WAR

—
hnmelmann On June 18, 1916, observers on the ground at
Lens saw a pair of Eindeckers attack a flight of three
British F.E.2b's. The fight seemed to start over Loos,
northwest of Lens, and end over Sallaumines, a few
miles to the east. One F.E.2b was badly shot up and
glided down with a dead engine. The other two were
thrown about by their pilots to put the attackers off
their aim. One Eindecker came in from the beam, fired
into one of the F.E.'s, then zoomed up and over in a
half-loop—it was Max Immelmann using his standard
attack, the "Immelmann turn." When the machine
slowed down at the top of the loop, the gunner in the
F.E. had one clear shot. He fired. The Fokker rolled
over, and those watching from the ground clearly saw
it break up in the air. The fore part of the fuselage
with the engine and the pilot came whining down and
hit the ground with a muffled crunch.
The fight was over, but the war went on. The British gave credit for an
aerial victory to the gunner of the F.E. 2b. The Germans, shocked at the loss of
Immelmann their young idol, talked about the disaster almost in tones of disbelief.
Rumors of sabotage were more or less stopped by the findings of an official
board of inquiry whose verdict was that the aeroplane had collapsed as a result
of damage by antiaircraft fire. Tony Fokker had something to do with the
official verdict because he was determined to protect his
Eindecker against charges
of structural weakness. There was considerable mistrust of the welded steel tube
technique, although it was in fact stronger than the contemporary wood construction.
There was also a mistrust of the Fokker interrupter gear. Many believed
that it was not safe and that the machine's propeller had been shot off.
Actually, the propeller had been shot off, but not through any fault of Fokker's
interrupter gear. The aeroplane in question had just had a propeller change
and in the rush to intercept the three British F.E.'s it was taken up before
the ground crew had had time to check the alignment of the propeller and the
gun linkage. The propeller was bolted on in the wrong position and must inevitably
have passed before the muzzle at the wrong instant.
It was no consolation to know that the loss was an accident rather than a
defeat, for the result was the same either way der Adler von Lille was gone.
Wfti-
66
The wreck of Immelmann's Eindecker.