Oswald Boelcke – Founder of Modern Air Combat Tactics

„TO THE MEMORY OF CAPTAIN BOELKE, OUR BRAVE AND CHIVALROUS OPPONENT. FROM THE ENGLISH ROYAL FLYING CORPS.“

Early Years – Childhood and Officer Training

From October 1911 to July 1912, he completed his officer training at the École de Guerre in Metz. Since he had completed a longer school education with the upper secondary level of the Gymnasium than most other officer candidates from the cadet schools, he received preferential promotion. In August 1912, Oswald Boelcke received the rank of Leutnants (second lieutenant). During his time as a “wireman”, as the signal soldiers were called, he made contact with the still young air service at the Feldflugplatz Darmstadt-Griesheim, today’s August Euler Airfield. His unit had to ensure the radio communication between the aviation units and the command staff. Several personalities who became well-known during the Nazi era also completed parts of their flight training in Griesheim, such as the later chief of the German Luftwaffe Hermann Göring, the fighter pilot Ernst Udet, or the later General der Fallschirmjäger Kurt Student.

In 1913, Oswald Boelcke had been a spectator at a demonstration in Frankfurt a.M. by the French aerobatic pilot and later combat pilot Adolphe Pégout. 22 years old at the time, Boelcke was enthralled, and the decision matured in him to train as a military pilot.

Oswald and Wilhelm Boelcke – Feldflieger-Abteilung 13 (Field Aviation Section 13)

Oswald Boelcke put his decision to join the flying corps into action in May 1914. He was accepted at the aviation school of the later Flugzeugwerke Halberstadt G.m.b.H., which was then called Deutsche Bristol Werke Flugzeug-Gesellschaft m.b.H. It was a private flight school without military command structures. As an offshoot of the English Bristol Aeroplane Company ltd., the company was a German-English joint venture that continued the development of aircraft types beyond the outbreak of the First World War. Thus it came about that Boelcke completed his flying lessons on a model of the “Taube” type. At that time, flight training lasted only six to eight weeks. Boelcke passed his first pilot’s exam on July 15, 1914, the second on July 31, 1914, and completed his training with the third pilot’s exam on August 15, 1914, shortly after the outbreak of war.

The special role of both pilots led to disagreements with other members of the unit. In April 1915, the dispute escalated. Wilhelm Boelcke was transferred to Posen to the Fliegerersatz-Abteilung. Even though separation from his brother was difficult for him, Oswald Boelcke remained with his unit. In the further course of the war, Wilhelm found employment in various positions, such as leader of Kampfstaffel (Kasta) 7 and later also of Kasta 10. He survived both world wars and died in 1954 in Wiesbaden.

Roland Garros, Anthony Fokker, and the Interrupter Gear

In a short time, it was possible to produce a technically simple yet fully functional design that controlled a push rod via a cam circle on the engine’s drive shaft, which was connected to the trigger of the machine gun. Initially, the Parabellum MG 14 was used, a light and air-cooled machine gun synchronized with the propeller in this way, which had been specially developed for use in aircraft.

Kurt Wintgens and Max Immelmann – the “Fokker Scourge” and the “Ace Race”

On July 4, 1915, three days after Wintgen’s success, Oswald Boelcke achieved his first officially confirmed aerial victory. However, he did not achieve this with the new Fokker E.I aircraft model, but as the pilot of a two-seater Albatros C.I. The actual shot was fired by his observer, Leutnant and later Wehrmacht general Heinz Hellmuth von Wühlisch, using a Parabellum MG 14 mounted flexibly on the aircraft. Boelcke’s own report records the event in three sentences. On July 4, 1915, in the L.V.G. C 162 with observer Leutnant von Wühlisch from the Husaren-Regiment 7 (7th Hussar Regiment), he had pursued an enemy parasol monoplane. After about ten minutes of combat and firing, the enemy aircraft crashed at 11:00 a.m. and fell into the forest west of Marchiennes. Both occupants were dead, and the aircraft had been recovered by FFA 62. The type designation L.V.G. C 162 in Boelcke’s report differs from the Albatros C.I mentioned in secondary literature.

Visit from the Military Hospital — Between Admiration and Order

Despite its at first glance non-military character, an anecdote from this phase is worth telling in which a young and attractive nurse named Blanka was to play the decisive role.

On July 30, 1915, Oswald Boelcke received a visit from the infantry at the Douai-Brayelle airfield. As he reported in a letter to his parents dated July 31, 1915, two old acquaintances from his time of service in Pontfaverger appeared: Leutnants Markus von Brixen and Friedrich Wilhelm John von Freyend (referred to by Boelcke as Leutnant von John), both in the Grenadier-Regiment „König Friedrich III.“ (2. Schlesisches) Nr. 11 (11th “King Frederick III” (2nd Silesian) Grenadier Regiment). Both had told him, according to Boelcke, something of the real war again. He himself was constantly flying over their fire trenches and always saw only the same abstract image from above.

The immense horrors of everyday wartime life unexpectedly struck the young women, mostly from good families and raised in sheltered circumstances, who volunteered as nurses in the military hospitals at the front.

Both officers who had visited Oswald Boelcke in Douai-Brayelle were killed only a short time later. Both died in the same September week of 1915 in the heavy fighting around the Vimy-Höhen. Leutnant (second lieutenant) John von Freyend was killed on September 26, von Brixen on September 28, 1915. The first was 18 years old, the second died in his twentieth year.

