World War One

[August]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

OT
Am I the only one who thinks the term "casualties" is complete BS? I mean someone gets shot in the little toe -> casualty
someone gets shot in the head and dies instantly -> casualty
So all in all the number of "casualties" doesn't tell me anything about how severs things are. Over here "casualties" are referred to as wounded and dead with the respective numbers for each.

So what does 6,444 "casualties" concretely mean? People we won't see again or people who will soon be there again to fight another day? We don't know and therefore those statistics contain zero tangible info.

/OT

A casualty in military parlance is anything that removes a soldier from duty. Death, illness, injury of course but it also includes POW's and even deserters. It's a calculation used to determine replacement needs so in that sense it doesn't matter if it's a stubbed toe or a fatality.

[Sailor Steve]

Alan Machin Wilkinson scores his last victory today. Wilkinson will become Leader of 23 Squadron RFC until coming down with appendicitis in August 1917. He will end the war as a combat-school instructor. Wilkinson will work in advertising and eventually become a directory of the London Press Exchange. He will rejoin the RAF in World War 2 and will command two different air bases. Alan Machin Wilkinson will die in June 1972, aged 80.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...postcount=2260

[Jimbuna]

Launch of the USS New Mexico.


John Walter Wilcox, Jr. (1882-1942), U.S. Navy, and Margaret Cabeza DeBaca, daughter of Ezequiel Cabeza De Baca, governor of New Mexico. Margaret christened the battleship New Mexico on April 23, 1917.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

7th May 1917


Top British flying ace, VC Albert Ball falls in battle. Lothar Von Richthofen credited for kill.

Falsely imho:

Ball was last seen by fellow pilots pursuing the red Albatros D.III of the Red Baron's younger brother, Lothar von Richthofen, who eventually landed near Annœullin with a punctured fuel tank. Cyril Crowe observed Ball flying into a dark thundercloud. A German pilot officer on the ground, Lieutenant Hailer, then saw Ball's plane falling upside-down from the bottom of the cloud, Brothers Franz and Carl Hailer and the other two men in their party were from a German reconnaissance unit, Flieger-Abteilung A292. Franz Hailer noted, "It was leaving a cloud of black smoke... caused by oil leaking into the cylinders." The engine had to be inverted for this to happen. The Hispano engine was known to flood its inlet manifold with fuel when upside down and then stop running. Franz Hailer and his three companions hurried to the crash site. Ball was already dead when they arrived. The four German airmen agreed that the crashed craft had suffered no battle damage. No bullet wounds were found on Ball's body, even though Hailer went through Ball's clothing to find identification. Hailer also took Ball to a field hospital. A German doctor subsequently described a broken back and a crushed chest, along with fractured limbs, as the cause of death. (clearly a case of blunt-force trauma from the crash as described by a trained medical person)
The Germans credited Richthofen with shooting down Ball, but there is some doubt as to what happened, especially as Richthofen's claim was for a Sopwith Triplane, not an S.E.5, which was a biplane. Given the amount of propaganda the German High Command generated touting the younger Richthofen, a high-level decision may have been taken to attribute Ball's death to him. It is probable that Ball was not shot down at all, but had become disoriented and lost control during his final combat, the victim of a form of temporary vertigo that has claimed other pilots

Even today: rule one of flying (especially in a Cessna) U NEVER FLY INTO A THUNDERCLOUD...especially dark ones! I've survived two intense microbursts myself one blew down a large professionally erected party-tent literally hitting only the large yard I was in; the other deposited six inches of hail on my 200 yard diameter Napa neighborhood in 10 minutes. Such winds are known to crash modern jet liners, much less a well strung biplane, on approach to landings at near touch-down altitude as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_191

For aircraft, you have all these hazards and many more. First is the severity of the updrafts and downdrafts; if the currents inside a thunderhead can keep a chunk of ice the size of a softball aloft, just think what it'll do to your little Piper Cherokee (or even a 747). Second is icing; as your plane is getting tossed around, the same near-freezing water condensation that forms hailstones finds the ultra-low-pressure environment over the top of your wings' leading edges simply irresistible. Third is debris; if there's an active tornado or even high straightline winds associated with this event, not only will you have ice flying around, but dirt/sand, rocks of varying sizes, tree branches, all the way up to Dorothy and Toto. Even planes with a military pedigree, like the P-3 Orions that are used to track hurricanes, can't survive this kind of onslaught.
Don't go anywhere near a thunderhead. Just don't. In fact, if you're a private pilot, don't even take off if there's a thunderhead anywhere near you, and if you're flying cross-country and see one, get on the horn with ATC immediately and request information on its course and speed and what you can do to avoid it. For pilots of small unpressurized craft the answer will usually be to put the storm front on your tail, open up the throttle and find the nearest airstrip that can take you.

