1914-1915

Immelmann

Immelmann was to become one of the most proficient of the Eindecker pilots; on 7 November he came across a BE2c of No.10 Squadron over Lille. His subsequent description of the outcome was fairly typical of these early, fateful encounters: …’I waited until within 60 metres and then gave him 50 rounds, whereupon he went down in a left-hand turn… After he had dropped several hundred metres in a glide, he fell. Shortly afterwards I landed near him. The machine was completely wrecked, both inmates were dead. I pulled the two bodies out of the wreckage. One had six mortal wounds , the other two bullets in the head. All their bones were broken’. The hapless crew of BE2c 1715 were Lieutenant O V Le Bas and Captain T D Adams. German staff officers soon arrived at the scene and having removed everything of military value from the bodies, took them away for burial. After receiving warm congratulations from his superiors. Immelmann flew home. It was his sixth victory. By the end of 1915, Germany enjoyed total air supremacy, their Fokker fliers hadthrown the RFC into almost complete disarray. Swift counter-measures were the order of the day and at the beginning of 1916, new and improved Allied fighters, such as the AMC De Havilland DH2, were entering service on the Western Front. The tide was about to turn…