On the German side, it was initially two pilots whose names became known to a wider public with the phenomenon of the fighter monoplane: Max Immelmann and Oswald Boelcke, both serving with FFA 62 in Douai. Both were in a constant race for the highest number of victories, which the press dubbed “Ace Race”. On January 12, 1916, Immelmann and Boelcke were jointly awarded the Pour le Mérite. Until then, this highest military decoration had been reserved for generals. Now it was also to be awarded to subaltern officers for exceptional bravery. The number of aerial victories required for an award, initially 8, and 16 at the end of the war, was steadily driven upward by extraordinary pilots like these two young men.

Winter 1915/1916 – Turning Point

In contrast to the German press, which continued to cultivate the myth of the invincible monoplanes, German pilots at the front experienced the rapid expiration date of technical superiority. Already in the winter of 1915/16, isolated examples of the newly developed, agile Nieuport 11 “Bébé”, sesquiplane biplanes, had appeared on the French side. With a Lewis machine gun mounted above the top wing, this model bypassed the synchronization problem of earlier aircraft types. The British responded with pusher propeller designs such as the Airco DH.2 and the two-seat F.E.2b, in which the engine and propeller were located behind the pilot, allowing the machine gun to be freely operated forward. At the beginning of 1916, these French and English models were clearly superior to the current Fokker E.III in rate of climb, maneuverability, and field of fire.

Boelcke recorded and named this turning point. In an operational report dated March 24, 1916, which he sent from Sivry-sur-Meuse to the Chief of Field Aviation, he described the new Fokker E.IV, which was equipped with a 160 hp twin-radial engine Oberursel U.III. The aircraft, specially designed as a response to the new Allied models, lost so much climbing performance above 3,000 meters according to Boelcke that the agile Nieuports could escape simply by climbing. Boelcke also rejected the experimental mounting of the machine guns at a 15-degree upward angle as unsuitable. The line of fire no longer coincided with the line of flight; in combat, the pilot had to calculate a lead instead of being able to aim straight at the target as before. Boelcke demanded a return to weapons rigidly mounted in the direction of flight and the development of light, agile biplane models with an inline engine.

The inline engine design that Boelcke had demanded only found its realization in the summer of 1916 in the form of the aircraft models Albatros D.I and D.II. Both models were to completely change German aerial warfare tactics. Until then, however, the German Air Service remained dependent on the technically inferior Fokker models, even over the battlefield of Verdun.

Kampfeinsitzer-Kommandos – Birth of Modern Fighter Aviation

The transition from the solo aviator to the fighter formation was not an idea of high-ranking staff officers at the map table, but rather the result of a longer practical process of experience that had begun in the summer of 1915 and culminated in 1916 in the creation of the fighter squadrons (Jastas). Oswald Boelcke was one of the key actors.

In 1915, individual Fokker monoplanes served only as escort protection for the two-seater aircraft of the field aviation detachments during their reconnaissance flights. Aerial combat was not sought, but was merely a byproduct. The strict instruction not to reveal the secret of the interrupter gear through the loss of aircraft necessitated the strict prohibition of flying over the front. Boelcke overrode this directive on his own initiative. As one of the first pilots, he deliberately went in search of opponents over enemy territory as well.

With the growing number of Fokker monoplanes and pilots specially trained on this aircraft type, the operational reality changed.Von der Lieth-Thomsen had been pushing the concentration of Fokker single-seaters at special front-line airfields since the autumn of 1915. The formations resulting from this were designated „Kampfeinsitzer-Kommando“, abbreviated as „KEK“. The first of these commands, such as KEK Vaux, KEK Avillers, KEK Jametz, KEK Cunel, and finally also KEK Sivry, were formed between late autumn 1915 and spring 1916.

The FFAs were classic reconnaissance units and were always tactically assigned to a specific army corps. The new KEKs became the precursor to the later fighter squadrons (Jastas). With these, aerial combat was to be tactically standardized as an independent task. The KEKs were not independent military units. They merely pooled personnel and equipment. Their pilots formally remained members of the original field aviation detachments. The technical equipment was procured and managed by changing staffs. Operational orders came from a wide variety of aviation or army command headquarters depending on the situation. The mistrust of many general staff officers toward a new technology that did not yet have a secure place in the circle of traditional weapons and combat doctrine was still enormous.

Oswald Boelcke recognized the impracticality of this construct. After an illness in February 1916 and his discharge from the military hospital Montmédy, he was assigned to KEK Jametz in the rear area of the 5. Armee (Fifth Army). Already after a few days, the spatial problem of this location became apparent. The airfield was far too far behind the front. By the time an operational order reached the pilots and machines could take off, the enemy aircraft had long since vanished behind their own lines. Boelcke turned to the staff officer of the aviation (Stofl) of the 5. Armee, Hauptmann (captain) Wilhelm Haehnelt, and received permission to look for an airfield closer to the front. His choice fell on the village of Sivry-sur-Meuse, eleven kilometers behind the German front lines at Verdun and a similar distance away from the equally fiercely contested front sectors at Toten Mann and on Hill 304 on the west bank of the Meuse.

Beginnings in Sivry – War and Everyday Life

Thus Boelcke was able to establish contact with infantry officers of the Verdun front. Boelcke used the conversations to discuss the tactical cooperation of the aviators with the ground troops.

Even in this initially deceptive idyll, the war exacted its toll. On April 21, 1916, Good Friday, Leutnant Notzke was fatally injured in an accident near the road toward Consenvoye.

On March 12, 1916, at 11:30, Boelcke forced one of them to land about one kilometer west of Marre during an air combat with two Farman biplanes over the Côte de Talou. The apparatus was broken in the process. The aircraft was destroyed by German artillery, as was a French car that had come from the direction of Verdun for towing.

