Aces & Foreign Languages

Amy · 20 January 2002, 08:58 AM

This subject came up on another thread re: Ernst Udet's impressive ability to speak English fluently. *Best guess is that he had some formal training with English before the war--anyone know for sure?

Also, how about the other aces and their knowledge of "foreign languages"?

Immelmann: *From what I've read, he spoke French. *When did he learn it and did he also speak English?

Boelcke: *How did he and Capt. Wilson communicate? *Boelcke could speak English? *Capt. Wilson could speak German? *An interpreter?

MvR: He mentioned a little use of broken French in his book. *Was he fluent in any other language, particularly English?

Josef Jacobs: *He didn't speak English, but did he speak any other languages, such as French?

McCudden: *From reading his book, it didn't sound like he spoke French or German.

Mannock: Probably didn't speak German, but perhaps a little French?

Nungesser: *He hung out with the Americans a lot and even married one. *'Guessing he spoke fluent English.

Lufbery: *From what's been written, he was fluent in English and French.

<insert your favorite ace here>: *? ? ?

Gregvan · 20 January 2002, 09:09 AM

Karl Bolle (Jagstaffeln 28 and Boelcke, 36 victories) was partly educated at Oxford, so presumably he could speak English fairly well.

Both Hans Joachim Buddecke (13 victories) and Karl Degelow(30 victories, Jasta 7 and 40) lived in the US for awhile before the war started, so again we can presume they were fairly fluent in English - Buddecke learned to fly in the USA.

Dan_San_Abbott · 20 January 2002, 09:40 AM

Amy:
Military officers for the most part, came from influential families and were were well educated, and as result knew 2 or more languages, aside from their own. Latin was most common. French was a must and was the language of almost all european courts.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

Amy · 20 January 2002, 09:50 AM

Thanks for the input Greg and Dan San!

Where in the US did Buddecke learn to fly?

rammjaeger · 20 January 2002, 10:45 AM

Immelmann learned languages already at the "Gymnasium" (Grammar school or High school) but he had to repeat one year because of his bad perfomance in two of the languages. Later in the "Kadettenkorps" he learned again French, English and Latin. All with mark 3 (mark 1 or 1a was the best, 6 the worst).

VBR
Rammjaeger

Gregvan · 20 January 2002, 11:03 AM

Amy,

I am lucky enough to have a rough translation of Buddecke's rare book "El Schahin", by my late friend Harry van Dorssen. Buddecke came to America at the invitation of his niece and his uncle; the latter was a businessman in Indianapolis. He obtained a lowly job for Buddecke as a journeyman in a factory (Buddecke says he wanted to start at the bottom and earn his own way). However, Buddecke soon made a proposal to a group of businessmen to found a company to manufacture aeroplanes. With their backing he went to Chicag, and met "Mr. Orr and Mr. Linn" who sold him a copy of a Nieuport monoplane which they had had built. It had a 35hp engine, but he also bought a 50 hp Gnome which he planned to install. He housed it in a shed at the "Chicago Airfield", where shed No. 2 belonged to Katharine Stinson. According to Buddecke's own story, he slowly taught himself to fly without instruction by making short hops up and down the airfield. After some success, he had it recovered and installed the Gnome under a "splendid silver cowling". On a succeeding flight he was headed for the poplars at the edge of the airfield and tried to make a turn at the height of 1 meter, and understandably crashed. However, the aircraft was repaired and he eventually returned to Indianapolis and made several flights there. Plans were proceeding for the establishment of his factory when the War came, and he returned to Germany - but that's another story.

It's evident from the book that he spoke English very well indeed.

Greg

rammjaeger · 20 January 2002, 11:08 AM

Amy,

about Oswald "Ossi" Boelcke was said he had low interest in "old languages" (Greek and Latin) at school. Later he was learning as a cadet too and I expect English, French and Latin like Immelmann but I can only speculate about the real ability in (not fogetting) and using these languages.
In general Germany had a better position in this time (compared to other countries) than today (PISA-Studie).

VBR
Rammjaeger

20 January 2002, 11:38 AM

Dear Amy,
Coppens spoke English fluently; in his FLYING IN FLANDERS, he tells of some visiting American politicians finding that he spoke English, at which point they immediately assumed that he must be one of those brave, idealistic AMERICAN volunteers that they had heard tell about...
MvR: didn't he banter in English with his 61st victim, Lt. A.F. Bird? (If not, then perhaps it proves that Bird spoke German?)
Lufbery spoke English, of course, but with a pronounced French accent!
VBR,
Capt. Lewis (French, German, and Italian)

Barrett · 20 January 2002, 03:01 PM

Coppens not only spoke fluent English--he wrote beautifully. I treasure his letters. Alfred Heurteaux wrote English reasonably well, but that was when I was autograph collecting in the '60s.
Undoubtedly many/most serious prewar airmen spoke French, the lingua franca (literally!) of flying in those days. As in, fuselage, empennage, aileron, and AVIATION!

frontflieger · 21 January 2002, 01:31 AM

For Germany you can divid the soldiers in two groups:

the highly educated (like the officers in Kadett-schools) like von Richthofen... Schäfer even stayed in France in June/ July 1914...

And others, like Bäumer, Müller etc. were not so highly educated (the first beeing a dentist's assistand at the outbreak of war - NOT a dentist