on the knight's shield. In the 9th Aero, the Salmson of Lts. Arthur and Fleeson had three crosses painted on the shell carried by the unit's vulture emblem for victories.

Also, as mentioned before, several American Spad units chose to mark a line of tombstones on the lower fuselage (after the armistice) to represent ALL of the squadron's victories, but only after the war's end. I've seen examples of this in the 22nd, 13th and 103rd Squadrons.

As an aside, in his book "The Story of the Lafayette Escadrille", Georges Thenault mentions that Lufbery, "...when the occasion offered, used to paint, smiling broadly, a tiny red bar on one of the struts of his plane to indicate a victory". I've never seen a photo that confirmed this, but presumably it's true.

I don't recall seeing any instances of "victory markings" on German aircraft during the war. As stated before, they instead painted what we might call "defeat markings" around the bullet holes their aircraft received; many allied aircraft bore similar markingsin the form of tiny iron crosses. On German aircraft these were usually tiny cockades, sometimes red/white/blue but often in German black/white/red or just black and white. Often they had the date painted in tiny letters alongside. Both fighters and two-seaters have been seen with these markings.

However, when the veteran pilots of Jasta Boelcke were forced to grudgingly fly their Fokker D.VIIs to a British aerodrome and hand them over to the allies after November 11, it is known that their planes were defiantly marked in white with the number of victories each pilot had achieved.

One of the best sources you might check out is "Flying Scoreboards" by my late friend Ernie McDowell, from Squadron/Signal. Ernie was a devoted WWI fan as well as a WWII enthusiast, and the book contains five pages of photos and text devoted to WWI - mostly the 94th Aero Squadron.

VBR,

Greg VanWyngarden

[Barrett]

To show how far we've fallen in this department, recall that a few years back during one of the Balkans flails, a Dutch F16 pilot bagged a Galeb or something. Things are now so PC that (a) the pilot's name was never released and (B) he (she?) was forbidden to paint a kill mark on the jet.

[Lufbery]

Greg,

Thank you for the excellent and informative post on victory markings from WWI. I will most assuredly pick up a copy of the book that you mentioned.

I find it interesting that many of the victory markings you mention were actually added after the war had ended.

Take care,