Early summer over Verdun – Fokker Squadron Sivry

In late April 1916, Boelcke returned to Sivry from a short leave home. On that day, for the first time in weeks, French airplanes appeared near the airfield. Boelcke was too late for the initial scramble. During the subsequent mission into the eastern sector of the Verdun front, he blundered into an ongoing engagement between a single German Fokker pilot and three Frenchmen. Boelcke engaged one of the enemy aviators, who turned out to be an unusually skillful pilot. After several attacks from behind, the enemy aircraft stalled over its wing. According to a report by the 14. Reserve-Division (14th Reserve Division) responsible for that front sector, it crashed vertically into a patch of woods behind enemy lines, southwest of Fort Vaux. It was Boelcke’s fourteenth aerial victory. Already on the evening of May 1, 1916, the fifteenth followed. An enemy biplane appeared within sight of the airfield. Boelcke took off immediately, positioned himself behind the aircraft, and ended the combat in barely two minutes with his onboard machine gun.

In the following weeks, the picture changed again. On May 2, 1916, Boelcke forced yet another Frenchman near Charny to land behind enemy lines. However, further aerial combats could no longer be successfully concluded in the following days and weeks, an unfamiliar experience for Boelcke. The reason was that the French, in view of massive losses of aircraft, had changed their tactics. They now flew their reconnaissance missions higher, banded together in formations, reinforced their escort protection, and no longer penetrated as deep into enemy territory.

Boelcke reacted creatively to the shortened reaction times necessitated by this change in tactics. He had the airfield connected by telephone lines to observation posts close to the front. Reports about approaching opponents thus reached the pilots significantly earlier, and the machines could take off as long as an interception attempt was still worthwhile. Today, this improvisation is considered one of the earliest forms of ground-based aerial warfare.

May 21, 1916, brought Oswald Boelcke a double success. Around noon, Boelcke flew barrier patrols on both sides of the Meuse and discovered two very low-flying French Caudrons over Dead Man’s Hill. As he attacked the first machine, he noticed a Nieuport diving down from a greater altitude. He feigned a flight to the north, let the pursuer come within 200 meters, suddenly turned in, and shot down the surprised opponent head-on from about 100 meters. The crash was observed by the German infantry at Dead Man’s Hill. Confirmation came in the evening via the staff officer of the flyers. That same evening, Boelcke lured another Frenchman over the Bois de Hesse, likewise through a simulated retreat, across the German lines. When the Frenchman recognized his opponent, he tried to flee. Boelcke kept the enemy aircraft under fire until the machine exploded in the air and fell to the ground. They were victories 17 and 18 in one day.

Boelcke only learned of the consequences on his way home on leave. In Köthen, where he was waiting for the connecting train to Dessau, he read the latest army report in a shop window. Boelcke had achieved his 17th and 18th aerial victory. His Majesty the Emperor had promoted him to Hauptmann in recognition of his achievements. The twenty-five-year-old Oswald Boelcke was thus up to that point the youngest Hauptmann in the Prussian army. Contrary to the planned rest, the days at home turned into a triumphal procession with all accompanying phenomena: deputations, a serenade by the replacement battalion, lunch with the duke, daily visits by the populace in front of his parents’ house.

On June 12, 1916, Boelcke was back in Sivry and found an order there that stringently continued the development that had begun. He was to set up a permanent Fokker squadron consisting of six machines at the Sivry-sur-Meuse airfield. June 30, 1916, was scheduled as the start of duty. Leutnant Ernst Hess was assigned to support him. As Boelcke wrote to his parents, the initiative did not come from him, but from the leadership of field aviation. In retrospect, the Fokkerstaffel Sivry thus created marks the immediate precursor to the permanent fighter squadrons of the late summer of 1916, still without established status, but with uniform leadership, its own economic operation, and the intention of coordinated employment.

In the final days of June before the scheduled start of duty, a significant premiere took place over the Meuse bend. An excitedly landed German reconnaissance plane reported “six Americans” over the front. After further sightings, it became clear that these were aircraft of the Escadrille N 124 (later Escadrille Américaine or Escadrille Lafayette) formed a few weeks earlier, a French volunteer squadron in which American pilots served, partly with American insignia. In combat with one of the enemy apparatuses, both machine guns of Boelcke’s Fokker, which had freshly come from the factory, failed. Boelcke could only escape being shot down by feigning a hit. The following day, this prompted the opposing radio service to report that the famous Hauptmann Boelcke had been shot down over Verdun.

Immelmann’s Death and Imperial Flying Ban

On the evening of June 18, 1916, near the village of Hénin-Beaumont in the Pas-de-Calais department, Max Immelmann was killed, who, after 17 aerial victories alongside Boelcke, was the second widely known face of the Fokker era. The circumstances of his death have not been fully clarified to this day. On the British side, the success was attributed to the crew of an F.E.2b of No. 25 Squadron. The German investigation concluded that the crash had been caused by a defect in the synchronizer gear. Boelcke shared this assessment. The moral impact of Immelmann’s loss was considerable on both friend and foe.

Boelcke had traveled to Douai for the funeral service, where Max Immelmann’s body lay in state in the courtyard of the military hospital. Boelcke used his stay in Douai for his own combat flights, among other things with a newly developed Halberstadt D.I biplane. Because of their similarity to the English B.E., the Halberstadt models enabled surprise attacks at the beginning of their deployment, especially since national insignia and individual markings of the pilots were still missing. Two opponents escaped Boelcke heavily damaged behind enemy lines. More relevant for Boelcke was the realization that, contrary to the practice he had pushed for in Sivry, even at larger airfields such as the one in Douai, tactical cooperation with the infantry or even among multiple combat pilots was still not really functioning. In an operational report, he recorded these deficiencies and stated that rapid changes were necessary.

