Sachsenberg's victories August 12 and 16, 1918

[baldeagle]

Just got "Naval Aces of WW1, Part 2" in the mail, and reading through it I see that Sachsenberg had a couple of victories on August 12, and a couple more on August 16, as well as a couple of unconfirmed claims on the 14th. And that a pilot of the 17th Aero Squadron reported a combat on the 14th with 6 Fokker biplanes and one monoplane, the monoplane presumably being Sachsenberg's Fokker E.V, during the narrow period August 10 to 20 that the E.Vs were in service. Is there evidence of whether Sachsenberg was flying this aircraft for any of the confirmed victories, or evidence that he was using his D.VII instead??






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[Regulus]

Hi

As far as I remember, Osterkamp was the only one who flew it in combat. I must have his book here somewhere. They were not very happy after British/American attack on Jabbeke aerodrome on the 13th.

Johan

[baldeagle]

Greg, are you out there? Any ideas on this??




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[Regulus]

Well, awaiting Greg, the Fokker EV's arrived on the 10th and 12th August.

Fok. E.V 143/18 arrived 11.8.18 2. MFJ
Fok. E.V 144/18 arrived 10.8.18 3. MFJ
Fok. E.V 155/18 arrived 10.8.18 3.MFJ
Fok. E.V 156/18 arrived 11.8.18 2.MFJ
Fok. E.V 160/18 arrived 10.8.18 1.MFJ
Fok. E.V 164/18 arrived 12.8.18 Seefrosta
Fok. E.V 165/18 arrived 12.8.18 Seefrosta

The arrival date of Fok. E.V 138/18 is unclear. During this period there was also a visit of a lot of officers from the navy and air service coming to see the new arrived planes, and the visit of the chief engineer of Halberstadt, Karl Theis.

On the 13th was the big raid on the aerodrome with this result, an extract from my book on the Marinekorps Flandern :


"Five Fokkers were destroyed (a big success at the time!) on the ground, one of them with a pilot who burned alive in it, something my grandfather had always told me too as he was a first hand witness of the whole raid. The 5 destroyed Fokkers come from a German report, but we found the official papers at Freiburg, stating that 2 planes burned, 10 were destroyed by hits and another 5 were damaged. So the raid was on this part better then the report delivered on the matter. Not 8 planes were destroyed but in fact 12 were with another 5 damaged. One hangar was destroyed, several personnel barracks damaged, but the fuel dump and the ammo would have given such a firework the witnesses would have seen it. And this was not the case. One question can unfortunately not be answered as we didn’t find any details on the matter, and that is if there were any Fokker EV planes amongst the ones that have been destroyed. These planes only arrived on the 10th and 12th August at the Jabbeke aerodrome."

When I say details I mean from the KTB and Tätigkeitsberichte of the units and naval air service.

So there was little chance of flying these planes already in the first days after their arrival I think.

[UPZZZZ]

Osterkamp told in his book " DU ODER ICH" that his E V was fitted with a better engine than the Oberursel 110hp. Instead this he had a 160hp Gnome rotary engine taken from a shot down enemy airplane. But he had no luck with his E V as he was surprised by several SPADs during a test flight and shot down only escaping by taking his parachute.

[R Gannon]

I have it that a 202 Sqn DH was attacked by two monoplanes on 14 Aug 18 over Nieuport at 16,000 ft - one of which was claimed as OOC.

Cheers Russ

[UPZZZZ]

Osterkamp was alone during this flight and attacked by three SPADs-no De Havillands! I assume that he was able to see the difference between three SPADs and a DH and that he also could count from one to three. )

I've to correct my last post-it was a Le Rhone engine in Osterkamp's Fokker E V

[baldeagle]

Well on the day after the big allied raid on Jabbeke the 17th Aero Squadron had a combat with "six Fokker biplanes and one monoplane", these were clearly Sachsenberg's unit since two of his men shot down a Camel each. It seems likely that Sachsenberg was flying the monoplane, and therefore quite likely that he was flying it when he made the two claims on the 16th, unless somebody has something more concrete than an opinion to the contrary, like a combat report or other document showing that he was in his D.VII instead.

Did Sachsenberg leave behind any memoirs at all?

One of the reasons that I'm interested in this is that the VAFM in Colorado has a flying replica of Sachsenberg's E.V (in the photo above), and a Sopwith Camel project that will be finished in the markings of Bob Todd of the 17th Aero Squadron (Andy Parks, who runs the museum, knew Bob Todd). It would be neat to have replicas of two airplanes that met in combat, flying together 100 years later.




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[Regulus]

Sachsenberg didn't leave any memoirs at all. If he did they probably were taken by the Russians when the Sachsenberg shipyard fell into their hands at the Elbe river. They certainly made good use of his hydrofoil plans, as everything they made later was based on the Sachsenberg/von Schertel material they found.

It it's not urgent, I'm going to take contact with the family again in a few weeks (first I'm off to Verdun for the new book) and could ask them if he ever mentioned this matter.

Sachsenberg's EV had two eyes and eyebrows at the cowling holes. A bit similar to what Voss had on his triplane.

What's more there's no way of seeing on that photograph with Theis and many others what the fuselage looks like...

The only other personalised EV I've seen could be the one of Goerth with a 3 on the fuselage, pointing in the direction of a plane of the III MFJ.

Sorry, not much help there... So I have nothing more concrete than an opinion and some 10 photo's of these planes...

[Regulus]

Still one small remark, the Seefrosta also received two of these EV's and they flew regularly together in aerial battle with MFJ planes. This could be the encounter with 202 Sqdn Russ mentioned. Should check that when I'm back from France if I can find anything on thet matter...