The Ace System and American Volunteers

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Get fifteen percent off, select custom entry and interior doors. Plus, save eighty dollars on the DWalt twenty Volt Max two tool combo kit, now just one hundred sixty nine dollars. And at the Low's Pro desesk, bring us your materials list and get a quote in minutes. Handwritten, a photo, or even a sticky note is all you need. Keep your jobs moving faster and on budget At low. Valid through seven eight while supplies last. Selection vers by location There's a story That in nineteen sixteen, at the height of the First World War A team of British airmen were flying a reconnaissance mission over the German trenches on the Western front Two man air team was composed of the pilot Dary and the observer, photographer and gunner. Captain BJ Slade They had not been in the air long before they were spotted and intercepted by a German fighter This plane was not piloted by just anyone the contontrols was a man known as the Eagle of Leel German fighter pilot Ianman By nineteen sixteen, Ioman was already a bit of a legend among aviators He had started his flying career right as combatants on both sides of the war had realized that airplanes could be weapons. It was often claimed that he was the first German pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft. He was technically the second But soon he gained a reputation as one of the war's first true flying aces He was among the first airmen to be awarded the German military honor known as the Pour L Merit colloquially became known as the Blue Max for Max Iman It was reported in English language papers at the time that Imelann's reputation was so esteemed, even among British and French flyers that Allied pilots were known to comment, quote It's no disgrace to be caught and shot down by him and quote Well, on that day in early nineteen sixteen, captains Darlie and Slade were about to experience that very thing, which they had been assured, was in no way disgraceful. Captain Slade would remember that before they could take any evasive action, Immelman appeared on their tail and started raking them with machine gun bullets In no time the fuel tank of the British plane was riddled with holes and fuel was leaking everywhere The plane was tipped into a noseedive, but Immaman stayed in close pursuit with his machine gun blaring British plane careened towards the earth, Captain Darley was shot through the thumb Thinking quickly, Slade produced a penkife and successfully amputated what was left of the digit and improvised a hasty bandage to stonch the bleeding all while Dary kept the plane on a steep descent. Amazingly, the wounded Captain Dary managed a rough landing Pilots were still vulnerable. Immon Noticing that the two English pilots had survived the perilous landing chose not to go in for the kill Instead, he brought his plane down, jumped out of the cockpit, and went over to see if his fellow flyers were alright and if they needed any assistance Captain Slade would later write that the German Ace, quote behaved in a kindly manner He is a gentleman And I hope that if we capture him He will be treated as one After the polite exchange, Immelmann climbed back into his cockpit and flew back over the German lines British air crew would live to fight another day This story of chivalry between airmen was first reported in the United States in the Louisville Courier Journal before it was picked up by the popular national magazine, The Literary Digest The tale was part of a growing body of anecdotes about Europe's war in the air that were becoming increasingly popular among readers in the United States, Canada, and other nations in the British Commonwealth. The horrific conflict known at the time as the Great War had inaugurated a new era of industrial mechanized warfare Soldiers on all sides of the conflict had been promised that the war in Europe would be short decisive and filled with opportunities for glory By nineteen sixteen, it had become very clear that those promises had been little more than shallow propaganda conflict had stiffened into a brutal stalemate defined on the Western front grueling realities of trench warfare. Young men. were sacrificed by the tens of thousands in operations that barely managed to move the lines Weaponry had evolved in ways that few understood before the war Massive new artillery pieces and machine guns meant that death could be dealt out with indiscriminate speed previously unimagined This was to say nothing of the advent of chemical warfare as soldiers in the trenches found themselves assaulted with mustard and chlorine gas There was very little about the Great warar that seemed noble, glorious, or in any way chivalrous It's hard to speak of honor in combat when one side is gassing another However perception began to grow that there was one part of the war that had remained both figuratively and literally above the frrase. That literary digest article I cited earlier called A courteous Ambush in the Air told readers that quote Code of honor in combat is not jealously observed in Europe. Save by the aviation Cps freed from much of the ruck and rek of war by their easy poise far above it They can take time and pains to be gentlemen warriors It's not strange to find them observing amenities scrupulously And yet, in obedience to a law that has never been spoken or written between the two adversaries Immaman's polite check in on Captain Slade and Captain Darley was held up as a perfect example of this unwritten code Soon, many were writing romantically about aviators as models for a certain type of gentlemanly combat of which it was so hard to find examples of in the rest of the war This eventually birthed the idea that fighter pilots were more like idealized medieval warriors than they were the unfortunate foot soldiers in the mechanized ground forces These pilots of the air. In nineteen eighteen, the American writer and aviation expert Lawrence Laterette Driggs would write, quote rivaling in romance the exploits of the Knights of King Arthur daily flying sortes into countless perils of a hostile and watchful enemy sky bring us to frequent revelations of human endurance, human adroitness and superhan mystery that pale by comparison to the wildest fiction of fancy. and quote, According to Riggs, these Knights of the air were even greater than the Knights of fantasy Now at the time Irirony was not lost that arguably the most modern soldiers in the war operating the most state