Having returned to Sivry, Boelcke found a telegram waiting for him. He was to report immediately to the Chief of Field Aviation, Oberstleutnant Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen. However, his hope for a transfer of KEK Sivry to the Second Army, on whose front the Allied Somme Offensive was already foreseeable in the spring of 1916, was not fulfilled. During the meeting at the seat of the OHL in Charleville-Mézières, von der Lieth-Thomsen informed him that, in accordance with imperial orders, Boelcke had to remain on the ground for the time being. One could not afford another notable loss because of the already tense mood among the troops and for propaganda reasons vis-à-vis the home front. Rather, he should go on a journey. A comprehensive journey to the Balkans and the Orient was agreed upon, during which Boelcke was to visit German aviation units on the fronts there and fulfill other diplomatic duties.

Oswald Boelcke had a day and a half of flying time left until his scheduled departure. On the evening of June 27, 1916, despite bad weather and a flying ban, he took off twice, encountered an opponent on the second flight near Douaumont, and attacked without being able to observe the outcome in the falling darkness. He deliberately did not report the forbidden combat. The next afternoon he read in the radio dispatch service that a French aircraft had been shot down over Douaumont the previous evening. Since he was the only one who had taken off, it could only have been his aerial combat. Confirmation came the following morning. It was Boelcke’s nineteenth victory. It was to be the last one during his time on the Verdun front.

Before his departure for the East, Boelcke promoted his four mechanics to Gefreite and awarded three of them the Iron Cross, Second Class. The Emperor invited him to lunch in Charleville and greeted him with the mocking remark that he had finally been “put on a leash”. In the courtyard of headquarters, he encountered Chief of the General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn, who likewise could not suppress his satisfaction over the national hero now pinned to the ground. Boelcke had been forced into passivity, as he noted in a letter to his parents written on July 4, 1916, at the very moment when Allied air superiority at the beginning of the Somme Offensive became obvious.

Dicta Boelcke – Grammar of Air Combat

Boelcke spent the short time before his departure, at von der Lieth-Thomsen’s request, on the staff of the Chief of Field Aviation in Charleville working out the foundations of future fighter aviation. Boelcke put down in writing by hand what he had learned in a year of single combat over Flanders, Champagne, and Verdun. The result was a concise collection of rules. In military practice and literature, they still bear the name Dicta Boelcke today. Their content can be summarized in the following sentences:

– Secure all advantages before the attack, preferably with the sun at your back.
– Always carry out an initiated attack to the end.
– Shoot only at short range, and furthermore only when the opponent is securely in your sights.
– Do not lose sight of the opponent and do not let yourself be deceived by feints.
– Begin attacks, whenever possible, from behind.
– Do not evade the attack of a diving opponent, but fly toward him.
– Always keep your own return path in mind over enemy territory.
– Attack in groups of four or six; if the combat breaks down into individual skirmishes, ensure that not everyone dives upon the same opponent.

For the experienced among the combat pilots, these rules of conduct were already matters of course in daily practice. What was new, however, was the form. For the first time, such specifications for aerial combat were systematically written down, reproduced, and made the binding training foundation of the emerging air forces. Until then, such uniform rules existed in the form of the “Regulations for Trench Warfare for All Arms” issued in April 1916 for the various branches of the army. No one in the summer of 1916 could have guessed that Boelcke’s eight sentences, which seemed banal at the time, would outlive generations of pilots and all technical revolutions of aviation and remain the basis of fighter pilot training for all nations to this day.

A source-critical note: The “memorandum” by Boelcke mentioned in the literature regarding the expansion and organization of the Jagdstaffeln (fighter squadrons) never actually existed. In the corresponding troop records and other military records, there is no evidence of such a paper. Contemporaries from that time, including the Chief of Field Aviation (Chef des Feldflugwesens) von der Lieth-Thomsen, could not recall any such memorandum by Boelcke.

Apparently, this document is a writing published only in 1917, thus after Boelcke’s death, under the title “Experiences in Air Combat. Jagdstaffel Boelcke”. The multiply revised typewritten draft is located in the Federal Archives as part of a bundle of documents under the signature N 965/1. It bears the letterhead of Jagdstaffel Boelcke, is addressed to the Commander of Aviation (Kommandeur der Flieger), and deals with the training and activity of fighter pilots. The author was not Oswald Boelcke, but Oberleutnant Fritz Otto Bernert, who commanded Jasta 2 from June 9 to August 18, 1917. Various handwritten corrections and insertions also originate from him. The main tactical section is written in the first person and describes the aerial combat tactics outlined there as those tested by the author in numerous cases. Attached is a compilation dated September 20, 1917, regarding the identification and combat of the various enemy aircraft types. For the German side, this is consistently based on the Albatros D.III and D.V, so that this part chronologically could only have been created under Bernert’s successor Erwin Böhme.

Oswald Boelcke’s Trip to the Orient – via Vienna to the Dardanelles

On July 10, 1916, Boelcke, accompanied by his orderly Fischer, began the ordered journey to the east. Via Budapest, which he reached from Vienna by Danube steamer, he traveled by the Balkan Train to Belgrade, Niš, Sofia, and further to Constantinople. He arrived there on July 14, 1916. The following day, Enver Pasha received him at the Great Headquarters and personally awarded him the Iron Crescent. This was followed by visits to German naval stations on the Bosphorus, including on the battlecruiser (“Großer Kreuzer”) Goeben anchored off Constantinople.

