Postcard of early German aviators including Wintgens, Boelcke, Immelmann, Mulzer, Buddecke, von. Althaus, Höhndorf, Berthold, Parschau, Frankl, von Cossel, and Windisch. Sanke card #408. The men are Kurt Wintgens — KIA, September 25, 1916, 19 victories; Oswald Bölcke (Boelcke) — killed in collision, October 26, 1916, 40 victories; Max Immelmann — KIA (accident collision), June 18, 1916, 15 victories; Max Ritter von Mulzer — accidentally killed, September 26, 1916, 10 victories; Hans-Joachim Buddecke — KIA, March 10, 1918, 13 victories; Ernst Freiherr von Althaus — died November 29, 1946, 9 victories; Walter Höhndorf — killed in flying accident, September 5, 1917, 12 victories; Rudolf Berthold — killed in political street fighting in Hamburg, March 15, 1920, 44 victories; Otto Parschau — died of wounds, July 21, 1916, 8 victories; Wilhelm Frankl — KIA April 8, 1917, 20 victories; Maximilian von Cossel — POW, August 1917; and Rudolf Windisch — MIA, May 27, 1918, 22 victories. Sanke card #408.

Unsere Flieger Helden



Wintgens, Boelcke, Immelmann, Mulzer, Buddecke, v. Althaus, Höhndorf, Berthold, Parschau, Frankl, v. Cossel, u. Windisch.



W. Sanke Berlin, N. 37.

408



Our Aviator Heroes

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Thursday, July 15, 1915

". . . the fifth [production Fokker E.I], 5/15, went to Leutnant Kurt Wintgens.

. . . Wintgens had previously earned the Iron Cross 2nd Class as an observer over the Eastern Front. He had then trained to be a pilot and demonstrated sufficient skill to be assigned Fokker E.I 5/15, which he flew while with Flieger Abteilungen 67 and 6b. It was with the latter Bavarian unit that Wintgens claimed a Morane-Saulnier L east of Lunéville on July 1, 1915, which went down too far in French lines for witnesses to confirm. . . .

Finally, on the 15th [July], Wintgens was credited with a Morane-Saulnier over Schucht—although it is is curiously ironic that the French recorded no casualties between July 14 and 18."

Quotation Context

The German Fokker E.I was a monoplane similar to the French Morane-Saulnier, and the first aircraft with an interrupter mechanism to allow a machine gun to fire through a rotating propeller, allowing the pilot to point his plane and shoot. The plane and its armament was superior to any of the Allied planes. With stalemate on the Western Front, fighter pilots with five or more victories, aces, were celebrated.

Source

The Origin of the Fighter Aircraft by Jon Gutman, pp. 28, 29, copyright © 2009 Jon Gutman, publisher: Westholme Publishing, publication date: 2009

Tags

1915-07-15, 1915, July, Wintgens, Kurt Wintgens, Fokker E.I, Fokker, E.I