Fokker Scourge

Kurt Wintgens' Fokker M.5K/MG "E.5/15" Fokker Eindecker, flown by him on 1 July 1915, in the first successful aerial engagement in an aircraft fitted with a synchronised machine gun

The Fokker Scourge (or Fokker Scare) occurred during the First World War from August 1915 to early 1916, when the Imperial German Flying Corps (Die Fliegertruppen), equipped with Fokker Eindecker fighters, gained an advantage over the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the French Aéronautique Militaire.

The Fokker was the first service aircraft to be fitted with a machine gun synchronised to fire through the arc of the propeller without striking the blades. The tactical advantage of aiming the gun by aiming the aircraft and the surprise of its introduction were factors in its success.[1][2]

This period of German air superiority ended with the arrival in numbers of the French Nieuport 11 and British Airco DH.2 fighters, which were capable of challenging the Fokkers, although the last Fokkers were not finally replaced until August–September 1916.[3][1]

The term "Fokker Scourge" was coined by the British press in mid-1916, after the Eindeckers had been outclassed by the new Allied types.[4] Use of the term coincided with a political campaign to end a perceived dominance of the Royal Aircraft Factory in the supply of aircraft to the Royal Flying Corps, a campaign that was begun by the pioneering aviation journalist C. G. Grey and Noel Pemberton Billing M.P., founder of Pemberton-Billing Ltd (Supermarine from 1916) and a great enthusiast for aerial warfare.[5]

Background

Early air warfare

Diagram of Fokker's "Stangensteuerung" synchronisation mechanism

As aerial warfare developed, the Allies gained a lead over the Germans by introducing machine-gun armed types such as the Vickers F.B.5 Gunbus fighter and the Morane-Saulnier L.[6][7] By early 1915, the German Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL, Army supreme command) had ordered the development of machine-gun-armed aircraft, to counter those of the Allies. The new "C" class armed two-seaters and twin-engined "K" (later "G") class aircraft such as the AEG G.I were attached in ones and twos to Feldflieger Abteilungen (artillery-observation and reconnaissance detachments) for "fighter" sorties, mostly for the escort of unarmed aircraft.[1][8][9]

On 18 April 1915, the Morane-Saulnier L of Roland Garros was captured, after he was shot down behind the German lines.[10] From 1 April, Garros had destroyed three German aircraft in the Morane, which carried a machine-gun firing through the propeller arc. Bullets that hit the blades were deflected by small metal wedges.[11] Garros burned his aircraft but this failed to conceal the nature of the device and the significance of the deflector blades. The German authorities requested several aircraft manufacturers, including that of Anthony Fokker, to produce a copy.[10]

Synchronisation gear

Detail of an early Fokker Eindecker: the cowling is off, showing the Stangensteuerung gear, connected directly to the oil pump drive at the rear of the engine.

The Fokker company produced the Stangensteuerung (push rod controller), a genuine synchronisation gear. Impulses from a cam driven by the engine controlled the firing of the machine-gun so it could fire forwards without damaging the propeller.[12] Unlike earlier proposed gears the Stangensteuerung was fitted to an aircraft and proved in flight. In a postwar biography, Fokker claimed that he designed and built the gear in 48 hours but it was probably designed by Heinrich Lübbe, a Fokker Flugzeugbau engineer. Among several pre-war patents for similar devices was that of Franz Schneider, a Swiss engineer who had worked for Nieuport and the German LVG company.[12][13]

The device was fitted to the most suitable Fokker type, the Fokker M.5K (military designation Fokker A.III), of which A.16/15, assigned to Otto Parschau, became the prototype of the Fokker E.I.[14] Fokker demonstrated A.16/15 to German fighter pilots, including Kurt Wintgens, Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann in May and June 1915.[15] The Fokker, with its "Morane" controls, including the over-sensitive balanced elevator and dubious lateral control, was difficult to fly; Parschau, who was experienced on Fokker A types, converted pilots to the new fighter.[16][17] The early Eindeckers were attached to the normal FFA in ones and twos, to protect reconnaissance machines from Allied machine-gun-armed aircraft.[14]

Operational service

The Eindeckers enter service

Otto Parschau's second Eindecker, E.1/15, with experimental "mid-wing" modification which became standard on production E.Is