of the art technology being described in the most medieval terms The Great War had largely served to reinforce the idea that modern technology had made ancient codes of warrior virtue Iirrelevant It was feared that the mechanized nature of twentieth century warfare had made the soldier more like a machine But somehow image of the fighter pilot helped to resolve that tension. Airplane technology had not made aviators more inhumanly ruthless, instead, it had connected them more deeply to an ancient code of battlefield morality The airplane was just a modern update on the noble steed, and the pilots were like knights in the jousts of old As such, fallen adversaries were to be treated with respect and courtesy or at least So went the tale The flying aces of the First World War became celebrities in a way that was uncommon for soldiers and sailors fighting in other parts of the conflict. Exploits in the skies made headlines ties of their victories were followed closely by the papers, and the most prolific aces soon became household names. After the war, real stories about aviators were mixed with fictional accounts that were popularized in pulp adventure story magazines with names like Flying Stories, air trials, and Flying Aes. idea that the pilots of the Great War were all Knights of the air who followed a modern code of chivalry and brought honor to a conflict where it was often in short supply. was eventually fully incorporated into popular culture Fighter Ace was romanticized as a daring and heroic individualist personal glory was deeply tied to his reputation courtesy. There's no doubt that many of the stories about chummy interactions between enemy fighter pilots are true It seems that in the early days of aerial combat, a certain type of camaraderie and mutual respect existed between pilots, no matter what nation they happened to be fighting for However, many historians of the First World War have pointed out that these memorable stories were exploited for their propaganda effects. The image of pilots as knights of the air was exaggerated and used as a recruitment tool for a branch of the armed Forces that had an exceptionally high casualty rate This image was also helpful in attracting Americans to fight for both the British and French flying Cps, while the United States was still technically a neutral nation in the conflict. It's been argued that the image of the flying ace contributed at least in a small way to the United States joining the war on the side of the Allies. When once trying to get a clear picture of what the early days of aerial warfare were truly like One has to sort through all sorts of legends concerning the so called Knights of the air. This is further complicated by the fact that some of the best known flyers were known to exaggerate their exploits and in some cases, inflated the number of their victories Of course, when it comes to war heroes, challenging the traditional accounting can be a fraught process These men often went on to be national icons whose exploits were celebrated as an expression of their nation's martial character. The belief that early fighter pilots were especially virtuous and managed to bring gentlemanly conduct into a decidedly ungentlemanly war has made investigating the truth of their exploits particularly complicated For decades, the myth of the Knights of the air deeply affected how these figures were remembered by history. What should we believe about this first batch of fighter pilots How common were the acts of chivalry that captivated readers back on the home frront Was the Kights of the air image a total wartime media construction Or was there something to it What about the famous flyers themselves anything to the argument that some of their achievements were exaggerated or even invented, Let's see what we can figure out today on our fake history Episode number two fifty two were the Kights of the air A myth part one Hello and welcome to O Fake History. My name is Sebastian Major and this is the podcast where we explore historical myths and try to determine what's fact, what's fiction, and what is such a good story, it simply must be told. Before we get going this week, I just want to remind everyone listening that you can hear this podcast ad free through Patreon Patreon d. com slash our fake history to get access to an ad free feed and dozens of Patrons onlynly Era episodes, including the most recent Patrons onlynly Era on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World That latest extra clocks in at over two hours. It's like an entire hour fake history series in one glorious package Also, I'm going to be doing a special Q and A episode on that extra just for the patrons. So if you want to be involved in that Q and A, you got to listen to that extra. So go to patreon d. com slash our fake history and find a level of support works for you This week, we are dipping our toes into the history of the First World War Now I've been fascinated by the Great War for most of my life, both as a history student and as a history teacher It's one of those events that is so remarkable in its scope and shocking in its brutality that even after decades of study, I'm still not sure I've fully wrapped my mind around it That's part of the reason why the First World War has only come up tangentially on this show in the past The enormity and the complexity of the Great War is almost too much for the scope of this humble podcast. So I've been hesitant to take it on But there's no doubt that there are amazing and heartbreaking stories to tell about this conflict, not to mention a ton of historical myths worthy of dissection. inststead of trying to swallow the whole bowling ball of the Great warar I thought the best approach would be to examine just one small corner of this conflict at a time I quickly realized that one of the best places to start was the war in the air partartially because the action in the skies was relatively limited when compared to the immensity of the rest of the war. This meant that it was an aspect of the war that was a bit easier for me to get my arms around. If you're looking for a thorough going over of the causes of the war, the alliance systems and the crucial battles on the ground then you might want to look elsewhere Many of you are probably already familiar with Dan Carlin's Hardcore history, which did an astounding series called Blueprint for Armageddon that came out a few years ago. It's still available through his website and gives an amazing overview of