Otto Weishaar, Jasta 65

[AlexBarlow]

Iron Doves is a multi-generational historical novel that follows James Davis as he discovers his German grandfather's wartime journals and a cache of potential Kandinsky watercolors in a storage unit.
His grandfather, Otto Weishaar, was a real Jasta 65 pilot who shot down two American observation balloons on August 28, 1918. The novel traces his service from the trenches at Verdun through his transfer to aviation and time with Jasta 65 at Marville. The aircraft, the operations, the squadron markings—all drawn from the historical record.
The fictional twist: Weishaar's journals suggest he knew a civilian aircraft painter at Marville named Wilhelm König—who may have been Wassily Kandinsky hiding under an alias during his "missing years" of 1914-1917.
The novel presents this as James's discovery and investigation, not as established fact. The Kandinsky premise is speculative fiction built on real gaps in the artist's wartime chronology and the uncanny parallels between his color theory and Jasta 65's red-blue-white tri-color scheme.
The aviation history is meticulously researched. The Kandinsky angle is historical fiction exploring "what if." Both threads weave through three timelines: Weishaar's WWI service, James's modern-day authentication quest, and flashbacks to Kandinsky's pre-war Blue Rider period.

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kindle pre-order active now, paperback coming too. Iron Doves