Fokker Eindecker E.5/15, the last of the pre-production series, is believed to have been first flown in action by Kurt Wintgens of FFA 6.[18] On 1 and 4 July 1915, he reported combats with French Morane-Saulnier L (Parasols), each time well over the French lines.[17] These victories were never confirmed, although later research has shown that the first claim matches French records of a Morane forced down on 1 July near Lunéville with a wounded crew and a damaged engine, followed three days later by another.[19] By 15 July, Wintgens had moved to FFA 48 and scored his first recognised victory, another Morane L.[20] Parschau had received the new E.1/15, which became the prototype for the Fokker Eindecker line of aircraft, when it was returned to the Fokker Flugzeugbau factory in Schwerin–Gorries, for development.[21]

By the end of July 1915, about fifteen Eindeckers were operational with various units, including the five M.5K/MGs and about ten early production E.I airframes.[21] At first, the pilots flew the new aircraft as a sideline, when not flying normal operations in two-seater reconnaissance aircraft.[21] Oswald Boelcke, in FFA 62, scored his first victory in an Albatros C.I on 4 July.[22] M.5K/MG prototype airframe E.3/15, the first Eindecker delivered to FFA 62, was armed with a Parabellum MG14 gun, synchronised by the troublesome first version of the Fokker gear. At first, E.3/15 was jointly allocated to him and Immelmann when their "official" duties permitted, allowing them to master the type's difficult handling characteristics and to practice shooting at ground targets.[23] Immelmann was soon allocated a very early production Fokker E.I, E.13/15, one of the first armed with an lMG 08 Spandau machine gun, using the more reliable production version of the Fokker gear.[24]

The Scourge begins

RFC aircraft losses
(July 1915
to January 1916)[25]
Month Total
June6
July15
August10
September14
October12
November16
December17
January30
Total120

The Fokker Scourge is usually considered to have begun on 1 August, when B.E.2c aircraft of No. 2 Squadron bombed the base of FFA 62 at 5:00 a.m., waking the German pilots, including Boelcke and Immelmann, who were quickly into the air after the raiders.[23] Boelcke suffered a jammed gun but Immelmann caught up with a B.E.2c and shot it down. This aircraft was flown as a bomber, without an observer or Lewis gun, the pilot armed only with an automatic pistol.[20] After about ten minutes of manoeuvring (giving the lie to exaggerated accounts of the stability of B.E.2 aircraft) Immelmann had fired 450 rounds, which riddled the B.E. and wounded the pilot in the arm.[26] By late October, towards the end of the Battle of Loos, more Fokkers (including the similar Pfalz E-type fighters, which were also called "Fokkers" by Allied airmen) were encountered by RFC pilots and by December, forty Fokkers were in service.[27][28][29]

The new fighters could make long, steep dives and the fixed, synchronised machine gun was aimed by aiming the aircraft. The machine gun was belt-fed, unlike the drum-fed Lewis guns of their opponents, who had to change drums when in action. The Fokker pilots took to flying high and diving on their quarry, usually out of the sun, firing a long burst and continuing the dive until well out of range. If the British aircraft had not been shot down, the German pilot could climb again and repeat the process. Immelmann invented the Immelmann turn, a zoom after the dive, followed by a roll when vertical to face the opposite way, after which he could turn to attack again.[30]

The mystique acquired by the Fokker was greater than its material effect and in October, RFC HQ expressed concern at the willingness of pilots to avoid combat. RFC losses were exacerbated by the increase in the number of aircraft at the front from 85 to 161 between March and September, the hard winter of 1915–1916 and some aggressive flying by the new German "C" type two-seaters.[31][32] Boelcke and Immelmann continued to score, as did Hans Joachim Buddecke, Ernst von Althaus and Rudolph Berthold from FFA 23 and Kurt von Crailshein of FFA 53. The "official" list of claims by Fokker pilots for the second half of 1915 was no more than 28, many of them over French aircraft. Thirteen aeroplanes had been shot down by Immelmann or Boelcke and the rest by seven other Fokker pilots.[8][33] January 1916 brought thirteen claims, most of them against the French, followed by twenty more in February, the last month of the "scourge" proper. Most of the victories had been scored by aces rather than the newer pilots flying the increased number of Fokkers. Allied casualties had been light by later standards but the loss of air superiority to the Germans, flying a new and supposedly invincible aircraft, caused dismay among the Allied commanders and lowered the morale of Allied airmen. In his memoir Sagittarius Rising (1936), Cecil Lewis wrote,