that war If you want a beat for beat breakdown of the causes of World War I, then our friends over at When Diplomacy Fails also have an exhaustive series. so you can check that out too But for this series, we are gonna be keeping our focus on the skies And that's because during the Great War, the exploits of World War O flying aces took on a deep Mythological significance. Now this is notable because the First World War is so often understood as the conflict which completely shattered many long held romantic illusions about warfare The war pit the two great European alliances of the period against one another One side were the central powers. that is Germany, Austria, Hungary the Ottoman Turks and Bulgaria On the other were the Entente powers, later colloquially called the Allies M up of France, Russia and Britain Along with Britain came all the Commonwealth nations like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and many others This alliance was later joined by Japan, Italy, and then finally, the United States All the combatants had pitched the war to their populations as a quick and glorious affair that would last only a few months and would have the soldiers home by Christmas the end of nineteen fourteen, it became abundantly clear that that would not be the case as the Western Front through Belgium and France hardened into a maze of trenches Thousands upon thousands of young men were sacrificed in feudile gambs to move the lines by a few yards World War One flyer and eventual marshal of Britain's Royal Air Force, Solto Douglas tried to capture this in his description of nineteen sixteen's Battle of the Psalm which he witnessed from the air He would write, quote Figures alone can never tell the story of the war in which a whole generation of men was crippled. On the first day alone, our casualties on the Ssalm numbered fifty seven thousand Of which twenty thousand were killed or died of wounds That slaughter went on until the Battle of the Somm ended in the mud of the winter to those concerned cost all told over a million casualties with three hundred British, French and German dead What was achieved Although they have tried no historian really has been able to say Douglas's description is helpful because it reminds us both of the magnitude of the death on the Western Front overwhelming feeling It had all been for nothing fifty seven thousand casualties in one day, just on the British side of the conflict every single person in a giant sold out stadium killed or seriously injured in twenty four hours Try as I might, I can't really imagine it The new military technology meant that on the battlefields of the Great War, death was often dealt at a distance by artillery shells, machine guns pooison gas. Youth from Britain, Germany, France, and all the other combatant nations had been raised on stories of daring do in battle mud of the Western Font gave few opportunities for what the British called Dash in the fight As historian Linda Robertson has pointed out, quote, The Great War provides a demonstration of the failure of an imagined war to sustain itself in the face of an actual one It was the distance between the war imagined as Crusade and what fighting the war involved that accounts for the disillusionment characteristic of the post warar era The Ground warar was a meaningless, unending repetition of delusion, disruption Death Qote This disillusionment was brilliantly articulated by many of the great artists who emerged after the war The celebrated American novelist and World War O veteran, Ernest Hemingway made reckoning with this supreme loss of meaning a hallmark of his best work In the novel A Farewell to Arms, he would write, quote I was always embarrassed by the words sacred glorious and sacrifice We had heard them sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot so that only the shouted words came through and had read them on proclamations that were slapped up by bill posters over other proclamations Now for a long time, I had seen nothing sacred. Things that were glorious had no glory. And the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago. If nothing was done with the meat Bury it There were many words that you could not stand to hear, and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates And these were the names of places where all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory Honor Courage or hollow. We're obscene Besidide the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, and the numbers of regiments and quote Forgive the long quote, but sometimes you just gott toa let Hemingway cook I turn to Hemingway here, not just because I have a fondness for his writing point out that the grim realities of the First World War have been well documented, thoroughly explored, and fully incorporated into the popular understanding of the conflict What I find interesting is that the one aspect of the Great War that has managed to retain a certain level of romance is the war in the skies Hemingway and many others made the case that tales of glory from the trenches were so disconnected from the daily scenes of senseless slaughter they came off as, quote unquote bsc seen But there seems to have been a very different feeling about the tales of exploits undertaken by airmen Aside from a few notable precursors, aerial warfare was more or less invented during the First World War The novelty of this new form of combat meant that it was reported on with a certain enthusiasm The nascent flying corps were tiny, and airmen represented only a very small fraction of the combatants in the war But despite that, the reporting on their activities was comparatively robust Stories of individual courage and daring perhaps seemed less obscene in this context By nineteen sixteen, the image of fighter pilots as the modern equivalent of chivalrous knights had taken hold in popular discourse In that year, the British propaganda writer, Henry Newboldt, would write this in his Tales of the Great War. Our airmen are singularly like the knights of the old romances to go out day by day, singly in twos and threes to hold the field against all comers, and to do battle in defense of those who cannot defend themselves There is something especially chivalrous about these champions of the air Even the Huns whose military principles are against chivalry showh themselves affected by it and quote In that passage, Newbolt derisively refers to the Germans as Huns and claims that they have no real honor But despite that, he