On July 20, 1916, Boelcke reached Smyrna, today’s Izmir, where he met with the marshal of the Ottoman army Liman von Sanders, victor of the Dardanelle battle, and the flying ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke, as a combat flyer alongside Immelmann and Boelcke the third recipient of the “Pour le Mérite”. The flight requested by Boelcke with Buddecke to the former front was denied to him upon the precautionary instructions of the Kaiser. Thus Boelcke traveled further to Tschanak by sea and land. From July 28 to 30, 1916, he inspected Gallipoli as a passenger in a biplane. Further flights over the ancient sites of Troy and Sedd-ül-Bahr followed.

The telegram stated that Boelcke had to return as quickly as possible to organize a newly forming flying unit. Without more detailed information, yet equipped with the authority to choose his own pilots, he selected the first two candidates while still in Kowel. On the recommendation of his brother Wilhelm, these were the already 37-year-old Reserveleutnant (second lieutenant) Erwin Böhme and a young Ulanenleutnant (second lieutenant) named Manfred von Richthofen. The latter had proven to be talented in various missions. Böhme became Boelcke’s closest friend, von Richthofen his most famous pupil.

Boelcke’s return journey consisted of further hurried duty visits. On August 15, 1916, he traveled to Brest-Litovsk. At the local headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief East (Ober Ost), Boelcke reported to Erich Ludendorff and sat at table between him and Paul v. Hindenburg. Via Warsaw and Vilna, he traveled to Berlin and arrived in Dessau on August 20, 1916, where he stayed for a short visit in his parental home.

Battle of the Somme – KEKs become Jastas

What called Boelcke back to the Western Front was the complete reversal of the balance of power in the sky. Allied air units controlled the airspace above the offensive front between the Somme and the Ancre at will. Against the numerically superior and by then also technologically more advanced aircraft, the roughly 30 German single-seat fighters of the Somme sector were powerless. Enemy squadrons, at times consisting of several dozen aircraft, operated unhindered above and behind the German lines. The infantry was left completely exposed to machine gun fire and bombing. Reconnaissance flights for the artillery had become an impossibility.

The Supreme Army Command drew the conclusion in early August 1916 that had already been taking shape over the winter. By O.H.L. decree of August 10, 1916, six existing *Kampfeinsitzer-Kommandos* (single-seat fighter commands) were converted into authorized *Jagdstaffeln* (fighter squadrons). Units were created with their own personnel, their own administration, and an initial authorized strength of 14 combat aircraft each. A seventh squadron was to be raised from scratch. It was designated number 2, placed under the command of the *1. Armee* (1st Army), and was to be led by Oswald Boelcke.

Leutnant d.R. von Arnim was killed operating from the Bertincourt airfield as early as August 28, 1916, during the last reconnaissance mission for the releasing FA A 207. His name opened the casualty list of Jasta 2, even though von Arnim was never officially in action for it. Jasta 1, established only a few days earlier from the holdings of KEK B(ertincourt) under Hauptmann Martin Zander, supported the formation of Jasta 2 with another officer, Leutnant Otto Höhne. Some aircraft mechanics were also transferred. Höhne came from KEK Nord and had served with Jasta 1 for just six days. In the course of August 1916, Leutnant Ernst Diener from Kampfgeschwader (KG) Nr. 6 and Leutnant Winand Grafe, also from KEK Nord, reported for duty.

On September 22, 1916, Jasta 1 transferred to Hermies and from there on October 27, 1916, further to Proville near Cambrai. At the same time, Jasta 2 changed its location to the airfield near Lagnicourt. An airfield “Bertigny,” as it is sometimes called in connection with Jasta 1 and partially also Jasta 2, did not exist. Both fighter squadrons were stationed for four weeks on the same airfield between Bertincourt and Vélu.

He was joined by Offizierstellvertreter (acting officer) Max Müller, 29 years old. He had already completed 160 combat flights and received both classes of the Iron Cross. Like Feldwebel (first sergeant) Leopold Reimann, he transferred from Betincourt to Vélu “straight across the airfield”.

Feldwebel Leopold Reimann, who had brought the Albatros over from Bertincourt, originated from Oberhohnsdorf near Zwickau and had come to aviation via Pionier-Bataillon Nr. 12 (12th Pioneer Battalion). He too had flown Fokker monoplanes with KEK B and on such a technologically outdated machine achieved Jasta 1’s first aerial victory on August 24, 1916. On September 8, 1916, the aforementioned Leutnant d.R. Erwin Böhme and Oberleutnant Günther Viehweger followed. With this, the squadron was at full personnel strength, although only three machines were available at the time. Boelcke did not want to wait for further aircraft.

Jasta 2 and the End of the Imperial Flight Ban

On September 2, 1916, Sedan Day and exactly on the second anniversary of his arrival at the front, Boelcke made his first flight after the end of the imperial flight ban. Two days later, he wrote to his parents that they probably had already read about his twentieth aerial victory. He had flown peacefully behind his own front, ignored a higher-flying opponent, and a little later west of Bapaume encountered a British reconnaissance B.E. biplane with three Vickers single-seaters as escort. He had targeted the B.E., but was disturbed by the other three and initiated a retreat. One of the escorts had followed him. Later, over German territory, he engaged this opponent in a victorious combat. The official combat report dates the fight to the evening and mentions further details: After a brief dogfight, Boelcke’s opponent went down northeast of Thiepval. The aircraft burned out on the ground, and the occupant was captured.

