Victory markings.

[CharlesNungesser]

Dear friends,

What kind of victory markings could you see the fighters, like von Richthofen and Nungesser and others? How about the bombers, did they use any kind of mission markings, or is this something that started during the WWII?

[Graeme]

Barker kept a tally of his victories with a horizontal white stripe for each on the forward interplane struts of his Camel (B6313).

Graeme

[Barker]

I can vouch for that. 8)

-Barker

[baldeagle]

William Erwin's Salmson 2A2 "Jo 4" (1st Aero Sqdn) had eight crosses painted below the front cockpit, possibly postwar, also Jacques Swaab's SPAD (22nd Aero) had 10 crosses painted around the "Shooting Star" squadron emblem. I believe several 22nd Aero SPADs had little tombstones with crosses on them painted along the lower left longeron from the cockpit to the tail, indicating squadron victories, including Ray Brooks' "Smith IV". There's a photo of Victor Strahm standing by his Salmson with five crosses painted on the Knight's shield in the 91st Aero Sqdn emblem. Alan Winslow of the 94th Aero had a cross sinking into the hat of his "hat in the ring" emblem, and didn't some of the 94th's pilots later paint crosses on the brim of the hat denoting their victories? Again maybe postwar.
One of the Italian aces (Cabruna?) painted a line of seven or eight crosses down the turtleback of his SPAD behind the cockpit, I believe the SPAD still exists.

AK

[drIace]

Ray Brooks painted white tombstones with Iron Crosses on them on the fuselage of his SPAD, it is in the Smithsonian NASM

[baldeagle]

According to Osprey's SPAD XII/XIII Aces book the pilots of the 147th Aero sqdn. indicated their victories by painting black rats, hanging by their tails from the paws of the Scottish Terrier unit emblem. Motto was of course "Who said rats?"

[Cigogne]

I don't recall offhand any marking of individual victories on aircraft by German pilots except where they handed over their D.VIIs postwar to the RAF or French authorities with the tally written on them. It doesn't seem to have been a common practice among them.

The Germans did this in WWII though, the rudder or vertical stabilizer being the most likely place!

Cigogne

From a German point of view, and taking into acount that most German pilots considered themselves gentlemen, to paint victory markings would have been very unsportman-like. Many German aces, starting with the Baron himself (actually he was not a Baron, did you know that?), kept parts of the planes they downed as trophies (usually pieces of canvas with the serial number of the plane, or its identification markings), and MvR even had a jeweller make him little cups with the make and model of the planes he shot down, and other identification features. But this has to be seen from a "gentleman" point of view.
A sportsman, a hunter, kills his prey and keeps something of it to commemorate the victory. Painting victory markings in the planes would have been like carving notches in the rifle´s butt, simply something only brutes with no education did. Before any of you take offense, remember I am speaking from their point of view.
As for WWII, things had changed then. But here we have to consider the problem that arose when you run out of space in the tail, consider Erich Hartmann´s 352 victories...

Hi everyone,

Oblt. Eduard Ritter von Schleich put the dates of his victories on the white portions of his 'rampant' lion marking. In the book, 'Der Schwarze Ritter', it states that he placed two dates on this emblem when he first received his 'new' machine (I believe that is was his first Albatros D.V). It is unclear whether this emblem remained after he painted his Albatros D.V entirely black.

regards

[baldeagle]

I see in the Datafile for the Hanriot HD-1 that Mario Fucini of the Italian 76 sq. had a Hanriot with a white pennant on the fuselage side, on which he painted small black skulls to denote each victory, a total of 12 claimed.