Wednesday, September 23, 2015

This Day in World War 1 History: SEPTEMBER 23, 1917 : GERMAN PILOT WERNER VOSS SHOT DOWN OVER WESTERN FRONT



On this day in 1917, the German flying ace Werner Voss is shot down and killed during a dogfight with British pilots in the skies over Belgium, on the Western Front during World War I.



Voss, born in 1887, enlisted as a cavalry soldier in 1914, but soon transferred to the Luftstreitkrafte or German Air Service, where he was posted to the Jasta 2 squadron, commanded by the renowned pilot Oswald Boelcke. After serving as a wingman to Manfred von Richthofen—the ace pilot later known as the Red Baron—Voss quickly established a reputation as a leading pilot in his own right, and a rival to Richthofen. By May 1917, Voss had amassed 28 victories in the air, earning the prestigious Pour le Merite award.






At Richthofen’s request, Voss was attached to his own squadron, Jasta 10—known as the “Flying Circus.” He earned another 14 victories there before September 23, 1917, when he was involved in a dogfight with the renowned British 56 Squadron “B” Flight—including the ace pilots James McCudden and Arthur Rhys Davids—above the Western Front in Belgium. Though Voss skillfully eluded his pursuers for some 10 minutes in his silver-grey Fokker triplane, he was shot down by a British attack and crashed north of Frezenburg. As McCudden later observed: “I shall never forget my admiration for that German pilot, who single handed, fought seven of us for ten minutes. I saw him go into a fairly steep dive and so I continued to watch, and then saw the triplane hit the ground and disappear into a thousand fragments, for it seemed to me that it literally went into powder.”





The attack was generally credited to Davids, who also shot down the German pilot Carl Menckhoff when the latter came to Voss’ aid. Menckhoff survived the fight—one of the best-known aerial dogfights of World War I—to lead his own squadron throughout the end of the war. As for Voss, his bravery and skill was celebrated posthumously on both sides of the line. In James McCudden’s words: “His flying is wonderful, his courage magnificent and in my opinion he was the bravest German airman whom it has been my privilege to see.”





Article Details:

September 23, 1917 : German pilot Werner Voss shot down over Western Front

  • Author

    History.com Staff
  • Website Name

    History.com
  • Year Published

    2009
  • Title

    September 23, 1917 : German pilot Werner Voss shot down over Western Front
  • URL

    http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/german-pilot-werner-voss-shot-down-over-western-front
  • Access Date

    September 23, 2015
  • Publisher

    A+E Network

Thursday, September 17, 2015

This Day in World War 1 History: SEPTEMBER 17, 1916 : MANFRED VON RICHTHOFEN SHOOTS DOWN HIS FIRST PLANE



On this day in 1916, the German air ace Manfred von Richthofen—known to history as the “Red Baron”—shoots down his first enemy plane over the Western Front during World War I.


Richthofen, the son of a Prussian nobleman, switched from the German army to the Imperial Air Service in 1915. He became the star pupil and protégé of Oswald Boelcke, one of Germany’s most successful fighter pilots. After seeing action over the Eastern Front, where he bombed Russian forces and railway junctions, Richthoften began his legendary career in the west. On September 17, 1916, in his first trip in a combat patrol commanded by Boelcke, Richthofen found himself and his Albatross biplane engaged in aerial combat by a plane piloted by British Second Lieutenant Lionel Morris.


Richthofen later recounted the experience: “My Englishman twisted and turned, flying in zig-zags. I was animated by a single thought: ‘The man in front of me must come down, whatever happens.’ At last a favorable moment arrived. My opponent had apparently lost sight of me. Instead of twisting and turning he flew straight along. In a fraction of a second I was at his back with my excellent machine. I gave a short burst of shots with my machine-gun. I had gone so close that I was afraid I might dash into the Englishman. Suddenly I nearly yelled with joy, for the propeller of the enemy machine had stopped turning. Hurrah! I had shot his engine to pieces; the enemy was compelled to land, for it was impossible for him to reach his own lines.”