The cloud spit out a stressed out war-weary ace, inverted at two hundred feet, with an oil-flooded Hispano engine: too low for hope of recovery. Even the artist got the clouds right; Last Fight of Captain Ball https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/16700/why-is-the-cumulonimbus-cloud-formation-so-dangerous

[Giesemaschine]

Hard to believe the END of WW1 was a century ago...wow.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Giesemaschine

Hard to believe the END of WW1 was a century ago...wow.

That's because you're 1.5 years early....

Originally Posted by Schroeder

That's because you're 1.5 years early....

[August]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

That's because you're 1.5 years early....

Too bad he wasn't right. At this point 100 years ago it was still 17 months before my great grandfather was killed in action in the closing days of the war.

[Sailor Steve]

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!
Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Giesemaschine]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

That's because you're 1.5 years early....

Details, details

[Sailor Steve]

On June 2, 1917, English RFC ace Billy Bishop staged a solo dawn strike on a German aerodrome, destroying three Albatros fighters right after they took off.

Or so he claimed. This might not have mattered had he not been awarded the Victoria Cross for this single action. Normally the VC required three eyewitness, none of whom could be the recipient himself. Unfortunately, as with many of his other claims, Bishop was alone in this endeavor. Also unfortunate is the fact that the Germans filed no report concerning this action. In fact, it might not have happened at all.

It is a fact that the British services (RFC, RNAS, and later RAF) were much looser in their claim filing system than any other air force. In many cases there is only the pilot's claim, with no corroborating evidence at all. The type of plane is usually mentioned but the serial number is not listed, nor is the pilot's name and fate.

On the other hand, while the Germans are praised for their precision in claim corroboration, they rarely list what type of plane their own pilots were flying, let alone serial numbers. Also in Bishop's favor is the fact that the Germans never counted planes lost as "losses". Only when the pilot was wounded or killed was it listed in that column.

Did Billy Bishop really attack the German aerodrome that day? There were no other witnesses. In fact a careful examination of the claims vs losses shows that of his 72 credited kills only 21 have any actual evidence to support them. This has led to a great many arguments over the years, some of the virulent to the point of sounding like a religious debate.

So, as with all great aces, the controversy continues.

[Catfish]

@ Steve you're back (not "your back" this time )
^ commented to Bishop on the other thread, don't know if you read it:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...postcount=1919
As we learned Richthofen and Udet also were not always right in their claims, or some may have been "added" externally for propaganda purposes. On the other hand we know of some who did not claim more to be able to stay in their units. Brave enough to climb into those crates. Though i would have probably preferred that, too, rather than to dig trenches under miserable conditions. And then, "wizard prang".. which meant something else in WW1 than in WW2 afaik.

[propbeanie]

I have been meaning to post a picture of my Grandpa in here for quite a while now, and keep neglecting to get a picture of him to work with. I do have this one though, which (unfortunately) is the best I've got of him in uniform. This is something someone in the family put together years ago, and had colorized, then they mounted it in an oval frame, with a "dome" glass cover. The frame & glass are "Art Deco" looking, so I'd say this is from the mid- to late Twenties, with the colorizing coming later. I'm afraid to take the frame apart to get a "clean" picture of what I'm calling "Three Brothers". So, that's my Grandpa in the middle, US Army Signal Corps (I cannot find my notes as to which unit he was in), and his two younger brothers, who went Navy (smart fellers). I do believe that the younger (on the left) was "too late" for the war. Grandma used to joke that she had to have the fellow on the right join the navy to go pickup my grandpa from France, else he'd still be there. His hat says USS President Grant, which was a Transport ship... Three boys in the family, and they all joined-up. btw, that is a watermark by my great-uncle's left ear. The rest of the strange look about it is the reflections of the glass cover of the frame.



I salute them, and all others who have served / are serving their countries with honor.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Catfish

commented to Bishop on the other thread, don't know if you read it:

Yes, I saw it. I've been in the habit of posting here whenever I wanted to discuss something longer than just reporting the news, and as everyone knows I've been running behind on the other thread, due to several complications.

As we learned Richthofen and Udet also were not always right in their claims, or some may have been "added" externally for propaganda purposes.

I've mentioned those specifically when I've come across them. No complaints, though, the more discussion on subjects like this, the better it is.

[August]

Originally Posted by Catfish

As we learned Richthofen and Udet also were not always right in their claims, or some may have been "added" externally for propaganda purposes.

If I remember his book correctly Rene Fonck sure thought so.