The opponent was Captain Robert Eric Wilson of No. 32 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps. His account, written down in captivity, read as follows. He had seen a German single-seater that was about to attack one of the slow B.E.s. He had arrived just in time to rescue them. After a few shots, the German had turned away and flown homeward. He had not been able to recognize which German pilot it was and had been foolish enough to follow him. In doing so, he had not noticed that the German only wanted to lure him deeper into German territory. About 25 kilometers behind the German lines, the opponent had suddenly turned around and attacked him with incredible speed. The German had flown a new, unfamiliar aircraft with unexpectedly high speed and climb rate. The German had shot away all but two of his control cables, smashed the throttle, shot holes in the fuel tank, and finally into his gasoline-soaked coat. Only about 15 meters above the ground had he been able to recover the aircraft and save himself while on fire. Later he had learned that the opponent was Oswald Boelcke. It was a comfort to him to have been defeated by Boelcke of all people, and he was glad that he had survived in an almost miraculous manner.

September 1916 – Drill and Team Spirit

While no further aircraft were available, the flight operations of Jasta 2 with its three aircraft were restricted to solo actions. In the week of September 8 to 15, 1916, Boelcke achieved victories 21 to 26 alone, in pairs, or in threes with Böhme and von Richthofen. A D.H.2 over Flers, whose explosion in the immediate vicinity splattered his own aircraft and him with oil; the next day, an opponent going down in flames over Bapaume; and on September 14 and 15, 1916, two successes each against British formations between Morval, Driencourt, and Hervilly. On the evening of September 15, 1916, Boelcke stood at a remarkable 26 confirmed aerial victories.

In a letter from these days, Boelcke replied to his mother, who felt that “numbering” the opponents was heartless, that it was not the fallen who were being counted, but the disabled aircraft. A victory remained a victory, even if the crew escaped uninjured. Success did not become more valuable if the enemy pilots lost their lives. One had nothing against the individual man, but fought only to prevent him from flying against one’s own side.

On September 16, 1916, the pilots retrieved six new Albatros aircraft of the D.I and D.II series from Cambrai. These models were light, agile biplanes with a water-cooled 160 hp six-cylinder inline engine of the Mercedes D.III type. Both models differed only in their wing bracing and the cooling technology used. Both had two rigidly forward-firing, synchronized, and air-cooled LMG 08/15s. The double firepower and a significantly higher speed and rate of climb made the German aviators superior to their opponents over the Somme battlefield once again. Still on the evening after the transfer, Lt. Höhne achieved another aerial victory on one of the new machines.

September 17, 1916, is considered the actual birth of Jagdstaffel 2 (fighter squadron 2), as flight operations officially began on that day. The war diary records 13 sorties, 5 air combats, and 4 victories. In the morning, Lt. (second lieutenant) Böhme defeated his first opponent. During a flight in formation—the first deliberately planned mission of a closed formation of three aircraft under Boelcke’s leadership—a British bomber squadron returning from the German rear area was cut off. Boelcke forced the lead aircraft, recognizable by its pennants, to land near Équancourt. The crew was taken prisoner. It was Boelcke’s 27th aerial victory. On that day, Lt. Hans Reimann achieved another and Lt. von Richthofen his first confirmed aerial victory for Jasta 2.

During these weeks, not only did a numerically fixed flying formation emerge, but also a meticulously running system, as is still a fundamental standard in all fighter units today. Before every takeoff was the briefing by the squadron leader (Briefing). After every flight, especially after every air combat, followed the analysis and critique (Debriefing). A captured and almost undamaged English single-seater served as an illustrative object during these mission briefings. The photograph that Lt. Böhme took of this machine, with Oswald Boelcke and Lt. Manfred von Richthofen in front of it and Lt. Höhne sitting in the cockpit, is today among the most famous photographs of Jasta 2.

In the night of September 23, 1916, Jasta 2 relocated from Vélu to the airfield near Lagnicourt, located about eight kilometers further north. English aviators had reconnoitered and repeatedly attacked the Bertincourt/Vélu airfield. Boelcke himself was incapacitated at the time by an asthma attack.

Alongside all successes, the increasingly intense operations claimed their victims. As the first pilot to actually fly for Jasta 2, Lt. (second lieutenant) Winand Grafe was killed. He was 22 years old. Lt. Hans Reimann was the next pilot to be killed as early as the evening of September 23, 1916. Lt. Ernst Diener was killed on the morning of September 30, 1916, near Bapaume in combat against a French Nieuport. On October 1, 1916, Lt. Herwarth Philipps was also killed near Bapaume.

The monthly report that Boelcke submitted for September 1916 listed 186 front-line flights, 69 air combats, and 25 aerial victories. Remarkable figures, considering that Jasta 2 could only fly at full strength starting September 17, 1916. By the end of the month, Boelcke himself had achieved 29 confirmed aerial victories. With Lt. d.R. (second lieutenant) von Arnim, a total of four pilots had been killed so far.

October 1916 – the High Point

In October 1916, the operational figures for Jasta 2 increased significantly once again. On the afternoon of October 7, 1916, Boelcke took off with five other aircraft on a patrol flight and brought down a Nieuport two-seater about two kilometers east of Morval. The aircraft exploded in the air and crashed in flames behind the French lines. For October 10, 1916, the war diary records 31 takeoffs, 18 aerial combats, and five aerial victories achieved by Lt. d.R. Erwin Böhme, OffzStv. Max Müller, Lt. Hans Imelmann, Lt. Manfred von Richthofen, and Oswald Boelcke himself. On October 22, 1916, there were 33 takeoffs, 17 aerial combats, and six aerial victories. For the pilots, this workload meant up to seven takeoffs per day.