concedes pilots are surprisingly noble even enemy fighter pilots could be warriors Such was the veneration of World War One flying aces that German pilots like Max Emelmann, Oswald Bolka, and perhaps most prominently the Red Baron, Monfred von Richtofen were regarded with uncommon levels of respect France, Britain, the United States, and the other Allied countries. It's a very rare thing for an enemy to be celebrated decades after a war ends. And yet the fascination with the Red Baron started almost immediately and arguably continues to this day In this series, I want to try and understand why World War Ine flyers managed to retain such a glamorous reputation when so many other aspects of the Great warar were so thoroughly drained of their glance. How much of this has to do with the spectacle and novelty of heavier than air flight. How much can be chalked up to wartime propaganda and post war nostalgia And how much comes from the real experiences of the early flyers? Before I jump into this, I just want to say that while this will be a critical look at military history My intention is not to degrade the service of any veterans or anyone currently in uniform I know that there are many people listening who are currently serving in their nation's armed forces Even though I'm going to be speaking about events that are now over a century in the past, I'm acutely aware that service members care a great deal about how their history is represented If I can give my own personal connection to this, Im married into an Air Force family My father in law and mother in law are veterans of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Now it goes without saying that my in laws have an immense pride in their branch of the Amed serervices. many veterans, they are protective of its reputation In this series, I'm eventually going to be grappling with the legacy of one of Canada's most beloved combat pilots, Billy Bishop Deply aware that that needs to be done delicately Because hey, you know, in this house, Canadian pilots are heroes. I also have two nephews who are currently serving in the Canadian Army. Now I'm telling you this notot to give myself any kind of special cover I just want to point out that I have people in my life who are serving and have served who I care about That said, I still plan to bring the same critical eye to this topic that I would to any other My hope is that by the end, we'll all have a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the role that fighter pilots played in the First World War and come to a better understanding of where their remarkable reputation as knights of the air came from Let's start by looking at the history of aerial combat and see how the Fighter Ace emerged as a celebrity warrior during the Great War. Today's episode is being brought to you by Quince Summer always changes how I get dressed. 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Now available in Canada too. shhout out to my Canadians.s Q U I N C E dot com slash History For free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns ints d. com slash fake history Today's episode of Our Fake History is being brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Insurance isn't one size fits all, and shopping for it shouldn't feel like squeezing into something that just doesn't fit That's why drivers have enjoyed progressives name your price tool for years. With nameour price tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they show you options that fit your budget. Enough hunting for discounts, trying to calculate rates and tinkering with coverages Maybe you're picking out your very first policy, or maybe you're just looking for something that works better for you and your family. Either way, they make it simple to see your options. No guesswork, no surprises. Ready to see how easy and fun shopping for car insurance can be? visit progressive. com and give the nameame Your price tool a try Take the stress out of shopping and find coverage that fits your life and your terms. Progressive casualty insurance compompany and affiliates, Price and coverage match limited by state law When war broke out in Europe at the end of july nineteen fourteen The concept of air power had been around for at least a century However, up until nineteen oh eight, military aircraft had all been lighter than air The French military had been employing balloons since the late eighteenth century. During the American Civil War, balloons used for reconnaissance, mapping, and the aiming of artillery pieces became regular sits above American battlefields The Union Army even had its own balloon cororps by the end of the conflict. By the early years of the twentieth century, many European armies were experimenting with deririgibles and other steerable airships The Germans soon found many applications for the rigid airship invented by the German aristocrat Ferdinand von Zeppelin brereak of the Great War heavier than air vehicles were still a bit of a novelty Now we've discussed the controversy around who technically invented the first airplane on this podcast before But what's clear is that in nineteen oh eight, when the Wright brrothers demonstrated their aircraft in France, everyone present recognized that a huge milestone in the history of transportation had been reached Almost immediately, there was interest from various militaries Only three years later in nineteen eleven The first airplane was used in combat The Italian army used a domestically built Newport aircraft to drop a small bomb on the Turkish forces they were fighting in what is today Libya. Just a few days after that, the Turkish army became the first to shoot an airplane out of the sky It was not necessarily the most auspicious start to the age of airplane warfare Still, most European militaries recognize the potential of aircraft, and between nineteen oh eight and nineteen fourteen Britain, Germany, and France all started building modest air cps But it should be stressed that these were tiny, especially when compared to the massive amounts of manpower and resources being poured into the armies and navies of these nations in those years Depending on your source, the number of planes possessed by each nation in nineteen fourteen will vary The Russian Empire technically had the largest air force in nineteen fourteen with over two hundred and twenty aircraft However, these numbers of planes on the Tarmac can sometimes obscure just how ready they were to fly. in July of nineteen fourteen The