FA 216w loss 29 October 1918

spad · 11 April 2016, 11:20 AM

On this date a 2-seater from this unit was lost. The crew Ltns Carus and Haffner were killed at Cilly in the Aisne region. On this date 24 Squadron destroy a 2-seater at Bois l'eveque near the Aisne region which was possibly this squadrons region of operations. Is this a possible match and if so, what aircraft were FA216w operating?

regards

Keith

R Gannon · 11 April 2016, 03:15 PM

Hi Keith

Interesting thought, but Cilly is a good 40km south of where 24 Sqn were operating over British Fourth Army - Capt Longton's earlier 1430 combat is Favril just south of Mormal Forest. The FAA 216 loss is in French Tenth Army area.

I don't doubt Longton/Harries/Evans downed a 2-seater, but results likely not fatal. Check out my FAA 235 & 211 exposes, to see how many none fatal downing's these units had! I'm sure if we had like data for all the German 2-seater units, we could pin whom they downed, but sadly posterity has been left with a very incomplete picture of German combat downing's. Which in turn has led to some very unbalanced perceptions of the air war.

Cheers Russ