It's 20th September 1916 and after being grounded for a couple of days by bad weather, Oblt. Richard Horstmann is flying his first sortie. Being an old hand at the business, he's leading a flight from Bertincourt to patrol over the nearby Lines. By now, Jasta 2 has lost its rag-bag mix of Halberstadts and Fokkers and is fully equipped with the new Albatros D.I, except for staffelfuehrer Boelcke who has the latest version, a D.II.



The weather is still quite poor, but at least we're no longer grounded.



Oh no, not again! Those darned Frenchmen are close by and once again, they drop onto our heads! About four of five of them, in Nieuports.



This time, though, we're flying the best fighters at the front. I'm soon chasing down one of the Frenchmen...



...and hitting him, too. The two machine guns make our aircraft so much more deadly. Down he goes!



No doubt about that one!



But the air fight is still in full swing and I'm not done yet!

...to be continued!

I'm quickly on the lookout for another victim. The poor visibility doesn't help...



...but I see some aircraft dogfighting and dash into the thick of it.



You'll do! I chase after a camouflaged Nieuport - a brief glance at labels tells me he's an historic ace, Etienne Tsu, originally from China and now with Escadrille 37. Well, I mean to have him.



Once again, the firepower of my two MGs is decisive. A few hits and he's flying sluggishly. I close in the the kill...



...and send him down.



Two certain victories on my first mission with Jasta 2, despite being jumped! It's more than adequate revenge against those who killed the man I came here to replace!

...to be continued!

I'm soon chasing down another camouflaged Nieuport.



A brief glimpse at his label tells me he's another hot shot, this time one Fernand Garrigou. As with his comrade, a few bursts from my twin machine guns is enough to take the shine off his fancy flying.



He's saved when my ammo runs out. The stay of execution is brief. There are now more Albatrosses than Nieuports around and I pull up to let two of my friends settle the Frenchman's hash. It takes a while, but he ends up burning...



...in the corner of a field.



Two of the others are chasing another Nieuport and I hang around for a while to see if they can nail him.



This Frenchman seems well able to look after himself and having no ammo left, I decide to fly the short distance back to Bertincourt. It's still raining as I switch off in front of the hangars, but someone is nevertheless undeterred from reading a newspaper while someone else attends to one of the staffel's mascots.



It seems we didn't have it entirely our own way. Two of our machines are written off, including the Albatros of that other new fellow von Richthofen. But nobody's been seriously hurt. I put in a claim for two Nieuports, on top of the one claimed by Hohne.



It's a good morning's work, as far as I'm concerned.

Good stuff!!