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Dolf had a wild mission. He led his wingman Edgar in a Pfalz EIII amd two Hotshots in Fokker EIIs from Colmar down to the friendly airfield of Habsheim for patrol. They found five N10C-1s down low drawing flak and a wild DF was on. Dolf wound up downing three Nupes and thought he saved Edgar, who landed at Habsheim before the DF was over, but Edgar must have bled out.
Dolf is now the only Pfalz EIII pilot until a replacement wingman arrives.

Sergeant Arthur Much
RFC 5
Abeele
14th January 1916

Flight over from Eastchurch the other day was fine until the engine packed up about three miles short of my new airfield at Abeele. Managed to put her down on a road and the chaps came to tow her in.

Finished up my training with a few circles of the field and a quick trip up to the front and back. Started proper missions yesterday with a reccy patrol. Nice and quiet. Not today though. Another reccy mission. Encountered two Eindeckers over the lines. Caught a few bullets but Sgt. Clinton and his obs, Roland managed to knock one of them down and the other fellow gave up and went home. Clinton and Roland both wounded but had the victory confirmed. Good show!

Welcome to the fray, HarryH

+1

Good on you Harry!

Adalwolf Becker's victory was not confirmed even though we fought for 10 min. over our trenches and the Niep. sat down intact and burned near our folks. Nex time we must have witnesses!

Journal Entry: September 18, 1915
Bertincourt

I experienced my first combat yesterday, it was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. Hauptman Goller, my observer, and I were ordered to fly an artillery spotting mission up near Arras for our morning sortie. We arrived without incident and Goller got to work. As we were flying our pattern I noticed an aeroplane approaching from the northeast, but I wasn't too concerned because the enemy had always behaved themselves. I kept my attention divided between Goller and the oncoming machine because I still hadn't identified it yet. It wasn't long before I realized it was a Bristol Scout, but I still wasn't concerned because the Scouts we had encountered before never paid any attention to us, so we carried on. When the tommy had gotten about 800 to 900 meters away, I noticed the enemy make an abrupt turn in our direction. I notified Goller to prepare himself because it looked like this tommy was up to no good. I put our bus into an easy left turn which afforded Goller a clear field of fire towards the enemy and he started banging away. I soon discovered that the enemy couldn't get into an advantageous position if I kept us in this bank. It was at that moment that I made a crucial mistake, I then decided to roll into a right turn and thereby shorten the range for Goller. Somehow, my change in direction had confused Goller but not the enemy because I had mistakenly placed myself right where he could fire. A hail of bullets slammed into our plane before I could correct my mistake which resulted in many holes in my wings and unknown to me at the time, my fuel tank as well. I immediately rolled back to the left which put Goller back into a firing position and he began firing again. He fired a particularly long burst after which the enemy's engine burst into flames. I sat there stunned and covered in sweat, the coughing of my engine woke me to the reality of my situation. I turned for home and set her down in a field. It was only we were on the ground did we both realize that we had both been wounded, a slight graze to my upper arm and a graze to Goller's thigh. We sat there each in his own thoughts until Goller said, "We did it, I thought we were goners, but we won." and with that we started laughing and congratulating each other. Aerial combat is a strange mistress, she scares you at first but then she intoxicates you with her zest for life.

Banjoman, is this your A pilot? How long has it taken you to see combat action since entering the war?

I had a pretty good career going in a Bristol scout. No match for EIIIs but I was able to pick off a few Aviatiks like yours before getting too close one time. Nice report, and congrats!

H

Banjoman, that was a very nice report, especially the description of the pilot and observers emotional ups and downs. Well done Sir!

HarryH, this is my 'A' pilot in the Intrepid Fliers group. He has flown 106 missions all but two of them in Aviatik B.1s. His first sortie in a C.1 we didn't see anything and then his second was his first taste of combat. Robert, thanks for the encouragement. You guys write such good reports and someday I hope to as well.

Banjoman, nice job! Great story.

Adalwolf Becker has transferred down the road a bit to a scout squadron Flying the EIII. On his last mission in an Aviatik, he and his observer were attacked 4 different times by Nieuport scouts. I landed back at base with a machine that looked like Swiss cheese but both of us were untouched. We will see how he does as a scout pilot.

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Just had a very enjoyable cup of coffee as I caught up here, many thanks gents for sharing your ongoing sagas. Glad to see you have joined the battle Harry, best of luck to Arthur. Banjoman, thank you again for keeping the chart current. Not much to report on Sous-lieutenant Tremblay other than to say he has been plotting and planning on how he might escape his captors and make his way back to the friendly side of the mud. Time will tell if he manages the trick.

.

Hi Lou,
I think watching this may help your pilot escape while avoiding some of the pitfalls.

Fullofit, that was one of the funniest, most original movies I've seen in a long time.

Here is the latest status report.

Hey Banjoman,
When I hear of escaping the prison camp for some reason this movie comes to mind first, before The Great Escape.
Do you think we should add "captured" under pilot status column and instead of "days wounded" just have the heading of "duration" so it works for the wounded and captured pilots?

Thanks for keeping the scoreboard alive.

Fullofit, great idea and I'll make the change. Keep those ideas coming.

Quade has a new hobby when the weather permits



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Well, we could also add "grounded" due to weather or insufficient planes/pilots. We could also have a flag for 1 week if someone transfers to another unit. This way we can notice easily if something significant happened to other player's pilot.

It would make the scoreboard huge (and probably make it too difficult), but it would be cool to see small nationality flags, the image of the plane they're currently flying and the emblem of the unit, rank symbols. (Maybe even a red cross for pilots in hospital, prison bars for the captured - just little icons)

Carrick,
Is his last name Franklin by any chance?

Fullofit, those are all good ideas and I've wanted to do the same. I like the idea of a waiting time for the transfer to come through.