WAR

ound to hang a title on him, and since Lille is five times as big a town as Douai,
he was called the Eagle of Lille,
der Adler von Lille.
At the beginning of October Boelcke and von Teubern were transferred to
Metz to take part in the operations of the Metz Carrier Pigeons and Immelmann
remained at Douai with Fl. Abt. 62. From a clumsy beginning, Immelmann
quickly progressed to mastery. He and Boelcke may be said to have founded
German fighter aviation. They discovered the advantage of height, and the
necessity of surprise, co-ordination and good shooting. They evolved tactics
and techniques. Boelcke was the organizer, the man who could put across his
ideas, Immelmann was the originator of certain standard manoeuvres. Immelmann
is generally considered to be the man who introduced the concept of
tactical manoeuvre. Just flying rings around an opponent doesn't really get you
anywhere. If you can put your ability to manoeuvre to work as a means of
shooting down an enemy—that's tactics. The manoeuvre known as the "Immelmann
turn" was only a graceful stunt when Pegoud performed it before the war.
When Immelmann worked it into his repertoire it became a means of attacking
swiftly, changing direction after attack, and gaining height to attack again.
At Metz, von Teubern was disappointed to learn that Boelcke was not to
be his pilot, but had been transferred there as an Eindecker pilot to fly
escort to the bombers. Over Metz, Boelcke scored a significant victory—he shot
down a Voisin that was taking part in a bombing raid on the railway station
just at the time that the Kaiser was scheduled to arrive. This brought him to the
attention of that august personage and it seems hardly likely that this kind of
recognition did him any harm.
In November the Chief of Army Field Aviation, Major Thomsen, called
Boelcke to a conference at Supreme Headquarters {Oberste Heeresleitung, or
OHL). This was the first of a series of conferences between Thomsen and the most
experienced aviators in the field, chief among whom, as representative of fighters,
was Boelcke. The purpose of these conferences was to fashion an air
policy that
would confer maximum efficiency by standardizing means and methods. To do
this a realistic evaluation of the functions of the air service had to be prepared,
and Boelcke was there to define the role of the fighters. Broadly speaking, the
role of the fighters in all the air services was divided like Gaul in partes tres:
preventing enemy aeroplanes from performing their missions, protecting friendly
aeroplanes, and some specialized forms of ground attack such as shooting up
enemy aerodromes and strafing enemy troops. Boelcke contributed many sound
observations on organization and tactics and this helped lay the foundations of
Boelcke with his Eindecker.
the future fighter force.
During the stay at
Metz, Boelcke and von Teubern used to motor into town
on duty-free afternoons and stroll through the streets. They would stop at a cafe
for some coffee and take an evening meal at a restaurant. In each other's
company it was not necessary to say much. They would return to the base and
one would say to the other, "This was still a beautiful afternoon." What would
tomorrow bring
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