Richthofen followed the enemy plane to the ground, landing close to the German lines, where he discovered that both the pilot and the observer that accompanied him, Lieutenant T. Rees, were mortally wounded. According to Richthofen, “I honored the fallen enemy by placing a stone on his beautiful grave.”


By the end of 1916, Richthofen had downed 15 enemy planes. The following year, he surpassed all flying-ace records on both sides of the Western Front and began using a Fokker triplane, painted entirely red in tribute to his old cavalry regiment. Although only used during the last eight months of his career, it was this aircraft with which Richthofen was most commonly associated and that led to an enduring English nickname for the German pilot—the Red Baron. By the time he was shot down and killed over the Somme River on April 21, 1918, the 25-year-old Richthofen had downed 80 enemy aircraft, securing his status as one of the greatest air aces to emerge from World War I on either side of the conflict.


Article Details:

September 17, 1916 : Manfred von Richthofen shoots down his first plane

  • Author

    History.com Staff
  • Website Name

    History.com
  • Year Published

    2009
  • Title

    September 17, 1916 : Manfred von Richthofen shoots down his first plane
  • URL

    http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/manfred-von-richthofen-shoots-down-his-first-plane
  • Access Date

    September 17, 2015
  • Publisher

    A+E Networks

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

This Day in World War 1 History: SEPTEMBER 16, 1916 : HINDENBURG GIVES ORDER TO STRENGTHEN GERMAN DEFENSES


On September 16, 1916, one month after succeeding Erich von Falkenhayn as chief of the German army’s general staff during World War I, General Paul von Hindenburg orders the construction of a heavily fortified zone running several miles behind the active front between the north coast of France and Verdun, near the border between France and Belgium.



This “semi-permanent” defense line, as Hindenburg called it, would be the last line of German defense; its aim was to brutally crush any Allied breakthrough on the Western Front in France before it could reach the Belgian or German frontier. The British referred to it as the Hindenburg Line, for its mastermind; it was known to the Germans as the Siegfried Line.




After waging exhausting and bloody battles against the Allies at Verdun and the Somme, and with the U.S edging ever closer to entering the war, Germany’s leaders looked to improve their defensive positions on the Western Front. In February 1917, the German army began a well-organized withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, a move calculated to give a period of respite before the Allies could begin their attacks again. The withdrawal reduced the length of the line the Germans had to defend by 25 miles, freeing up 13 army divisions to serve as reserve troops. On their way, German forces systematically destroyed the land they passed through, burning farmhouses, poisoning wells, mining abandoned buildings and demolishing roads.


After the withdrawal, which was completed May 5, 1917, the Hindenburg Line, considered impregnable by many on both sides of the conflict, became the German army’s stronghold. Allied troops would not breach it until the last days of September 1918, barely one month before the armistice.

Article Details:

September 16, 1916 : Hindenburg gives order to strengthen German defenses

  • Author

    History.com Staff
  • Website Name

    History.com
  • Year Published

    2009
  • Title

    September 16, 1916 : Hindenburg gives order to strengthen German defenses
  • URL

    http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hindenburg-gives-order-to-strengthen-german-defenses
  • Access Date

    September 16, 2015
  • Publisher

    A+E Networks

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

This Day in World War 1 History: SEPTEMBER 15, 1914 : FIRST TRENCHES ARE DUG ON THE WESTERN FRONT


In the wake of the Battle of the Marne—during which Allied troops halted the steady German push through Belgium and France that had proceeded over the first month of World War I—a conflict both sides had expected to be short and decisive turns longer and bloodier, as Allied and German forces begin digging the first trenches on the Western Front on September 15, 1914.





The trench system on the Western Front in World War I—fixed from the winter of 1914 to the spring of 1918—eventually stretched from the North Sea coast of Belgium southward through France, with a bulge outwards to contain the much-contested Ypres salient. Running in front of such French towns as Soissons, Reims, Verdun, St. Mihiel and Nancy, the system finally reached its southernmost point in Alsace, at the Swiss border. In total the trenches built during World War I, laid end-to-end, would stretch some 25,000 miles—12,000 of those miles occupied by the Allies, and the rest by the Central Powers.