Russians were in no way prepared to get even a fraction of those planes in the air By the same token, the Germans had also constructed over two hundred planes by nineteen fourteen But at the outbreak of the war, only around fifty were ready to fly The British could only put about thirty planes into the air. The French arguably had the edge at the outset of the war, with just over a hundred planes ready to fly Again These numbers will vary depending on which source you check In the early days of the war, supremacy in the air didn't seem to be much of a concern for any of the belligerents When the war began in the summer of nineteen fourteen, none of the militaries were exactly sure what role airplanes were going to play in the conflict The precursor had been the balloon And so at first, airplanes were used like balloons They were sent up for observation, reconnaissance, battlefield mapping, and artillery scouting In the early months of the conflict, most of the air crews were not armed None of the airplanes were fitted with guns, and at first, airmen didn't usually carry sidearms In other words, there was no such thing as fighter planes or fighter pilots. However, there was an understanding that planes could be used as weapons. that the idea of death from above had a potent psychological impact on enemies civilian populations. For instance, in late august nineteen fourteen, a single German monoplane flew over Paris and dropped a couple of small bombs and some pamphlets written in French, meant to intimidate the Parisian public accccording to the Aviation magazine After Burner The French government at the time did its best to calm the public's nerves by claiming in the press that the German plane had been intercepted and destroyed by French fllyers This was totally untrue At the time, French pilots were barely equipped with weapons That bomber made it back behind German lines without once seeing a French plane. The fact that flyers started the war unarmed may have contributed to a certain culture of camaradery between enemy pilots In the early weeks of the war when enemy planes encountered one another in the sky It was common for the pilots to give a friendly wave They were winking at the fact that if they were soldiers on the ground, they would be expected to kill one another without a second thought here in the air No one had even thought to bring a gun That would quickly change air reconnaissance proved its value early on in the war Military historian Michael Hanken has pointed out that the so called miracle on the Marn, the pivotal French and British victory, which halted the initial German push towards Paris aided by reconnaissance planes that spotted German troop movements early in the operation The bombing of Paris and the success of reconnaissance planes at the Marne. underscored the fact that airplanes were becoming important pieces of military hardware that needed to be attacked when encountered The first plane to plane attacks seem to have been fairly haphazard and improvised Pilots started throwing bricks, heavy objects and grappling hooks at enemy planes They eventually graduated to hand grenades and sidearm pistols The very first aircraft brought down by another occurred on the eastern front of the war in early september nineteen fourteen when a Russian pilot rammed his plane into an Austro Hungarian vehicle destroying both planes in the process Just over a month into the war, the era of jovial waves between pilots was decidedly over By late September, two man flight crews were regularly bringing machine guns with them on their flights However, this arrangement with a pilot and a gunner operating a handheld gun was both awkward and dangerous Theirplanes were still being used almost exclusively for reconnaissance, but now the crews were armed and ready to fight should they encounter an enemy But as nineteen fourteen became nineteen fifteen, both the Eente and central powers started experimenting with what were called Pursuit planes These were aircraft that were never intended for reconnaissance Their role would be specifically to locate and destroy enemy planes The big breakthrough came in April of nineteen fifteen when a French pilot named Roland Garaot outfitted a Moron monoplane with his new invention And for those that don't know, a monoplane is an aircraft with one set of fixed wings There are also biplanes with two sets of fixed wings The classic old tiny plane in your imagination is probably a biplane. But there were also triplanes with three sets of wings I think you get the idea Anyway. Garaot's new device synchronized the blasts from a machine gun the rotation of his airplane's propeller This way, a machine gun could be mounted facing forward on the front of the plane and could be fired by the pilot while he was flying The synchronization device meant that bullets were released between the spins of the propeller gun was aimed by pointing the aircraft at the enemy. This invention essentially created The fighter pilot Now, a single occupant in an aircraft could act as both pilot and gunner. The plane itself acted as a weapon Sure enough, the first day Roland Garao flew his newly outfitted monoplane. He located and shot down a German reconnaissance plane However, this device remained a French secret for barely a week Garreaot and his plane were shot down by the Germans a handful of days after its first flight pilot and the plane managed to survive the crash But unfortunately for the Allies, Garaot was unable to set the plane on fire before it was captured by the Germans The French plane was taken and studied by Anthony Folker, a Dutch airplane designer working for the German Empire Looker redesigned both the French monoplane and the Garau machine gun synchronization device. Arguably improving on both The result was a new German fighter plane known as the Folker Einecker Airplane enthusiasts have since pointed out that the original Folker Eineckers, which started appearing on combat missions in late june, nineteen fifteen were not particularly sophisticated planes for their era But the weapons system proved wildly effective In August of nineteen fifteen, the Folkers started bringing down French and British planes in high enough numbers that the media started to take notice Despite the fact that the French had technically created the first fighter plane Allied Air Corps had been slow to properly adopt the new technology When the Folkers started flying combat missions in the summer of nineteen fifteen, neither the British