The photo above shows Boelcke in the autumn of 1916 shortly after returning from a combat mission at the airfield near Lagnicourt, in the midst of other officers of his squadron. Boelcke’s soot-blackened chin is clearly visible. According to a documented account by a squadron comrade, a ritual supposedly existed in this regard. As soon as Boelcke had climbed out of his aircraft upon returning from a fighter patrol, the other pilots would gather expectantly and ask him: “Well, Herr Hauptmann, got another one?”. To this, Boelcke always replied with a counter-question: “Do I have a black chin?”. If Boelcke’s chin was blackened, it was clear that he had used his machine guns and in all probability had also achieved an aerial victory.

On October 25 and 26, 1916, Boelcke’s aerial victories 39 and 40 followed. Until then, no aviator across any nation had achieved such a high number. No opponent had ever defeated Boelcke. General Ernst von Hoeppner, since October 8, 1916 the first Commanding General of the Air Forces (Kogenluft), commented on Boelcke’s role. The fact that the oppressive enemy air superiority at the beginning of the Battle of the Somme could be broken was, according to Hoeppner, to a considerable extent the merit of Oswald Boelcke and his Jasta 2. Their offensive spirit and cooperation had become the model for all German fighter squadrons.

According to unverified statements by his batman Fischer, something is said to have occurred on the evening of the following day that in retrospect seemed like a premonition. Oswald Boelcke had appeared pensive, left the officers’ mess unusually early, and retired to his room. There he had sat down by the fireplace and stared into the flames for a while. Then he had asked Fischer to put a record on the gramophone. It was said to have been the song “Father, Mother, Sisters, Brothers, I no longer have in the world“, sung by Hermann Schramm. A little later, Lt. Erwin Böhme had entered and asked if he could keep the Hauptmann company. The two had sat by the fireplace for a long time and talked. When Fischer pointed out shortly after midnight that it was late and time to sleep, Boelcke inquired about the duty roster for the coming day, wished him good night, and went to bed.

The End – October 28, 1916

On the evening of October 28, 1916, Oswald Boelcke’s sister Luise in Dessau received a telegram from her brother Wilhelm with the following brief wording:

Prepare parents: Oswald fatally crashed today over the German lines.
Wilhelm.

What had happened? The day, a Saturday, brought low-hanging clouds, rain and sleet showers. As early as 07:00 in the morning, enemy aircraft were reported. Boelcke took off multiple times during the morning without being embroiled in an aerial combat. Around 16:30, he and Lt. d.R. Böhme were sitting over a game of chess in the alert hut when a call for help came in from the front. The infantry reported an English attack. On Boelcke’s orders, the Staffel took off. It was his sixth takeoff that day.

Over Flers, the Staffel encountered several single-seat Airco D.H.2s of Squadron No. 24. The English formation was led by Major Lanoe Hawker, the first British fighter pilot to be awarded the Victoria Cross. Following their tried-and-tested pattern, the German pilots attempted to alternately cut off their opponents’ paths and force them down to lower altitudes. Boelcke and Böhme attacked the same opponent when suddenly another English aviator, pursued by Lt. Manfred von Richthofen, crossed directly in front of them. Both took evasive action, Boelcke downward, Böhme upward. According to Böhme’s report written three days later, the two aircraft had nevertheless touched. It was said to have been only a light grazing collision. Böhme lost part of the landing gear, and the outermost piece of Boelcke’s upper left wing was reportedly torn off.

Regarding the exact course of events, later German accounts diverge. The official report by the deputy Staffel leader, Olt. Stefan Kirmaier, attributed the contact to the fact that Boelcke, while pressing the opponent, grazed Böhme’s aircraft. Karl Bolle, who came to Jasta 2 “Boelcke” (Jagdstaffel 2) as commander in February 1918 and was not himself involved in the event, wrote in a chronicle of the association published in 1923 that Böhme’s landing gear had hit Boelcke’s wing. The exact details could not be clarified.

Manfred v. Richthofen walked ahead with the cushion for the medals. At the train station of Cambrai, the coffin was laid out in state again. Speeches were given by General v. Below on behalf of the emperor and, as the new leader of Jasta 2 and promoted the day before, Hauptmann Stefan Kirmaier. An honor company, pulled from the trenches only that morning, fired a salute, and to the sounds of the song of the good comrade, the train departed in the direction of Germany.

During a short stop in Magdeburg, military music received the train. In Halberstadt, where Boelcke’s aviation career had begun in June 1914 at the local aviation school, comrades saluted on the platform as it passed through. On the evening of November 1, 1916, the train reached Dessau. The coffin was laid out in state in St. John’s Church, where Boelcke had been confirmed.

Sympathy for Boelcke’s death extended across all fronts and borders. A laurel wreath donated by four English aviators held as prisoners of war in Osnabrück was carried in the funeral procession. Among them was Captain Robert Eric Wilson, Boelcke’s twentieth opponent and, as described, his guest in the officers’ mess. Through the embassy, the Turkish Air Corps had sent a hundredweight-heavy wreath of gilded bronze in the shape of their aviation badge. On November 11, 1916, an aircraft of Squadron No. 3 of the Royal Flying Corps flew behind the German lines and dropped a wreath with an honorable dedication and a letter.

Manfred von Richthofen later rejected a comparison between the two pilots’ careers. He had merely been a combat pilot, whereas Oswald Boelcke was a hero. Lt. d.R. Erwin Böhme, suffering from depression following the events, withdrew from active service for a few weeks. After his reactivation, in 1917 he initially commanded Jagdstaffel 29 (Fighter Squadron 29) and eventually took over Jagdstaffel 2 „Boelcke“ (Fighter Squadron 2 „Boelcke“). On November 29, 1917, Erwin Böhme was killed at its head, exactly one year, one month, and one day after the death of his friend Oswald Boelcke.