Hearsay and a few lucky encounters had made the machine respected, not to say dreaded by the slow, unwieldy machines then used by us for Artillery Observation and Offensive Patrols.[34]

Restored FE2b, Masterton, New Zealand, 2009

The RFC changed tactics for the sedate B.E. types and the newer F.E.2b pusher fighters. On 14 January, RFC HQ issued orders that until better aircraft arrived, long and short-range reconnaissance aircraft must have three escorts flying in close formation. If contact with the escorts was lost, the reconnaissance must be cancelled, as would photographic reconnaissance to any great distance beyond the front line. Sending the B.E.2c into action without an observer armed with a machine gun also became less prevalent.[35] The new tactic of concentrating aircraft in time and space had the effect of reducing the number of reconnaissance sorties the RFC could fly in support of the army.[36]

New defensive formations were devised; a II Wing RFC method was for the reconnaissance aircraft to lead, escorted on each side 500 ft (150 m) higher, with another escort 1,000 ft (300 m) behind and above.[37] On 7 February, on a II Wing long-range reconnaissance, the observation pilot flew at 7,500 ft (2,300 m); a German aircraft appeared over Roulers and seven more closed in behind the formation. West of Thourout, two Fokkers arrived and attacked at once, one diving on the reconnaissance machine and the other on an escort. Six more German aircraft appeared over Courtemarck and formed a procession of 14 aeroplanes stalking the British formation. None of the German pilots attacked and all the British aircraft returned, only to meet two German aircraft coming back from a bombing raid, which opened fire and mortally wounded the pilot of one the British escort aircraft. The British ascribed their immunity to attack during the 55-minute flight to the rigid formation, which the two Fokkers were unable to disrupt.[38] On 7 February, a No. 12 Squadron B.E.2c. was to be escorted by three B.E.2c, two F.E.2 aircraft and a Bristol Scout from 12 Squadron and two more F.E. and four R.E. aeroplanes from No. 21 Squadron. The flight was cancelled due to bad weather but twelve escorts for one reconnaissance aircraft demonstrated the effect of the Fokkers in reducing the efficiency of RFC operations.[39]

British and French reconnaissance flights to get aerial photographs for intelligence and ranging data for their artillery had become riskier, in spite of German fighters being forbidden to fly over Allied lines (in an attempt to keep the synchronisation gear secret).[40] This policy, for various reasons, prevailed for most of the war; the rarity of German fighters appearing behind the Allied lines limited the degree of air superiority they were able to attain.[41][42]

End of the Scourge

The red Nieuport 11 of Jean Navarre, Guardian of Verdun

The beginning of the end of the scourge came at the Battle of Verdun (21 February – 20 December). In February, German air superiority created by the Fokkers meant that preparations for the offensive had mostly been concealed from French aerial reconnaissance. The German aircraft had established a Luftsperre (air barrage) a systematic blockade against French aircraft, relying as much on chasing their opponents away as shooting them down. During the battle, new French Nieuport 11 fighters, which were superior to the Eindeckers in almost every respect, arrived in increasing numbers. The Nieuports were organised in escadrilles de chasse, specialist fighter squadrons that could operate in formations larger than the singletons or pairs normally flown by the Fokkers; the French quickly regained air superiority over Verdun.[43]

British F.E.2b pusher aircraft had been arriving in France from late 1915 and in the New Year began to replace the older F.B.5s. The pilot and observer had a good view forwards from their cockpits and the observer could also fire backwards over the tail. No. 20 Squadron, the first full F.E. unit, arrived in France on 23 January 1916, for long-range reconnaissance and escort flying. The Fokker pilots attacked the F.E.s without hesitation but soon found that the new aircraft were formidable opponents, particularly when flying in formation. What the F.E. lacked was sufficient speed and manoeuvrability to pursue and attack the Fokkers.[44]

D.H.2 taking off from airfield at Beauval, France

Another pusher, the D.H.2 single-seat fighter, began to arrive at the front in February 1916. This aircraft had a modest performance but its superior manoeuvrability gave it an advantage over the Eindecker, especially once a clamp was fitted to its Lewis gun so it could be fixed to fire forwards. On 8 February, No. 24 Squadron (Major Lanoe Hawker) arrived with D.H.2s and began patrols north of the Somme; another six D.H.2 squadrons followed. On 25 April, two of the D.H. pilots were attacked and found that they could out-manoeuvre the Fokkers; a few days later, without opening fire, a D.H. pilot caused a Fokker to crash onto a roof at Bapaume.[45] The Nieuports proved even more effective when the first Nieuport 16s in British service were issued to No. 1 and No. 11 Squadrons in April.[46]

