Some breathtaking stories here lately, guys. Fullofit's low-level fight with the Pups produced some of the best photos I've seen yet. I don't know how you have the presence of mind to grab those shots in the midst of a low-level dogfight. I'm too busy not flying into solid objects to even think of it. And Robert is racking up an impressive score. Then MFair turns his triplane into a biplane and lives to tell the tail. Carrick returns from gallivanting with nurses. Stljeffbb, you are doing great things with your research and story-telling. Love it! And Lederhosen gets the Dragodile out of the garage at last! Hope I haven't forgotten anyone...

Anyway, please welcome Franz Holzhauer, my latest candidate for immortality.

Editor's note

These memoirs recently came to light during the renovation of an old summer home at Schwielowsee, near Berlin. The several notebooks had lain unnoticed for a century in a chest in the attic.

Franz Holzhauer was 18 when the war began, but he had already lived an interesting life. His father Marius had worked as a senior engineer for Siemens in Berlin. As a younger man, Marius Holzhauer had worked on the construction of telegraph lines alongside the German-built Baghdad Railway.[1] Still in his 20s, Marius helped to establish a project office in Bucharest and met and befriended Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter, the acting German ambassador, who was responsible for negotiation with the Ottomans on the railroad project.[2]

Frau Holzhauer, the former Katerina Schaumeier, remained in Berlin and raised their young family. Daughter Maria and Victoria were followed in May 1896 by the birth of their son, Franz.

The association with Kiderlen-Waechter led to other things. In 1902 Marius Holzhauer was appointed technical attaché to the embassy in London, where he helped the German Telefunken company wage a patent war with Marconi. He studied Britain’s fleet conversion from coal to oil, reporting to the military attachés.

In 1904, the Holzhauers moved to Washington, where Marius studied progress in aviation and advised the German patent office on ways to avoid allowing the Wright Brothers to patent wing-warping technology.[3] Young Marius was fascinated by the thought of flying from his earliest years. In 1910 young Franz travelled to Chicago with his father and spent several weeks bothering workers at the Bates Aero Works while his father negotiated the purchase of a Bates aircraft motor. It was during this summer that Franz flew a glider for the first time, on the strictest of undertakings not to tell his mother.

The Holzhauers moved to Rome in 1911 and returned to Berlin in 1913. From 1911 Franz spent the school year with an uncle and aunt in Berlin, where he attended the Königliche Wilhelms-Gymnasium. With the outbreak of war, Franz attempted to join the infant Fliegertruppen but was turned down and was accepted instead into a Jaeger regiment. He served in the 1914 campaign but saw little action, having been sent to a quiet sector in the Vosges. Finally, in February 1915 he was accepted as a pilot candidate by the Fliegertruppen.

Excelling in training, Franz found himself on the Eastern front from November 1915 until February 1917. His earlier memoirs tell of numbing boredom and disillusionment. In January 1917, following a long period recuperating from a bout of pneumonia, Franz Holzhauer’s request for a posting to a single-seat unit was accepted and after a period of leave he shipped west to the school at Valenciennes.

We pick up his story with his arrival at his first operational fighter squadron, Jasta 17.

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The Holzhauer Papers
Part 1: 16-23 April 1917, St-Quentin-le-Petit

The car with its fat, sullen corporal pulled up at a stone farmhouse just outside a little village that nestled in a fold in the surrounding fields. It was 15 April 1917, and here at last I was about to join the real war.

Jasta 17 was based at St-Quentin-le-Petit, in the open land south of the Ardennes, about 40 km north of Reims. I was met by Rittmeister von Brederlow, the Jastaführer. This aristocratic officer welcomed me heartily and questioned me at length about my experiences in the East. He invited me to a gathering in the Kasino, where there was a great party underway. The guest of honour was a French sergeant with a heavily bandaged face. He had been shot down that day by Vizefeldwebel Julius Buckler. Buckler had downed the man’s Spad scout and a Caudron as well – his 3rd and 4th victories! This, it seemed, was a real fighting squadron.

I met a number of the other pilots, and struggled to learn everyone’s name. The Jastaführer’s brother in the adjutant. There is Leutnant der Reserve Günther, Leutnant Alfred Träger, and Leutnant Schuster. Perhaps the most interesting new acquaintance is Vizefeldwebel Jakob Wolff. He is old enough to be my father, or even my father’s older brother! He is a director of the huge Lörser & Wolff cigar company. Imagine! A man with 4000 employees serving as an NCO at the front! This war can bring out the good or the bad, but this is certainly a case of bringing out the good. There are many other names to learn.

The Frenchman, named Papeil, was well plied with champagne. Ltn Träger spoke decent French and served as the translator. Papeil referred to his machine as “ma Lola.” We liked the way it sounded and by dinner there were cries of “Malaula” as we rendered the name. It was to become our battle cry.

