WAR

Pfalz D III
In the summer and autumn of 1917 one of the most elegant aeroplanes of
the war was issued to Bavarian squadrons to replace the heterogeneous collection
of types they were then flying. These squadrons were under the direct supervision
of the Bavarian Military Administration rather than the Prussian Government and
General Staff in Berlin. In the Lujtstreitkrajte the most obvious result of this
provincialism was that provincial Jastas took second place in the distribution of
equipment. They flew minor types such as the Roland fighters or they flew
cast-offs from other squadrons. When the Albatros D III was available in large
numbers the Bavarian squadrons were given the second-hand Albatros D I's and
D II's. They did not receive any Fokker Triplanes until J.G. 1 released some
second-hand ones.
When the slim and graceful Pfalz D III went into production the Bavarian
squadrons finally got brand-new aeroplanes—the Pfalz Aeroplane Works was a
company controlled by the Bavarian War Ministry. Located at Speyer on the
Upper Rhine, the factory was in the heart of one of the areas of Europe traditionally
associated with woodworking and the wooden construction techniques used
by Pfalz were brought to
a high point of development. The fuselage of the D III
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