Photo postcard of a German biplane in flight along the coast. Surf can be seen breaking on the shore.
"Frequently, towards sundown, although work for the day was officially over, we used to do an additional patrol. Game was likely then, on the lines, the enemy appearing to find this tail-end of the day to his liking also. . . .At this period in 1918, it was rare to see single-seater fighters flying alone, and as the year proceeded the sight became rarer and rarer. Out litle scouts would leave the ground in twos and threes, or in fives or sometimes more.At this time of the evening (towards sundown), it was too late for photography, and the artillery observation machines one by one were leaving the lines, their work completed. The bombers, on the other hand, would not be operating until later. It was the heroic hour for air combat—the hour at which the fighters went in search of one another."
Excerpts from a particularly lyrical passage on evening patrols against enemy planes by Willy Coppens, Belgium's greatest ace in World War I with 37 victories, all but two of them observation balloons. Coppens and his fellow pilots would climb to 18,000 to 20,000 feet, search for shapes of enemy planes emerging from the background, and watch a small and distant object suddenly become 'full-sized aeroplanes moving like comets through space. . . . More often than not the fight would be over almost as soon as it began, and the participants miles apart, with no result on either side.'
Flying in Flanders by Willy Coppens, page 142, publisher: Ace Books, publication date: 1971
1918-02-26, 1918, February, aerial combat, single seat fighter, German plane over breaking surf