On 16 April the French began a major push. We had known for days it was due, and now we hoped to get busy. The morning was clear and I flew an early patrol down to the lines near Reims. We did not cross over and we saw nothing. I was anxious to prove that, unlike true neophytes, I had the ability to spot other machines at a distance, but there truly was nothing to see. My machine was a delight, one of the new Albatros models with the Nieuport-like wings. It handled delicately and precisely, unlike anything else I’d flown. Vzfw Strasser, even though lowest in rank in the patrol, led us. I learned that this kind of thing often happened here. Strasser was good enough to warn me not to overstress the Albatross, because the strength of its main spar was still suspect.

Buckler did it again – he downed his fifth Frenchman, a Nieuport.

I flew a second time that day, another uneventful jaunt well behind the lines. And then the rain came. For the next four days we sat around our huts and read books. Feldwebel Ehms, who shares a hut with me, plays chess very well and we had countless games, all of which he won. I intend to play him every day until I beat him. We have good access to decent brandy and, thanks to Vzfw Wolff, all the cigars we can handle. You can scarcely breathe in our Kasino!

On 22 April the skies cleared and we took off at 5 am for a patrol along the front. Our lovely type 3 Albatrosses have gone back to the factory for work on the wings. In place of my nimble machine I have been assigned a DII type. The visibility is much worse and the thing feels unbearably heavy by comparison. We were about halfway to the lines when the Rittmeister, who led us, waggled his wings and pointed to the east. A cluster of dots was passing our way and we climbed to inspect them. The dots broke formation and came at us: Nieuports! We mixed with them for five or ten minutes and Ltn Günther sent one down in flames. I learned how dangerous this kind of fight can be. Twice in the space of seconds I had to smash the stick forward to avoid a collision with another German. And then suddenly the sky was empty. I flew straight for a moment and waited for the compass to stop spinning. Then, pop-pop-pop! I was being shot at, which did not please me at all. Where he came from I do not know, but a Sopwith two-seater with French markings flashed past me. Fortunately the fellow was not a good shot.

I gave chase, twisting and turning to stay behind and below him and out of the way of his gunner, whom I could see heaving his machine gun from side to side. The French pilot was nervous. He threw his machine around too violently for the poor gunner to have a chance. As we dropped below a thousand metres I got under the French machine and fired from close range. It fell over on one wing and began to spiral earthward, crashing into a field near Saint-Fergeux.

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"It fell over on one wing and began to spiral earthward"

The confirmation came quickly and we had a small celebration in the mess, where I was presented with a silver Ehrenbecher. I hope it is the first of many.

On 23 April I was told to lead a patrol down to Reims. I say “lead”, but Ltn Schuster stayed close on my wing and watched carefully over me. I had orders to hand over command if he fired a white flare. Over the lines we spotted a formation of Nieuports and climbed to meet them. The fight was chaotic. Twice I flew head-on at a Frenchman. Buckler had told me never to break off in this situation. Fire constantly and make the other fellow break away first. After the second head-on attack I knew I had good speed and could climb and turn onto the Frenchman’s tail. I had barely begun to turn when there was a loud bang and I saw Ltn Träger’s machine falling away. Collision!

My machine was still responsive. It had been a glancing blow to the underside of the tail. I was unsure of the damage so I broke off and headed for the forward field at St- Remy-le-Petit, near Rethel. After a safe landing I was driven back to our field, where I was delighted to learn that Träger had been able to bring his damaged machine down safely. Rittmeister von Brederlow convened an inquiry into the collision and assured me it had been unavoidable, although he held Träger back for some loving words!

Then in the afternoon we were back over the lines, escorting two DFWs to bomb French reserve positions. But we ran into a great swarm of Nieuports who attacked us aggressively. I somehow acquired two of them all to myself and was grateful for my DII, as I would likely have torn the wings off a DIII. A bullet grazed my side and I spun out of the fight. The Mercedes packed it in and I put down in a cratered field near Guignicourt. Several Bavarian soldiers helped me out of the machine and I repaid them with some of Wolff’s cigars which I carried in a leather case. Then took me to a Feldlazarett .
I am told I shall be out of action for four days.

Historical Notes:

[1] The Baghdad Railway project was undertaken between 1888 and the beginning of the war. Marius Holzmann likely worked on the telegraph during the phase of construction from Eskişehir to Konya, which was concluded in 1903.

[2] Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and had a major role in Germany's provocative approach to the 1911 Agadir Crisis in Morocco.

[3] The Wrights were notorious for trying to patent every aspect of aircraft construction. They failed spectacularly, and their defensiveness likely kept them out of the forefront of aviation development.


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