By March 1916, despite frequent encounters with Fokkers and the continued success of the German Eindecker aces, the scourge was over.[47] The bogey of the Fokker Eindecker as a fighter was finally laid in April, when an E.III landed by mistake on a British aerodrome. The captured aircraft was found not to have the superior performance it had been credited with.[48] The first British aircraft with a synchronisation gear was a Bristol Scout, which arrived on 25 March 1916 and on 24 May the first Sopwith 1½ Strutter aircraft were flown to France by a flight of No. 70 Squadron.[49]

End of the Eindecker

Halberstadt D.II, said to be one of Boelcke's aircraft

The impact of the new Allied types, especially the Nieuport, was of considerable concern to the Fokker pilots; some even took to flying captured examples.[50] Idflieg was sufficiently desperate to order German firms to build Nieuport copies, of which the Euler D.I and the Siemens-Schuckert D.I were built in quantity.[51][52] New D type single-seat biplane fighters, particularly the Fokker D.II and Halberstadt D.II, had been under test since late 1915 and the replacement of the monoplanes with these types had begun by mid-1916.[53]

In February 1916, Inspektor-Major Friedrich Stempel began to assemble Kampfeinsitzer Kommando (KEK, single-seat battle units). The KEK were units mostly of two to four fighters, equipped with Eindeckers and other types which had served with FFA units during the winter of 1915–1916. By July 1916, KEK had been formed at Vaux, Avillers, Jametz and Cunel near Verdun as well as other places on the Western Front, as Luftwachtdienst (aerial guard service) units, consisting only of fighters.[54] In the second half of May, German air activity on the British front decreased markedly, while the commander of the new Luftstreitkräfte, Oberst Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen, reorganised the German air service.[55] The fighters of the KEK were concentrated into fighter squadrons (Jagdstaffeln) the first of which, Jagdstaffel 2 (Jasta 2) went into action on the Somme on 17 September. By this time, the last of the Eindeckers, long outmoded as front line fighters, had been retired from the front line.[56]

Aftermath

Analysis

Caricature of Fokker Eindecker published in Flight for 3 February 1916, satirising exaggerated accounts of its capabilities in other publications.[57]

Among British politicians and journalists who grossly exaggerated the material effects of the "Scourge" were the eminent pioneering aviation journalist C. G. Grey, founder of The Aeroplane, one of the first aviation magazines and Noel Pemberton Billing M.P., a notably unsuccessful aircraft designer and manufacturer.[2] Their supposed object was the replacement of the B.E.2c with better aircraft but it took the form of an attack on the RFC command and the Royal Aircraft Factory.[1] C. G. Grey had orchestrated a campaign against the Royal Aircraft Factory in the pages of The Aeroplane, going back to its period as the Balloon Factory, well before it had produced any heavier-than-air aircraft.[58]

Before the unsuitability of the B.E.2c for air combat was exposed by the first Fokker aces, criticism was not primarily aimed at the technical quality of Royal Aircraft Factory aircraft but because a government body was competing with private industry. When the news of the Fokker monoplane fighters reached him in late 1915, Grey was quick to blame the problem on orders for equipment that the latest developments had rendered obsolete. Grey did not suggest what aircraft might have been ordered instead, even supposing that the rapid development of aviation technology during the war could have been foreseen. Pemberton Billing also blamed the initially poor performance of British aircraft manufacturers on what he saw as the favouritism shown by the RFC, an arm of the British Army, towards the Royal Aircraft Factory, which, while nominally civilian, was also part of the army. Pemberton Billing claimed that,

... hundreds, nay thousands of machines have been ordered which have been referred to by our pilots as "Fokker Fodder" ... I would suggest that quite a number of our gallant officers in the Royal Flying Corps have been rather murdered than killed.

— Pemberton Billing[59]

Even among writers who recognised the hysteria of this version of events, this picture of the Fokker scourge gained considerable currency during the war and afterwards. In 1996 Grosz wrote,

The epithet Fokker Fodder was coined by the British to describe the fate of their aircraft under the guns of the Fokker monoplanes, but given [its] acknowledged mediocrity, it comes as something of a shock to realise how abysmal the level of British aircraft performance, pilot training and aerial tactics must have been....

