I see the face painted on the cowling now, it’s definitely Bubi.

Two more SEs* are now on my tail and I have to get out of their way. One goes straight on while the other fires at Voss.**

*McCudden and Ryse-Davis









Caption - Captain James T. B. ‘Mac’ McCudden – Leader of B Flight 56 Squadron RFC, the British ace of aces at this time.

Credited with 57 aerial victories, at this point he is credited with 12 and has downed his 13th, a DFW, shortly before the fight with Voss
.
Of this fight he wrote: “As long as I live, I shall never forget my admiration for that German pilot, who single-handed fought seven of us for ten minutes and also put some bullets through all our machines. His flying was wonderful, his courage was magnificent, and in my opinion he was the bravest German airman whom it has been my privilege to see fight.”

Caption - Arthur P.F. Rhys-Davis, a very aggressive member of McCudden’s B Flight, has 20 aerial victories at this time and will be given credit for both Voss and the Red Nosed Albatros today. He will be killed in combat 27 October 1917.

Bubi banks, rolls, zooms and dives among the SEs time after time, firing at every machine as it comes in line with his gunsights.

I turn on the SE that is firing at Bubi now, get behind and press both buttons. Tracer bullets strike all over the fuselage.

Yet another SE* is behind me now and fires into me, very close, oil shoots onto my windshield and face. The engine seizes up and I dive away leaving Voss in the middle of at least seven SEs.

*Maybery

I see Bubi climb above the SEs and hope he will keep climbing out of this death trap and go home but I know Bubi and he’ll stay, nothing I can do now.*

*The identity of the red nosed Albatros involved in the fight with Voss has never been established beyond a doubt.

According to Barry Diggins, the red nosed Albatros was, at one time, believed to have been flown by Vfw Carl Menckhoff, but his recently discovered and published memoir does not mention any participation in the fight.

It is now believed to be Obltn Rudolf Wendelmuth who, at that time belonged to Jasta 8.







WOFF skin for Obltn Rudolf Wendelmuth, Jata 8

Map Key – A - Poelkapelle, B and C Flight No. 56 Squadron attacking Voss and the red nosed Albatros

B - Running fight, east then south toward Zonnebeke and Frezenberg.

C - Voss crashes 125 yds NW of Plum Farm near Frezenberg.

D - Fictional crash of Fictional Carl Eber in the red nosed Albatros.

The thick red line is the approximate position of the front line following the Battle of Menin Road Ridge 20 Sep 1917.






TO BE CONTINUED

Great story line on Voss!

Writes itself.

CONTINUED:


61


The momentum of the dive and a tail wind gets me over the enemy trenches.

I hear cracks, as though brittle shells are breaking. Thousands of rifles.

I make it over our own lines, almost halfway to Zonnebeke before I have to set the bird down.





CAPTION – The ruins of Zonnebecke from the air, October 1917.

The propeller is still turning and the engine is still slinging oil. I barely manage to pull up over some mutilated trees, sweep over trenches, craters, ramparts.

A small mound of earth…pull up!


I did not touch it.


A field.


Shell holes.

Turn the ignition off!


Goggles off!



Level Out!



Dirt clods bang against the underside of the wing.


Thirty meters in front, a broad barbed-wire entanglement.



The propeller stops.


A bang.



Suddenly swinging around, the machine describes an arc and I’m pressed up against the wall of the cockpit.

The first stakes of the wire entanglement flit past ten meters from the wing.

No…the wind brings the distant booming of shell fire, ever present.

I remove my belt and wipe my forehead. It’s covered in sweat. I seem no worse for wear.

I’m on our side, unless the British have taken this area. I didn’t see anyone in the trenches, but then again I was busy trying to stay in the air.

There…some people running towards me. Soldiers from the trenches covered in light yellow mud, swinging rifles and clubs, shaking their fists, uttering loud cries of triumph and curses.

Behind my back I have my Broom handle* from under the seat.

The foremost man has already approached within twenty meters…puttees, are his clothes gray or brown, too much mud on him, sandbags over his headgear, waving a club.

I hear a few German words.

I stand in front of the machine, raising my left hand, ordering him to stop. “Halt, ich bin Deutscher!”

The mud covered figure stops short, lowers the club and switches to walking, approaching slowly and puffing. “Too bad…,” he pants.

I laugh, “Better luck next time.”

A circle of curious feldgrauen closes around me, speaking low. “He’s German?”

“Scheisse, we did not have to run so fast.”

Picus swoops down over their heads and lands on the nose of the machine, squawking.

*Mauser Pistol.

The one who arrived first sees Picus and says, “Look at the size of that Spect! The verdammt things must have switched from eating bugs to corpses!”

No doubt frustrated over the fact that he wasn’t going to get to use his club on me, he makes a move toward Picus with his club raised.

I grab his collar and kick his legs from under him. “None of that!”

He’s struggling to get up out of the mud and appears to want to fight.

Officers clear a path through the crowd. They come from a howitzer battery which is entrenched a few hundred paces away.

A Hauptmann looks from the man on the ground to me. “He slipped. Here Kamerade.” I stretch out my arm and help him up.

I’m asked what happened. “Ah, how interesting! We must go before they start to shell the plane.”

I pat the DV on the nose, apologizing, “Sorry girl, we didn’t get to know each other very well. You did well.”

As we run back to their position I look at the Kanonier I knocked down, “A friend of mine.”

He shrugs, “Everyone else is crazy out here. Why not you too?”

He doesn’t realize that I have done him a favor. I’ve seen Picus kill or blind a man a number of times. It’s not very pretty.

In their ‘Villa bücken’* the officers ask me how they may be of service. A telephone and some water. I’m offered tea and some hard bread which I’m grateful for.

The guns on the other side have begun to speak, and when a call comes in from the nearby observation balloon our guns speak back.

Time for me to go. I follow a guide and take the communication trenches back towards their Division Headquarters.**


*’Villa bend down’, slang for bunker.

**Landing story adapted from Otto Fuchs, Wir Flieger, translation with commentary by Adam M. Wait and published by Schiffer as “Flying Fox.”


ENDE