nor the French had an aircraft that could effectively counter them. This meant that for most of nineteen fifteen, the Germans had a noticeable edge in the air warar This created something that the British and American media of the time dubbed The Folker Sourge But historians sometimes call the fker scare There was a panic that the Germans had developed a kind of super weapon that might just turn the tide of the entire war The Germans quickly realized that the Folkers were as important as a propaganda tool as they were a piece of military technology So they actively encouraged the belief, both domestically and abroad Fkers were unstoppable, and the men who piloted them were a special breed of warriors Enter the first flying aces. The first fighter pilots to be elevated as wartime celebrities were the Germans, Oswald Bolkke and Max Iman. who we met in the introduction Bolka and Imelman both scored their first victories flying Folkers in August of nineteen fifteen By November of that year, both men had shot down six Allied planes each which was considered a distinguished enough record to earn them the Royal House Order of Hoenzalen which was a special Prussian knighthood awarded by the Kaiser himself In a very literal sense, these two early German aces actually became knights But the celebrity of both Bolka and Immann shot to new heights just a few months later, when both men were awarded the highest military honor in Germany Poor L Marit after they had each achieved eight aerial victories And yes, it is ironic that the highest German military honor at the time had a French name. Now there's a reason for that. has to do with Frederick the Great and the concept of lingua Franca, but That's a story for another day Anyway Anytime this medal was awarded, it was notable But it was not entirely out of the ordinary in wartime Germany. But what was unique about this particular award ceremony was the publicity campaign that came with it Photographs of the officers wearing their medals were turned into mass produced postcards and trading cards for children The officers were profiled by countless German newspapers and starred in news reels about their exploits that were shown in German cinemas. our own celebrity drenched culture, this kind of hoopla might seem routine. But it's important to understand just how unusual it was for the time sure that it' always been war heroes But it was totally novel to create celebrities out of active service members while a conflict was going on Before that point, the propaganda emphasis had always been on soldiers as a group too much emphasis on the heroics of one individual was seen as potentially diminishing the sacrifice of other soldiers whose service had been important but less glamorous acccording to historian Linda Robertson, quote The singling out of individuals and promoting them as celebrities seemed to the Allies an appalling breach of military decorum Eventually the Allied powers were compelled to embrace the propaganda value that came with encouraging the hero worship of these flyers The celebrity of Bolka and Imelman only served to intensify the fker scare on the Allied side of the lines. A their highly publicized awards, the perception became that the Germans not only had unstoppable fighter planes, they were also fostering a special breed of pilot The Allies soon recognized that they needed to have their own aces who could capture the imaginations of people on the Allied home frront in the same way that Bolka and Imann were helping morale in Germany. controls on the wartime press in Britain Enough stories about folker victories were filtering through that the issue was eventually raised in parliament reassurances from Harold Tennant, the parliamentary Usecretary of State for war, that the German planes were only being used defensively and had not crossed British and French lines Many suspected that he was not giving the full picture The fear was that the British were falling behind when it came to airplane technology In January of nineteen sixteen, the aviation correspondent for England's Globe newspaper penned an editorial titled Foker Menace In it, the author insisted that quote, It is evident that it is our initiative which is endangered. And if we take no steps to remedy it, it is we who will be blinded. We who may have to meet the unexpected blow which the aerial eye alone can detect before it falls. He goes on to call for the British government to quickly build newer planes that, quote, given a speed not merely greater than the Folker, much greater It's worth considering just how significant the Folker scourge truly was in the wider context of the war Many historians have pointed out that when we consider the monstrous casualties that were common during the First World War The period of German air dominance in nineteen fifteen was s truly a drop in the bucket. This was a conflict where armies were regularly losing five thousand people a day. The most liberal accounting has it that between august nineteen fifteen and february nineteen sixteen, the Germans shot down somewhere around fifty Allied planes According to historian Linda Robertson, at the height of the panic in Britain, the Royal Flying Corps had only lost about ten planes In terms of material impact on the war, you could argue that the Folker barely made a dent When a Folker Eindecker was finally captured by the Allies in April of nineteen sixteen The British quickly discovered that the plane was not that much better than the planes currently possessed by the Allies It was less maneuverable than many French and British planes impact of the Folker Einecker had been largely psychological. after some early successes Pilots became superstitious about it publicity around the German aces had only fueled what turned out to be a somewhat irrational fear But what the fker scare crystallized for those involved in wartime propaganda was that the war in the air could be harnessed in a way that other aspects of the war could not Imman had demonstrated that the fighter ace was a figure that the public found particularly captivating As the Folker scare abated and new Allied aircraft were introduced in nineteen sixteen Stories were fed to the press about aces flying for the French and British However publicizing the exploits of pilots and specifically pilots in single seater pursuit aircraft was initially a hard sell. British Royal Flying Corps, the precursor to the RAF in particular, did not like the idea of celebrating these so called aces becausecause they believed it gave the impression that those pilots were more important than pilots in two seaters or reconnaissance planes By mid nineteen sixteen, most of those concerns had been set aside in favor of celebrating a new batch of aces from Britain France Canada. And then eventually the United States So let's pause here And when we return, we'll look at how the image of the fighter ace developed in nineteen sixteen and beyond Today's episode of Our Fake History is being brought to you by Rosetta Stone. Many of us have tried learning another language before. Maybe you did Spanish or French in high school or you learned a few phrases for a trip. 