— P. M. Grosz[53]

Subsequent operations

The period of Allied air superiority that followed the Fokker Scourge was brief. By mid-September 1916, the first Albatros D.I fighters were coming into service. The new aircraft were again able to challenge Allied aircraft, culminating in "Bloody April" during the Battle of Arras (9 April – 16 May 1917).[60] In the next two years, the Allied air forces gradually overwhelmed the Luftstreitkräfte in quality and quantity, until the Germans were only able to gain temporary control over small areas of the Western Front. When this tactic became untenable, development of new aircraft began, which led to the Fokker D.VII. The new aircraft created another "Fokker Scourge" in the summer of 1918 and as a condition of the Armistice, Germany was required to surrender all Fokker D.VII aircraft to the Allies.[61]

References

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 Franks 2001, p. 1.
  2. 1 2 Kennett 1991, p. 110.
  3. ↑ Bruce 1968, v.2, p. 20.
  4. ↑ Robertson 2003, p. 103.
  5. ↑ Hare 1990, pp. 91–102.
  6. ↑ Cheesman 1960, p. 177.
  7. ↑ Bruce 1989, pp. 2–4.
  8. 1 2 Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 18.
  9. ↑ Jones, 2002, p. 469
  10. 1 2 Bruce 1989, p. 3.
  11. ↑ Cheesman 1960, p. 178.
  12. 1 2 Grosz 1989, p. 2.
  13. ↑ Woodman 1989, pp. 180–183.
  14. 1 2 Gray and Thetford 1961, p. 83.
  15. ↑ Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 9.
  16. ↑ Immelmann 2009, p. 77.
  17. 1 2 Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 10.
  18. ↑ Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 11–12.
  19. ↑ Van Wyngarden 2006, pp. 10–12.
  20. 1 2 Franks 2001, pp. 10–11.
  21. 1 2 3 Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 12.
  22. ↑ Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 13.
  23. 1 2 Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 14.
  24. ↑ Woodman 1989, pp. 180–183.
  25. ↑ Wise, 1981, p. 355
  26. ↑ Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 15.
  27. ↑ Franks 2001, p. 59.
  28. ↑ Jones, 2002, p. 144
  29. ↑ Wise, 1981, p. 355
  30. ↑ Jones, 2002, p. 150
  31. ↑ Wise, 1981, p. 355
  32. ↑ Hoeppner 1994, p. 38
  33. ↑ Franks 2001, p. 41.
  34. ↑ Lewis 1977, p. 51.
  35. ↑ Terraine 1982, p. 199.
  36. ↑ Jones, 2002, pp. 156–157
  37. ↑ Jones, 2002, pp. 147–148
  38. ↑ Jones, 2002, pp. 157–158
  39. ↑ Jones, 2002, p. 158
  40. ↑ Franks 2001, pp. 11–12.
  41. ↑ Hoeppner, 1994, p. 41
  42. ↑ Franks 2001, p. 6.
  43. ↑ Herris and Pearson 2010, p. 29.
  44. ↑ Hare 1990, p. 87.
  45. ↑ Jones, 2002, pp. 158–159
  46. ↑ Cheesman 1960, p. 92.
  47. ↑ Franks 2001, pp. 59–60.
  48. ↑ Lewis, 1977, p. 52
  49. ↑ Bruce, 1968, v.2, p.119
  50. ↑ Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 51.
  51. ↑ Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 64.
  52. ↑ Cheesman 1960, p. 166.
  53. 1 2 Grosz 1996, p. 5.
  54. ↑ Guttman, 2009, p. 9
  55. ↑ Gray & Thetford 1962 p. xxix
  56. ↑ Jones, 2002, p. 281
  57. ↑ "Deadly Fokker", Flight, VIII (371), p. 103, 3 February 1916, retrieved 13 September 2014 – via Flightglobal Archive
  58. ↑ Hare 1990, P. 29
  59. ↑ Hare 1990, p. 91.
  60. ↑ Cheesman 1960, p. 108.
  61. ↑ "Armistice terms" firstworldwar.com

