KITS 04/2022

Ltn. Franz Büchner, CO of Jasta 13, Trier, Germany, October 1918

Franz Büchner, the son of successful businessman

was born in Leipzig on January 2, 1898 and volunteered for the army at the age of sixteen. After being wounded in combat on April 3, 1916 in France, he

applied for the service in the ranks of Luftstreitkräfte. He flew two-seaters after his training with

FFA 270 but was transferred to Jasta 9 in March

1917. There he scored his first victory prior to ano-

ther move in September, when he was assigned to

Jasta 13. There he stayed until the end of the war

and became its CO on June 15, 1918. He was not ace

at this time, with only four victories on his account,

but it was to change and finally he accumulated 40

victories, which makes him the 11th most successful

German fighter ace. In October 1918 he was awarded

the Pour le Mérite. Büchner was killed on March 18,

1920, during civil unrest in Germany when fighting

against Communists. He was shot down close to the

town he was born. Jasta 13 aircraft were easily identified thanks to the blue color of the fuselage and

green nose of their aircraft. Büchner´s personal marking was a werewolf head on a green background.

The wings were covered in a five-color Flugzeugstoff.

Uffz Alfred Bäder, Jasta 65, Tichémont, France, November 1918

Alfred Bäder was born on September 20, 1893 in

Tübingen, Wurtemburg. After an injury sustained

in summer 1916 with Infanterie Regiment Nr. 180,

he went through pilot training and subsequent fighter pilot training at Jastaschule II, being finally

assigned to Jasta 65 on August 31, 1918. Less than a

week later he was shot down by a Salmson 2A2 of

91st Aero Squadron flown by 1Lt Victor H. Strahm and

Capt. James E. Wallis near Rembercourt. He even-

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INFO Eduard

tually shot down two USAAC Salmsons in a kind of

revenge. The first one belonged to 99th Aero Squadron and was shot down on October 2. The second one

was from 91st Aero Squadron and Bäder sent it down

on November 8, 1918. His wartime Fokker D.VII from

early OAW production sported a very colorful and

complex illustration of Seven Schwabians, the group

of villagers from a medieval fairy tale collected

by the Grimm brothers. The story makes fun of the

people from the then Duchy of Swabia, the villagers

portrayed in the tale are foolish and so they all die

finally. The illustration was painted on both sides

of the fuselage and differed from each other. Bäder

sent a photograph of this aircraft as a postcard to

his injured colleague Wilhelm Scheutzel, to whom

this aircraft was wrongly attributed for many years.

April 2022