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Marathon is Florida's family key with something for everyone You'll find museums and wildlife refuges Wide open beaches Miles of warm clear water and the historic seven mile bridge For more about Marathon and the latest safety protocols, visit flakeys. com slash marathon There's a chance that the image of the chivalrous fighter pilot may not have taken hold Had it not been for the personalities of the first German Aes, Oswald Bolkke Max Imelman particular seems to have been a genuinely empathetic good natured person. He started the war as an unarmed reconnaissance pilot and only discovered that he was a deadly shot once the Fker aircraft was invented. Once Bolka became a national hero in Germany, all sorts of stories started appearing in the German press about his altruism For instance, it was widely reported that while stationed in occupied France Aa was walking in a village when he noticed a local child slip and fall into a canal without hesitation dove in and saved the child's life. You will read that the French villagers were so grateful that they petitioned the French government to give Bolcaca the French military honor known as the Legeon Donille patriotic and humble Bolkke refused and instead only accepted a German life saving badge. This is one of those stories that feels like a bit of a myth Bulkca biographers seem to accept this tale But it's my suspicion that the Leesnd'neur detail is a bit of an exaggeration It seems unlikely that even the most grateful French villagers would have asked the French government to give an enemy soldier the leejon d'onill And how would they even make that request while under German occupation Bolka's image was that he was an impossibly good dude There's a story that's much better attested to that actually has to do with action in the air In January of nineteen sixteen Mka shot down a two sear British reconnaissance plane behind German lines After the German pilot noticed that the British crew had managed to survive the crash He landed his aircraft, remembering, quote I went straight up to the Englishman shook hands with them and told them I was delighted to have brought them down alive I had a long talk with the pilot who spoke German well When he heard my name, he said with a grin, We know all about you. I then saw to it that they were both taken in a car to the hospital where I visited the observer today and brought him some English papers and photos of his wrecked machine Bolkke then did the pilot the courtesy of letting him write a letter to his commanding officer in the Royal Flying Corps, informing him that he was alive and in a German POW hospital. Bolkke then personally dropped the letter behind British lines from his airplane We know that this story is true because the letter has survived You have to admit that all of this sounds pretty gallant It's not nothing that Bolkke visited men he shot down while they were in the hospital Of course, the German press seized on stories like this. because they helped bolster the reputation of their great war hero. These tales also leaked through to the Allied papers It's clear that gentlemanly things did happen between enemy pilots, especially in the earlier part of the war. In truth, these episodes were fairly rare But they were reported on in a way that made it seem It Like the air warar was a chummy good time defined by a kind of sportsmanship These tales helped mask how truly dangerous it was to be a combat pilot perception was that the pilot's life was glamorous and relatively safe If you were shot down, the worst that would happen is that you would get a courteous reception from the enemy in reality. casualties among members of the Nascent Air Forces were enormous. Again, I'll turn to historian Linda Robertson tells us, quote During the quiet periods at the front, life expectancy for pilots was eight weeks and during heavy fighting Less than three Qote During a particularly brutal period in the Air warar in April of nineteen seventeen, sometimes called bloody April Roughly a third of the British Royal Flying Corps was destroyed with some squadrons suffering, quote casualties of over one hundred percent New recruits were constantly needed So, tales of gallantry in the air were put to use to help attract young men to volunteer for what was in reality, a particularly deadly part of the military It was the French military who were the first to fully see the wisdom of German publicity efforts around their star pilots. In July of nineteen sixteen, the French aeronautique Militel. inststituted Ace system A year earlier, a French flyer named Adolph Peou had been dubbed an ace by the French press after he had shot down five German planes. The French military took this informal nickname and codified the achievement of shooting down five planes You were only able to call yourself an ace if you had achieved five aerial victories then your name would be published and you could be celebrated as a national hero Once the name of an Ace was made public, Papers would then keep tabs on their careers as if they were sports stars curious readers could follow the stats of the flying Aes In this way, the ace became a useful symbol. Linda Robertson explains, quote Such symbols domesticated the scale of the war making it more manageable in the psychological sense They distracted attention from the reality of the war forced to the impression that it could be understood and elicited the emotional identification needed to sustain public unity Hort For the war In other words, the talales of the Aes helped the war seem like the gallant and exciting imagined conflict that it had been sold as at the outset real, but specially selected Stories from the air could be used to help keep the impression going that the war was a noble endeavor where young men could make