WAR

the last instant he would tilt his wings and drop in a sideslip, nailing his victim
with a short burst in the instant during which the machines were lined up. From
the sideslip he would ease into a dive to pick up speed, either to get away, or to
zoom for a return to the attack.
In March 1917 the Germans became aware, through a combination of
security leaks and captured documents obtained by trench raids, that the new
French Commander-in-Chief, General Nivelle, was planning another offensive in
Champagne. Accordingly, German Supreme Headquarters began planning to meet
it. Reinforcements flooded the area back of the Front where the threat was
heaviest, and hundreds of new batteries were dug in and secured with barbed
wire entanglements. The nine-division field strength was quadrupled and the
number of Fliegerabteilungen proportionately increased. Last, but not least, a
number of new Circuses pitched their tents in Champagne to prevent the French
two-seaters from getting a look at the reception being prepared and to protect
the German two-seaters who were keeping an eye on the French.
Werner Voss was one of the men moved into
Champagne and he promptly
proved to be as much a thorn in the side to the French as he had been to the
British. Although the Spad was in many ways superior to the Albatros, few
pilots
were superior to Voss, and in May he shot down an aeroplane every three
days.
In June, he went on leave. He returned to the Front the last day of July
to assume command of Jasta 10 as requested by von Richthofen. Voss's squadron,
like all four squadrons of Jagdgeschwader Nr. 1 , was stationed in Flanders near
Courtrai. His return coincided with the first deliveries and introduction of a
spectacular new fighter, the Fokker Triplane.
Tony Fokker had been languishing in the shade of his Eindecker, eclipsed
by the Albatros on one hand and by the new Allied fighters on the other. The
powerful Albatros concern had monopolized the Mercedes engine, for one thing;
Fokker had produced only a few mediocre biplanes that were little more than
variations of the Eindecker. In the summer of 1916 Reinhold Platz had become
chief of the Fokker design staff. The Fokker Triplane was his first original design.
The startling success of the Sopwith Triplane had inspired a good deal of
thought at the Fokker works. The Flying Dutchman, as usual, decided that the
job could be done better.
As a matter of fact, the Sopwith Triplane was not really as good as it
seemed. Its success was due more to the extraordinary skill of the pilots of the
Royal Naval Air Service who flew it—Collishaw, Dallas, Little, others—than to
any qualities of the aeroplane itself.
Be that as it may, the three-wing layout, Dreidecker in German, was the
solution to Tony Fokker's problems. The engine would be the 1 10-horsepower
Oberiirsel rotary, a German version of the French Le Rhone, produced at the
Motorenfabrik Oberiirsel, A. G., a company Tony Fokker happened to own. The
Oberiirsel was available in considerable numbers, needless to say,
so there was no
headache about supply as there was with the Mercedes. True, the
engine was not
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