As historian Paul Fussell describes it, there were usually three lines of trenches: a front-line trench located 50 yards to a mile from its enemy counterpart, guarded by tangled lines of barbed wire; a support trench line several hundred yards back; and a reserve line several hundred yards behind that. A well-built trench did not run straight for any distance, as that would invite the danger of enfilade, or sweeping fire, along a long stretch of the line; instead it zigzagged every few yards. There were three different types of trenches: firing trenches, lined on the side facing the enemy by steps where defending soldiers would stand to fire machine guns and throw grenades at the advancing offense; communication trenches; and “saps,” shallower positions that extended into no-man’s-land and afforded spots for observation posts, grenade-throwing and machine gun-firing.









While war in the trenches during World War I is described in horrific, apocalyptic terms—the mud, the stench of rotting bodies, the enormous rats—the reality was that the trench system protected the soldiers to a large extent from the worst effects of modern firepower, used for the first time during that conflict. The greatest danger came during the periods when the war became more mobile, when the soldiers on either side left the trenches to go on the offensive. German losses per month peaked when they went on the attack: in 1914 in Belgium and France, 1915 on the Eastern Front, and 1918 again in the west; for the French, casualties peaked in September 1914, when they risked everything to halt the German advance at the Marne. Trench warfare redefined battle in the modern age, making artillery into the key weapon. Thus the fundamental challenge on both sides of the line became how to produce enough munitions, keep the troops supplied with these munitions and expend enough of them during an offensive to sufficiently damage the enemy lines before beginning an infantry advance.


  1. Trenches generally formed a zigzag pattern to help protect the trench against enemy attack.
  2. Fire steps and scaling ladders enabled troops to go ‘over the top’, i.e. to go out into no-man's-land (the area between the opposing armies) to attack enemy trenches.
  3. Machine guns, one of the most deadly weapons, could fire 400–500 bullets/minute.
  4. Trench toilets, called latrines, were usually pits 1.5 metres deep, dug at the end of a short gangway. Each company had two sanitary personnel who had to keep the latrines in good condition.
  5. Earth-filled sandbags helped to shore up the edges of the trenches and absorb bullets and shell fragments.
  6. Duckboards were wooden planks placed across the bottom of trenches and other muddy ground. They helped protect men from trench foot and from sinking deep into the mud. Trench foot was a painful and dangerous condition resulting from days spent standing in freezing water and muddy trenches; gangrene could set in and result in the amputation of a man's foot.
  7. Owing to the use of mustard gas and other chemical weapons, all soldiers needed gas masks. Mustard gas was almost odourless and took 12 hours to take effect.
  8. Each soldier had a kit containing nearly 30 kilograms of equipment. This included a rifle, two grenades, ammunition, a steel helmet, wire cutters, a field dressing, a spade, a heavy coat, two sandbags, a ground sheet, a water bottle, a haversack, a mess tin, a towel, a shaving kit, socks and rations of preserved food.
  9. Barbed wire helped protect the trenches and also made it very difficult to attack the opposing trench. Before an attack, soldiers went out at night to cut sections of wire to make it easier for the soldiers in morning raids. Minor cuts and grazes caused by the barbed wire often became infected in the unsanitary conditions of the trenches.
  10. The British army employed 300 000 field workers to cook and supply the food for troops. However, there was often not enough food to cook. The main diet in the trenches was bully beef (canned corned beef), bread and biscuits.
  11. Snow, rain and freezing temperatures drastically slowed combat during the winter months. In hot, dry summers, lack of fresh water, scorching sun, and the stench of dead bodies and rubbish made trench life equally difficult.
Article Details:

September 15, 1914 : First trenches are dug on the Western Front

  • Author

    History.com Staff
  • Website Name

    History.com
  • Year Published

    2009
  • Title

    September 15, 1914 : First trenches are dug on the Western Front
  • URL

    http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-trenches-are-dug-on-the-western-front
  • Access Date

    September 15, 2015
  • Publisher

    A+E Networks