HISTORY

Leader of His Own Unit

No. 210 Squadron Camels took off on June

6 from Sainte-Marie-Cappel at 1030h, and

the formation was led by Capt. Lawrence Percival Coombes, who later reported:

“At 1155h, our formation was attacked by five

Pfalz aircraft not far from Lestre. I spotted

enemy aircraft hanging on the tail of Lieut.

Buchanan, so I dived down in behind and fired off about fifty rounds from point blank

range. I didn’t see the effect of the rounds,

because I immediately disengaged from the

fight to attack another enemy aircraft, but

Lieut. Buchanan reported seeing the aircraft

in flames.” This kill was not confirmed to Coombes anyway. Besides the description of

his own actions, he added details pertaining

to Saunders: “last spotted at 1155h during our

combat with five enemy aircraft over Lestre.

I saw him in a dive with an enemy plane on

his tail.” The enemy aircraft, by all accounts,

was Siempelkamp. Saunders landed his damaged Camel but was injured and became

POW.

Five days later, Siempelkamp would get his

third kill. Sources agree that it was on July

11 and that the victim was a D.H.9 (D5647) of

No. 107 Squadron. Both crews, 2Lt A. T. Simons and Lt T. F. Blight, were wounded and

taken prisoner. Up to this point, everything is

more or less certain. However, ambiguities

arise regarding the affiliation to the unit and

the machine on which Siempelkamp achieved this victory. According to some sources, he took command of Jasta 64w (Royal

Württemberg) already on July 7, on the day

when the unit’s acting CO, Ltn. August Hanko fell seriously ill. Other sources state that

he didn’t take on this command until July 25,

which lacks sense, because Jasta 64w and

Jasta 65 combined to form Jagdgruppe Siempelkamp on July 18, and it was very unlikely that a unit would be named after a pilot

that not only did not command it but wasn’t

even its member yet. To top it off, Siempelkamp converted onto the Fokker D.VII while

with Jasta 64w, and as far as can be determined, this aircraft also carried his paper

dragon artwork. There is at least one foto

showing part of the D.VII sporting similar tail

of the paper dragon, as known from Siempelkamp´s Pfalz D.IIIa.

In any case, the last two victories attained by

Eugen Siempelkamp were as the Commanding Officer of Jagdgruppe Siempelkamp.

His fourth and fifth victims were aircraft of

American pilots. First, on September 4, he

shot down a Salmson 2A2 (No. 12) of the 91st

Aero Squadron over Thiaucourt. The American Salmson aircraft were bounced by a formation of Siempelkamp’s Fokker D.VIIs and

it was very likely Siempelkamp himself that

fired the rounds that took the life of observer

2Lt. R. R. Sebring, one of the unit’s rookies.

“I was one of a formation of four (Salmson)

aircraft, and acting as protection, when I was

shot down on September 4th. The day was

a very cloudy one and we were surprised by

several Fokkers. The first I knew of their presence was was when I heard my observer

firing. There were at least four of them and

they were right on top of us. I was almost

immediately hit a glancing blow on the head

and knocked unconscious, and my observer,

Lieut. R. R. Sebring, was killed,” recounted

later Lt. Foster. As described by other participants of the clash, Foster´s 2A2 went into

a dive and began to spiral, but Foster came

to in time to set down in an emergency landing. One of the German fighters was reported to have stuck to Foster’s tail, but was

shot down by Lt. Hughey, and another of the

German fighters was downed by Lt. Strahm.

For the German pilots, the encounter was

not a stunning success…

Barely an Ace

Before noon on September 14, Eugen Siempelkamp took off on his final combat flight.

During this mission, he shot down another

Salmson 2A2, this time from the 99th Aero

Squadron. He hit the aircraft’s engine, but

the pilot managed to nurse it back home

and crash land at his home field. Both crewmembers, 1Lt. J. Hayes-Davis and 1Lt. C. E.

Spencer went through the ordeal unscathed,

and both were with their unit the same day.

Siempelkamp didn’t fair quite so well in ensuing combat with French fighters from Spa

90. He confronted three Spads, which were

flown by Adj. Charles Mace (twelve kills),

Lt. Marius Ambrogi (fourteen kills), and Lt.

Lemaire. These scored several hits, and one

of them was to Siempelkamp’s hand. He

managed to disengage from the fight, escape, and crash land. All three of the mentioned French pilots were credited with only

a probable kill over Siempelkamp. As a side

note, the book ‘The Jasta War Chronology’

(N. Franks, F. Bailey, and R. Duiven) credits

Siempelkamp with another kill on that day

of an unidentified Spad but it is unconfirmed anywhere else and so his total tally

stands at five victories. The injury sustained

to his hand prevented Siempelkamp from

going into combat again. His two-year older brother Ewald (born in March 1892) did

not escape injury either during the War. He

Photo: commons.wikimedia.com

officially was formed by amalgamation of

the RFC and RNAS. It was in conjunction with

a separate event that occurred at the same

time about 40 km east of Siempelkamp’s kill,

where Franz Hemer downed a BF.2b.

Siempelkamp´s victim Cann survived being

shot down but succumbed to his injuries

the following day. A week after his first kill,

Siempelkamp was transferred to Jasta 29,

where he converted onto the Pfalz D.IIIa and

probably for the first time had the stylized

paper dragon painted on his aircraft. With

this plane, he achieved his second victory on

June 6 in the downing of another Camel not

far from Estaires. This time, the aircraft had

serial number D9631 and was flown by 2Lt W.

J. Saunders of No. 210 Squadron (formerly

No. 10 Squadron RNAS). This kill is the focus

of the boxart for Kit No. 8414.

Siempelkamp’s fourth victim was a Salmson 2A2 of the 91st Aero Squadron USAAS.

INFO Eduard - August 2021

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