WAR

The Maxim gun was manufactured in England by Vickers' Sons and Maxim,
Limited, and was known as a Vickers gun. The same gun was manufactured under
license by the German Weapons and Munitions Factory, a state arsenal at
Spandau, Berlin, and was known as a Spandau gun. A light version of the gun
was developed by the Germans for the use of aerial gunners and known as a
Parabellum (literally "for war;" from the Latin motto, Si vis pacem, para
bellum— "If you wish for peace, prepare for war"). The Maxim in all its aviation
forms was an air-cooled, belt-fed weapon. The belts were initially made of canvas,
but were unsatisfactory because they caused jams when they twisted in the slipstream
or distorted in damp weather. The problem of fool-proof feed was
eventually solved by two refinements: the enclosed track and the disintegrating
link belt. The former protected the belt against deformation by the slip-stream
and the latter, being composed of flat, stamped metal loops, was indifferent to
atmospheric conditions.
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While the Germans armed the big two-seaters purely as a defensive measure,
men like Oswald Boelcke were determined to exploit the offensive possibilities of
the new arrangement. Instead of being content to fire a shot or two at any
enemy aeroplanes that came nosing around in the hope of scaring them off,
the born hunters went after them, jockeying the machines about to give the
observers a clear shot.
On a number of different occasions during the spring and summer of 1915, !
Boelcke, flying out of the aerodrome at Douai with various observer-gunners, &
had offered combat to enemy aeroplanes but had not achieved any decisive §
result. In July he finally managed to bring off one of Germany's first aerial 1
victories, albeit not the first.
Flying an Albatros C I with an observer named Leutnant von Wuehlisch,
he spotted a Morane parasol over Lietard. Boelcke made a pass at the Morane,
and the two aeroplanes danced around each other to Valenciennes where Boelcke
managed to put his machine into a good position for von Wuehlisch to tear off
a burst. The parasol heeled over and fell toward a wood, both of its French
occupants dead in their seats. The German aviators watched their victim flutter
down and disappear amongst the trees, not knowing the ironic conditions of their
victory. Many Frenchmen died in sight of their own homes, or in sight of the
wreckage that had been their homes. The wood into which the parasol had fallen
Target practice.
was part of the estate of the Comte de Beauvricourt; the observer in the parasol
r
*
•
From right to
had been the COmte himself. von Teubern,
left:
Porr,
lmmelmann,
Boelcke,
This was Boelcke's
von Wuehlisch,
only victory in a two-seater. At the end
and at
of May the first
the gun, Hauptmann Ritter.
two machines of a new one-winger called the Fokker E I had been demonstrated
near Verdun, and because Boelcke had already had some experience with Fokker
monoplanes, two of the new models were delivered to him at Douai for operational
assessment.
But that's another story.
27