Photo: RNAS

HISTORY

Hubert St. John Edgerley Youens as a young and “green”

RNAS pilot.

Degelow did have one kill to his credit from the

time of his service with FA(A) 216 which was a reconnaissance unit. Many historical sources state

that this claim with FA(A) 216 was not confirmed

but according to Degelow’s memoirs it was slightly different. Let's make a little detour at this

point…

Photo: sbírka Jörna Leckscheida

Detour nr.1: One whole out of two halves

After twenty months spent in the trenches and

six months in the pilot training, on December 31,

1916, the young reserve Lieutenant (Lieutenant

der Reserve) Carl Degelow was in the officers’

car of the military train traveling from the training

and replacement unit Flieger-Ersatz-Abteilung

Carl Degelow after being awarded Knight’s Cross with

Swords of the Hohenzollern House Order (Königlicher

Hausorden von Hohenzollern) on August 9, 1918. It is the

one on the top of Degelow’s chest.

INFO Eduard - January 2022

6 (FEA 6) located nearby Dresden to the frontal

combat unit Flieger-Abteilung (A) 216 which was

the Royal Wurttemberg reconnaissance flight

operating the Albatros C.V scouts in the French

Somme sector. After several months of the routine flying the reconnaissance missions started to

be boring for Degelow. When he was conducting

another photo reconnaissance with his observer

Kurten on May 22, he spotted the French twin-engine Caudron G.IV doing the same over Laon

on the German side of the front. The observer however pointed his hand towards the home base.

“Again, I pointed to the French plane and, throttling back on the engine, I shouted to my comrade:

“Let’s go after him!” Generally, two-seater pilots

were enlisted men and the observers were officers, thereby establishing a relationship in which

the pilot was a “driver”, while the observer was in

charge of the airplane and made all major decisions on the mission. But Kürten and I were both

reserve officers of equal rank, so there was little

he could say if I wanted to delay going home long

enough to have a look at the Caudron,”

recalls Carl Degelow in his autobiography “Black

Fokker Leader”.

After the observers exchanged several machine

gun bursts and the French turned home, Degelow decided to engage his forward firing gun and

heavily damaged the Caudron with its bullets. The

final hit was delivered by Kurten’s fire. The airplane crashed near the small town of Berrieux, right

behind the front lines on the French side. Three

days later the situation repeated itself. Again, they

encountered a Caudron above the front although

this time, together with Kurten, they were eager

to fight. The enemy however was not looking for

confrontation and fled immediately. Kurten did

not get to fire his gun. As a true fighter pilot Degelow on the other hand pursued the enemy and

shot it down with his forward firing gun. FA(A) 216

commander, Oblt. Creydt told Degelow that both

himself and Kurten will be credited with two kills,

which Degelow opposed because mathematically

it would mean he destroyed four enemy aircraft.

In the end each crew member was credited with

two half kills i.e., one full victory.

Barely two weeks later Degelow and Kurten challenged the French scout again but this time the

duel was a tie and the German crew returned

home with badly damaged aircraft. This was too

much for the unit’s commander and strongly “recommended” they stick to their mission and not

risk the loss of the precious photographic material due to the similar adventures. In the coming

days Degelow did not keep his dissatisfaction

with such an order for himself which resulted

in another reprimand from the commander. This

time he learned about the “punishment” in the

form of transfer to a fighter unit. He was expected

though that during the period of processing all

formalities he will be a “good boy” and not engage

in any further antics. “To ensure the latter, I was

paired with another observer, a Regular Army

Oberleutnant who was quick to inform me that he

was my superior officer and, as such, definitely in

charge of the airplane at all times,” recalled Degelow later.

Detour nr.2 : Troubles

On a rainy Monday of June 31, 1917, Ltn.d.Res Carl

Degelow boarded the open truck and wrapped

in a raincoat set on the journey to Valenciennes,

home of the Jagdstaffelschule I i.e., a training

Jasta for the future fighter pilots. He arrived as

a participant in two air victories however with

a single kill to his credit…

Pilots with the prior combat experience under-

took only two weeks of the fighter training so in

mid-August Degelow already headed to Jasta 36

commanded by Walter von Bulow. He was on vacation at that time and his deputy Ltn.d.Res Hans

Hoyer was in charge, whom Degelow described

as a prototype of a stiff, cold Prussian. After only

four days he kicked Degelow out of the unit… While practicing the shooting at the ground targets

Degelow wounded another pilot who was at that

time on the ground fixing the targets. Degelow did

not perform the prescribed inspection flight over

the target area as ordered (supposedly he did

not hear the instructions while starting the engine) and eager to prove himself he attacked right

away. The wounded pilot survived however Degelow had to pack and leave and no one from the

whole flight came to say goodbye… An Inglorious

return to Valenciennes awaited him. He thought

his aviator’s career was over but as it turned out

he was only to wait there for a new assignment

which was with Jasta 7 “ruled” by Josef Jacobs.

Degelow reported to him on August 21 and his

new commander was interested in his Caudron

kills as well as a Jasta 36 incident. “We will go

through this only once and will never speak about

it afterwards, agreed?” Jacobs supposedly proposed to the newcomer who, much relieved, naturally agreed. According to his memoirs he was

very impressed by the new commander.

A deer against the odds

Degelow’s first sortie took place on the following

day but success in shooting down the enemy kept

escaping him. When eight Jasta 7 Albatros D.III

took off for a reconnaissance mission on September 3 Degelow was among the pilots. Their

formation encountered the enemy group of Bristol F.2B Fighters, Camels and Spads. Germans

claimed five kills in total, one was to be credited

to Degelow whose victim, Sopwith Camel, supposedly made an emergency landing West of Dixmude. Ultimately this victory was not credited

to him, nor Sopwith 11/2 Strutter on December

8 which he chased together with Jacobs who

claimed one Camel. Both supposedly shot down

aircraft disappeared from German fighters’ sight

behind the front lines where they may have made

an emergency landings, but they did not appear

in the loss reports and so Degelow had to wait

for his second kill (first as a fighter pilot) further. Only four days after Jacobs led a patrol over

Houthulst forest. The Germans were outnumbered by 10 Squadron RNAS Camels and according

to Jacobs' report Degelow shot down one enemy

plane. “A lucky day for Jasta 7 because we shot

down three enemy aircraft one of which landed

undamaged in our territory. Camel pilot, Flight

Sub-Lieutenant Clark, a 20 years old Canadian,

was our guest that night and left a strong impression on us,” wrote Jacobs in his diary. Two

out of three claims were finally confirmed by 4th

Army Headquarters. They were credited to Horst

and Bilik. Degelow came short again and it was

no surprise he was rather frustrated by this row

of unconfirmed kills. To boost his confidence,

and maybe to help his comrades to identify his

airplane in the air as well, he had the fuselage of

his new Pfalz painted black and per his request

one very talented mechanic from his flight painted a white deer on both sides of the fuselage, an

emblem of Weisser Hirsch quarters in Dresden

where, in the local hospital, Degelow was recovering from his wounds he suffered in trenches

in 1915. He flew this aircraft on January 23, 1918,

when around four o’clock in the afternoon he and

his comrades encountered the superior number

of British Camels.

eduard

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