Edito Card of an Hanriot HD.1. Introduced in late summer, 1916, the French Hanriot HD.1 was primarily flown by the Belgian and Italian air services. This plane is in the colors of the Belgian Air Corps. The white thistle on the fuselage was the symbol of the squadron of Willy Coppens, Belgium's leading ace of the war. The sawtooth pattern on the tail identified an individual pilot. Each patrol of three planes had an identifying cowling color. Coppens, as the leading ace, insisted on an all-blue plane.
Hanriot HD.1FighterFrance
"On the 7th, another Mention, this time for having: 'shot down an aeroplane and four balloons in less than a month,' brought me the Order of Leopold. . . .On June 5, 9, and 10, I brought off my sixth, seventh, and eighth victories, over, respectively, Houthulst, Zonnebeke, and near Armentières, to the south of Ypres in the British zone. This zone, like that of the coast, was very strongly defended by the enemy, and I came back with three bullet-holes and three splinter-tears in my main planes."
Excerpts from the memoir of Willy Coppens, Belgium's greatest ace in World War I with 37 victories, all but two of them observation balloons. After repeated attempts to bring down a balloon, Coppens was finally successful when he was provided with 20 French incendiary bullets, which he used sparingly. Balloons were heavily defended with anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes.
Flying in Flanders by Willy Coppens, pp. 177, 179, publisher: Ace Books, publication date: 1971
1918-06-07, 1918, June, balloon, balloon-buster, Hanriot HD.1
