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Any WW1 aviation fans?

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NutmegCT

NutmegCT

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Preparing for flight, 1917. A Fokker F. 1 102, flown by a well known figure.

In addition to Freiherr von Richthofen, I'd almost swear I recognize Hermann Goering at 3:05, toward the left of the frame.



Quite an ordeal to "suit up" for flying back then.


Note the mechanic individually oiling each cylinder. I don't understand why Richthofen seems to "tap" or "bless" areas directly above the panel, 3:30. Any ideas?


Later, we see German military inspecting the downed British aircraft, and the seemingly quite relieved British pilot.


Hand-propping that rotary must have been a bear of a job.


Tom M.




 
I don't understand why Richthofen seems to "tap" or "bless" areas directly above the panel, 3:30. Any ideas?
Click to expand...

I believe he was using a loading lever to put rounds in the chambers of his twin machine guns.

( I think I saw that on the "the Blue Max" with George Pepard)

Great clip, BTW.
 
Excellent! Yes, maybe Goering since he was aristocracy and interested in military flight.
 
great video but where is Snoopy when you need him
 
coldplugs said:
~Very~ interested. He was an ace himself, won the "Blue Max", and eventually commanded von Richthofen's outfit. He was obviously a very skilled pilot - too bad he was such an arrogant slob.
Click to expand...

Yes, he became a parody of himself (perhaps in part due to early success and part of his wealthy family background)... insisting on special uniforms and such.
 
Great clip, I've loved WWI flight since I was a little kid. I used to build models of all the great fighters of the period, I think a DR1 is the only one I have left.
 
Loading lever! wow - thanks. Never knew about that.

Goering - yikes. Like most of the Third Reich leadership, Goering was quite a character in many ways. And he certainly seemed to gradually become a caricature of himself. I've heard his morphine addiction stemmed from treatment for a WW1 injury.

Tom M.
 
GTP1960 said:
I believe he was using a loading lever to put rounds in the chambers of his twin machine guns.

( I think I saw that on the "the Blue Max" with George Pepard)

Great clip, BTW.
Click to expand...

More than likely he had Spandau, (spelling), machine guns and was putting the first cartridge in the chamber and cocking at the same time. Once firing the first round, they would automatically load and fire, most of the time! The British used Vickers and Lewis
 
Speaking of WW1:
I've just read a book by Winston Groom A Storm in Flanders , about the great battles of the Ypres Salient.
where Richthofen finally met his fate, and where Hitler cut his teeth.

The misery and wholesale slaughter of trench warfare was unbelievable.
What was more unbelievable is the total acceptance of the "trench way of life" over that four year period, between 1914-1918.

The brass used terms like "spoilage" and "wastage" to characterize a loss of some 30,000 men who might die from artillery & machine-gun fire in no-mans-land on an initial charge.........before they even joined in battle. All that blood letting for a few yards of ground.

Winston Groom has written several histories. But he is best known for his novel Forrest Gump.
I like his conversational style of writing.
 
Note the serial number on the side, FI 102, makes this one of 3 prototype or preproduction DR1s. Nearly the same as the slightly later production aircraft, this plane is listed as shot down in September 1917 with another pilot. Richthofen was said to prefer the Albatros series fighters to the slower Fokkers
 
GTP1960 said:
Speaking of WW1:
I've just read a book by Winston Groom A Storm in Flanders , about the great battles of the Ypres Salient.
where Richthofen finally met his fate, and where Hitler cut his teeth.

The misery and wholesale slaughter of trench warfare was unbelievable.
What was more unbelievable is the total acceptance of the "trench way of life" over that four year period, between 1914-1918.

The brass used terms like "spoilage" and "wastage" to characterize a loss of some 30,000 men who might die from artillery & machine-gun fire in no-mans-land on an initial charge.........before they even joined in battle. All that blood letting for a few yards of ground.
.
Click to expand...

My wife and I were very fortunate to visit Ypres in 2014 (with all the commemorations going on). The town seems so charming and yet utterly destroyed; the Germans had to rebuild it (and did so in just about 4 years). We also toured most of the importand "salient" sites... as well as a number of cemetaries. One shocker was the American cemetary (which is very small owing to our entry into the war in 1917) because a significant number grave-stones had a date-of-death in late October 1918!!! Visited the forward field hospital where McRay wrote his famous poem...
 
When visiting Verdun (in 2012), I was struck by the contrasts between the classic black & white photos of a totally barron landscape, and the fact that forests have grown during the last 100 years... and it's all rather pretty. Very few trenches survive (except a few "communicating" ones).
 
"When visiting Verdun (in 2012)"

Any of the fortified block houses still standing?
According to this book, Verdun had a complex series of overlapping fire concrete blockhouses, a stronghold the French thought impregnable in 1914.
But the Germans rolled right over them. At first anyway.
 
Numbers themselves start to lose meaning past a certain size, it's too difficult to comprehend I think. It's the visual that brings it home, like this display at the Tower of London in 2014, one flower for each British casualty, excluding the commonwealth.
poppies-Tower-217184.jpg
 
GTP1960 said:
"When visiting Verdun (in 2012)"

Any of the fortified block houses still standing?
According to this book, Verdun had a complex series of overlapping fire concrete blockhouses, a stronghold the French thought impregnable in 1914.
But the Germans rolled right over them. At first anyway.
Click to expand...

There are some blockhouses, but the main thing to tour (still is as it was on the hilltop) is Fort Douaumont (pounded by the Germans); the big guns are there as well as bunks and such... including some places that took hits and soldiers are still entombed there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Douaumont
 
It probably was Goering, since they were in the same squadron. IIRC Goering became the CO after Richtoven's death.

In World War I, tactics had not changed since the Civil War, but the weaponry did. Frontal attacks into machine gun emplacements with interlocking fields of fire was simply suicidal.
 
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