Free Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, From the Red Baron to the F-16 by Dan Hampton Page A

Aldis sight but didn’t get them fielded until 1918. *
    WERNER VOSS OF Jasta 2 saw the ungainly, slow-moving FE-2 reconnaissance plane and immediately pounced. It wasn’t much of a fight. *
    Not only did he have an altitude advantage, but Voss was also flying a new Albatros D-I fighter. Designed from the beginning as a fighter, the plane was unique in several ways. The fuselage was a plywood shell, not fabric over wood framing, so it was strong and light. The Benz Bz.III engine was a 150-horsepower, six-cylinder, water-cooled inline that gave the Albatros a maximum speed of 110 mph, a 30-mph advantage over the British plane.
    Voss also had twin Spandau machine guns, firing through the prop at 500 rounds per minute. His first bursts tore through the other aircraft’s wings, and the plane dove toward the ground, streaming flames. Following it down, the German saw the plane flop into no-man’s-land very near the British trenches and fall to pieces. As one of the crew carried the other to safety, Voss wheeled overhead, pounding his knee in frustration. Procedures for claiming kills were very strict and required another flyer as a witness or corroboration from the German army. * He had neither.
    Shoving his goggles up to see better, Voss pulled the power and glided down. Skidding to a sloppy stop amid the barbed wire and shell holes, he jumped from the cockpit and sprinted toward the wrecked British plane. Yanking the quick-release pin, he pulled the rear machine gun out. As he stumbled back to the Albatros, bullets whined past his head and smacked wetly into the stinking mud. Wedging his trophy next to the bulkhead, Voss firewalled the throttle, bounced back into the air, and waved a cocky goodbye to the angry British infantry. Later that night, amid the beer and noise, the .303 Lewis gun was mounted in the Officers’ Mess of Jasta 2, giving the young pilot his first verified kill. It was the twenty-seventh of November, 1916.
    Son of a wealthy dye factory owner, Werner Voss began his military career with the 11th Westphalian Hussars, subsequently fighting in the last big cavalry battle of the war. * Then, hearing that Hussars were being converted into infantry units, he applied for a transfer to the air service and became an observer. But Voss wanted to fly and fight, not ride in the backseat and spot for the artillery. Trying again this time he was accepted for pilot training during the summer of 1916. Then as now, aptitude and instructor evaluations were critical if one wished to fly fighters, and Voss was impressive. By the fall of 1916, he’d been commissioned a Leutnant and assigned to Oswald Boelcke’s famous Jasta 2 along with von Richthofen and Erwin Boehme.
    In stark contrast to his more reserved friend Manfred “The Red Baron” von Richthofen, Werner loved women, wine, and life. Surprisingly, Richthofen and Voss got on very well. Voss was one of the few pilots who were actually close to the Baron, and the two pilots even spent a leave together at Voss’s family home. Voss was a very skilled flyer and superb marksman who only wished to fight. He had no interest in administration or command, and though he embraced Boelcke’s principles, Voss showed no inclination toward the scientific side of air combat.
    Nor was Richthofen the thinker his mentor had been. He was a killer. The von Richthofens were landowners and hunters, and Manfred regarded fighting as his duty and saw killing as an extension of blood sport. He didn’t appear to hate his enemies, nor did he suffer from a romantic view of war. It was simply his business, his true vocation. Once, as a young cavalry officer on the Eastern Front, he’d locked a village priest in a church and politely informed him: “At the first sign of hostility from your villagers you will be executed.”
    The Baron was methodical and always had a plan. If he encountered an unknown situation, he sometimes became confused, disengaged, or both. Conversely, Voss would improvise,