January 1917 was an interesting time. In the Chinese sense. On New Year’s Day we got sent out at night for a mission to patrol the front lines and I couldn’t see a thing. I was leading, so I took the wing above the clouds to get into some moonlight, but then I could just see bright and blurry clouds, so I took us back down again and bumped into some character called Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richtofen, who turned out to be quite handy at this flying business.
There were five of us Pups and four of them Albatros D.II and despite the numbers advantage, they ate our lunch. I latched onto one target, then switched off onto another when it crossed my nose. I put a long burst into the Albatros and then another when he flared up into some sort of prop hang and then he ruddered over and seemed to spiral down to crash in no man’s land.
I didn’t get time to admire my handiwork though, because I was instantly taking gunfire and rounds ripped through the right wing. I rolled and dived and craned to look back over my shoulder to find that, yes, the Red Baron was right on my tail. He put more rounds through the engine and hit me a couple times as I tried to run west toward home.
I burned off all my altitude for speed, but then the engine gave out. I crossed German trenchlines at about 400 feet, taking rifle fire, and put the Pup down in no man’s land, my landing roll being stopped somewhat abruptly when I crashed into a tree.
Fortunately I was close enough to friendly lines to make it to safety, but the Pup was a write-off and I ended up spending 19 days in hospital. I took the time to write out a very detailed claim for the Albatros I thought I’d killed.
On January 20 I went back to unit and on the 21st I went back into the air for the first time. The unit had been strongly reinforced while I was away and we finally had some Officers, so that Flight Sergeants, (like me), could stop leading patrols.
On the 21st we went up for a barn storm to an enemy airbase with every plane we could muster. I’m fairly sure the cook was flying one of them.
Right as we crossed our front lines, the skies exploded as we flew out of the clouds into a mess of Albatros, Halberstadts and DFWs. Our Pups all apparently picked their own targets and for a minute the hardest thing was avoiding collision with a friendly.
I latched onto one of the DFWs, because it seemed the easiest target and absolutely riddled it with holes, darting from side to side and swinging under its tail to throw off the observer, until I got a long burst in from the side and knocked the observer out.
That meant that provided the enemy Albatros didn’t pick me up, (and provided the sodding Red Baron wasn’t about), I’d be fine taking my time, so I cut throttle, fell in behind and slightly to the right of DFW, then angled in and put repeated burst of fire into her until I found something that didn’t react well to bullets…
After that I could see that my squadron mates were below me in a big fight with what seemed to be about 15 German scouts and so I dived in to help. That help didn’t last long though, as I got an Albatros on my tail and he put a long burst into my engine before I even knew he was there.
I turned west and dived and he followed, the Albatros easily keeping pace with my Pup. So I climbed, rolled and pulled hard on the stick, making the Pup’s frame creak and groan, then I rolled into a head-on pass with the Albatros, hitting him with a short burst, and then I got onto his tail, only for the engine to cut out, either from damage or exertion.
I turned west again and floated over the German lines again and the whole time the Albatros was zooming in on my tail and then falling back and then repeating. He never fired though. Eventually he roared up onto my left wing, almost level, then banked away and turned east.
I don’t know if his guns were busted or if this was some sort of AI chivalry, but it was very cool to see and very cool to not be dead.
I pancaked my second Pup in front of the British trenches, got out and walked into friendly lines and wrote out my claim for the DFW while I waited for a car to take me back to the airfield.
Some time later both the Albatros and DFW claims were denied due to lack of witnesses, so I still have zero kills.