themselves famous As I mentioned earlier, the British were slow to adopt this tactic and for a while refused to recognize individual pilots in military dispatches However, press Beat the British military to the punch. In the summer of nineteen sixteen, the British flyer Albert Ball scored an impressive seventeen aerial victories, which, despite the RFC's official dignified silence on the matter still managed to make the news. ball into a bona fide war hero back in England all There was finally a British ace that seemed equal to the French and more importantly German flyers One British editorial from the period argued that Ball's celebrity was evidence that the Royal Flying Corps was missing an opportunity to gin up recruitment by celebrating British aces If young men are to volunteer to fly with the RFC, we must offer them the chance to become heroes, like Captain Ball Here in Britain, we are playing down our airmen and are having to go into the trenches to beg young infantry men to volunteer for flying What a chance They see war in the air every day in all its grizzly action Over in Canada and America, every young kid who can read wants to learn to fly Why All they know of flying comes from stories of French and German aces and how they're winning all the medals, end quote. I find that editorial particularly fascinating because rarely were things published in wartime papers that were quite so blunt about the need for effective propaganda It's interesting that the writer points out that the young men actually serving in the trenches did not want to volunteer for the flying Corps. because they witnessed firsthand just how deadly Flying was. From the trenches, they watched planes being shot down daily. So they had no illusions about the chivalrous romance of the Air warar the estimation of this editorial writer, stories of the Aes were important when it came to convincing young people in Canada and the United States to volunteer The men in the trenches were totally unmoved by stories of chivalry and daring in the air kids across the Atlantic be convinced to enlist if those stories were correctly emphasized Sure enough, as new recruits started to filter into British, French, and German air Forces, they came in with romantic ideas about airmen For instance, the British flying ace Captain Gerald Gibbs would remember that after he shot down a German plane over Macedonia and captured the two airmen aboard He received a letter from the POWs a few days later, saying, quote Captain Pilot and I ask you quite warmly if you might have the kindness to send us a few autographed pictures They shall be a reminder of the brave and quixotic adversary in aerial combat as well as of the comradely picture of your battalion Chummy German airmen greetings, much luck, and thank you very much in advance Qote, Gibbs never confirmed if he honored the requests for autographs This letter is evidence that as the war went on, young pilots who had been affected by the ACE propaganda were coming into the war eager for autographs from enemy pilots who had shot them down. In this way, the image of the aces promoted in the press may have actually influenced the behavior of pilots later in the war. Recruits had heard stories that the aces were Kights of the air And so in some cases, The new recruits started acting that way. The tales of the Aes also became an essential way of enticing Americans to join the war The United States had been officially neutral in the conflict since the war broke out in nineteen fourteen However Both the British and the French understood that there were many Americans who were sympathetic to their side of the conflict Despite the fact that America was officially neutral, American individuals still managed to volunteer for foreign armies. Hundreds of Americans crossed the Canadian border and enlisted in the Canadian expeditionary force to fight with the British But as the war dragged on those types of volunteers became fewer Eventually, the French saw the value in promoting the glamour of the flying service to entice American volunteers to fight for the French Republic Not only did they need new recruits, but the thinking was that the more American nationals you could get volunteering for the repepublic, the more likely it would be that America would join the war on the side of the Allies To this end, the Lafayette Escadril was created in the spring of nineteen sixteen. just as the Allies were set to properly counter the Folker scourge This would be a unit within the French Air Force that would be manned entirely by American volunteers The flying Ace, as he appeared in American papers and magazines, was designed to appeal to stereotypes about the American character More than any other warrior in the conflict, the fighter pilot was described as a rugged individualist He flew solo in a single cedar plane He could go where he wanted, when he wanted, and he fought in his own style He was guided by his own personal sense of morality Propagandists gambled that Americans would love this. And many of them did The Lafayette Escadrill gave young Americans attracted by this image an opportunity to live that dream while fighting for the French In nineteen sixteen, the war above the trenches was only just starting to take shape. In nineteen fourteen, militaries had not known what they wanted from airplanes By nineteen sixteen, they most certainly did. They wanted them to be fast well armed and deadly An ideas about chivalry in the air would be tested By the last brutal years of a conflict end up kking nations Okay Okay, That's all for this week. Join us again in two weeks time when we will continue our look at World War one Flying aces. As always, before we go this week, I need to give some special shout outs Big ups too Daniel Gearson Tw Rid Eagle T Zh Moon Garden T a queerus T CS. to John F. Cougar Mellon Kennedy. Two, Mr. Vane. To Daniel Cochrane T Alex Jordan T Alexander B Breitinger Tw. Daniel Lindberurgh To Rhett McSarin Tw to Tupa And to Bradley Cobb All of these folks have decided to pledge at five dollars or more every month on Patreon. So you know what that means They are beautiful human beings. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for your support I really do appreciate everyone who supports at all levels. The Patreon support is what makes this podcast possible. And I'm honored that so many of you want to see us continue making these shows If you are a patron and you've got questions about the episode on The Seven Wonders of the World