Bibliography

  • Angelucci, E., ed. The Rand McNally Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft. New York: The Military Press, 1983. ISBN 978-0-517-41021-9.
  • Bruce, J. M. Morane Saulnier Type L. Berkhamstead, UK: Albatros Productions, 1989. ISBN 978-0-948414-20-6.
  • Bruce, J. M. War Planes of the First World War. London: MacDonald, 1968. ISBN 978-0-356-01473-9.
  • Cheesman, E. F. (ed.) Fighter Aircraft of the 1914–1918 War. Letchworth, UK: Harleyford, 1960. OCLC 771602378.
  • Franks, Norman. Sharks Among Minnows: Germany's First Fighter Pilots and the Fokker Eindecker Period, July 1915 to September 1916. London: Grub Street, 2001. ISBN 978-1-90230-492-2.
  • Gray, Peter and Owen Thetford. German Aircraft of the First World War. London: Putman, 1990, First edition 1962. ISBN 978-0-93385-271-6.
  • Grosz, P. M. Fokker E.III. Berkhamstead, UK: Albatros Productions, 1989. ISBN 978-0-948414-19-0.
  • Grosz, P. M. Halberstadt Fighters. Berkhamstead, UK: Albatros Productions, 1996. ISBN 978-0-948414-86-2.
  • Guttman, Jon (Summer 2009). "Verdun: The First Air Battle for the Fighter: Prelude and Opening" (PDF). World War I.com. Part 1. The Great War Society. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
  • Hare, Paul R. The Royal Aircraft Factory. London: Putnam, 1990. ISBN 978-0-85177-843-3.
  • Herris, Jack and Bob Pearson. Aircraft of World War I: 1914–1918. London: Amber, 2010. ISBN 978-1-90662-666-2.
  • Hoeppner, E. W. von Deutschlands Krieg in der Luft: ein Rückblick auf die Entwicklung und die Leistungen unserer Heeres-Luftstreitkräfte im Weltkriege (in German) translation Germany's War in the Air. Battery Press, 1994. original publication: Leipzig: 1921, K. F. Koehle. ISBN 978-0-89839-195-4.
  • Immelmann, Franz (with an appendix by Norman Franks). Immelmann: The Eagle of Lille. Drexel Hill, UK: Casemate, 2009 (originally published in Germany, 1934). ISBN 978-1-932033-98-4.
  • Jones, H. A. The War in the Air, Being the Story of the Part Played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force, (volume II). original publication, London: Clarendon Press 1928. London: Imperial War Museum and N & M Press facs. edition, 2002. , access date 12 April 2015 ISBN 978-1-84342-413-0.
  • Lewis, Cecil. Sagittarius Rising. London: Penguin, 1977 (first published 1936). ISBN 978-0-14-004367-9.
  • Kennett, Lee The First Air War: 1914–1918 New York, Simon & Schuster, 1991. ISBN 978-0-02-917301-5.
  • Robertson, Linda R. The Dream of Civilized Warfare: World War I Flying Aces and the American Imagination Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-8166-4270-0.
  • Terraine, John. White Heat: The New Warfare 1914–1918. London: Book Club Associates, 1982. ISBN 978-0-85052-331-7.
  • Wyngarden, Greg van. Early German Aces of World War I. Botley, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2006. ISBN 978-1-84176-997-4.
  • Woodman, Harry. Early Aircraft Armament: The Aeroplane and the Gun up to 1918. London: Arms and Armour Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-85368-990-4.
  • Wise, S. F. Canadian Airmen and the First World War. The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force vol. I. (repr. ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press,1981 [1980]. ISBN 978-0-8020-2379-7.

Further reading

  • Bradbeer, T. G. (2004). The Battle for Air Supremacy over the Somme 1 June – 30 November 1916 (PhD). Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army Command and General Staff College. OCLC 939481536. Docket ADA428847. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
  • Duffy, C. (2007) [2006]. Through German Eyes: The British and the Somme 1916 (Phoenix ed.). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-7538-2202-9.
  • Neumann, G. P. (1920). Die deutschen Luftstreitkräfte im Weltkriege: Aus den Aufzeichnungen und mit Hilfe 29 Offiziere und Beamten der Marine- und Militärische- Flugzicherung [The German Air Force in the Great War: Its History, Development, Organisation, Aircraft, Weapons and Equipment, 1914–1918] (abr. trans. Hodder & Stoughton ed.). Berlin: Mittler & Sohn. OCLC 773250508. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
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