The Boelcke Name Today – From Dessau to Fliegerhorst Nörvenich

From November 1944, it was renamed Kampfgeschwader (Jagd) 27 (Fighter Bomber Wing 27), abbreviated as KG (J) 27. At the beginning of 1945, the unit was relocated to the Upper Austrian air bases Wels, Raffelding, and Linz-Hörsching. The retraining on the new aircraft models Messerschmitt Bf 109 G/K and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A, necessary during active operations, dragged on until March 1945. During this phase, KG (J) 27 suffered such massive losses due to the pilots’ inexperience that regular flight operations were no longer possible. On April 8, 1945, the order was issued to disband the wing. Technicians, ground crews, and even flying personnel were deployed as infantry in various Wehrmacht units. Many members were killed in the final weeks of the war.

In the course of West German rearmament and the integration of the Federal Republic into NATO pushed by the USA, the air force of the new Bundeswehr was formed in 1956. Due to a lack of alternatives, the operational buildup relied personnel-wise on reactivated officers and pilots of the former Wehrmacht, while material equipment consisted of US-American aircraft. Due to the acute threat situation posed by the Warsaw Pact, the goal was the prompt provision of German air defense and, above all, air attack capabilities within the NATO alliance structure.

Geschwader Boelcke – Naming and Tradition Issues

With the founding of the Bundeswehr in 1955, Germany’s military and political leadership faced the task of establishing a new understanding of tradition, based on the specifications of the Basic Law, the principle of “Innere Führung,” and the image of the “citizen in uniform.” This process was marked by several contradictions. Standing against the unavoidable employment of former Wehrmacht officers, even in leading positions, was the political and social obligation to visibly distance themselves from the National Socialist regime. In this field of tension, it was necessary to find suitable namesakes for active combat units. The air force leadership in particular considered the establishment of exemplary military figures to be essential for creating cohesion and esprit de corps.

The conceptual design of the cultivation of tradition was the responsibility of the Air Force Staff and its first Inspector, Generalleutnant (major general) Josef Kammhuber. In his policy speech of April 21, 1961, Kammhuber functionally defined tradition as the “connection of the present to the past.” The military-sociological purpose of the personal historicization of individual units lay in linking current and future valid values to historical role models whom the soldiers should emulate.

Regardless of these reservations, the air force leadership ultimately made the decision to name the respective oldest units of the three new core branches accordingly. On April 21, 1961, the forty-third anniversary of Manfred von Richthofen’s death, the formal ceremony took place at Ahlhorn Air Base. By presenting cuff titles, three squadrons of the new air force officially received their traditional names. Jagdgeschwader 71, first commodore Oberstleutnant Erich Hartmann, was named after Manfred von Richthofen, Aufklärungsgeschwader 51, first commodore Oberstleutnant Walter Grasemann, after Max Immelmann, and Jagdbombergeschwader 31 under its first commodore Oberstleutnant Gerhard Barkhorn after Oswald Boelcke. Oberstleutnant Grasemann had temporarily served as squadron leader in the former Kampfgeschwader 27 “Boelcke” during the Second World War.

The pilots of the First World War, the naming of the corresponding air force units and also of other units and facilities remained unaffected by this, even if it leads to opposition in the political environment to this day. In 2020, the Left Party (Die Linke) parliamentary group in the German Bundestag demanded the complete departure from “historical traditional names” in the form of a minor interpellation, explicitly also with regard to Oswald Boelcke, Max Immelmann, and Manfred von Richthofen. This demand was rejected by the Federal Government with a detailed and well-worth-reading justification (Printed Matter 19/22096).

Boelcke Wing – Development to Date

The name Boelcke was retained by the wing through all re-equipments. JaboG 31 “Boelcke” in Nörvenich initially flew the Republic F-84F “Thunderstreak”. Starting in 1961, the unit transitioned to the Lockheed F-104G “Starfighter”, on which it achieved full operational readiness in 1962. JaboG 31 had to mourn 14 dead pilots with the aircraft type dubbed the “Widowmaker”. This was followed in 1983 by the Panavia Tornado and, since December 16, 2009, the Eurofighter Typhoon. On October 1, 2013, as part of the realignment of the Bundeswehr, the wing received its new designation Tactical Air Force Wing 31 (TaktLwG 31) “Boelcke”. Today, 30 Eurofighters are regularly stationed at Nörvenich Air Base. Since March 2012, the unit has maintained an alert detachment to secure German airspace.

For more than three decades, the Geschwader „Boelcke“ (“Boelcke” Wing) was among those units of the Luftwaffe that were intended to employ American nuclear weapons under nuclear sharing. This mission shaped daily operations, the structural design of the air base, and all aspects of training. Following the 1st Squadron (1. Staffel) of JaboG 33 (Fighter-Bomber Wing 33) in Büchel, JaboG 31 „Boelcke“ (Fighter-Bomber Wing 31 „Boelcke“) was equipped with nuclear weapons in 1962 as the second German unit. The explosive yield of the weaponry grew from eight kilotons with the F-84F to up to one megaton with the F-104G Starfighter. Beginning in 1975, the B61 multipurpose weapon, adjustable up to 43 megatons, was deployed. As late as 1989, four Panavia Tornado aircraft stood on constant nuclear alert in Nörvenich. With German reunification and the end of the East-West conflict in 1991, the underlying threat scenario ceased to apply, and with it Nörvenich’s character as a nuclear deployment air base.

Today, alongside its active function, Nörvenich is also a place of remembrance. The town and its surroundings bear the daily routine of a Eurofighter wing with its Cold War history. The population is constantly reminded of this epoch, the nuclear sharing of that time, and also today’s military mission by the ongoing aircraft noise.

Opened at the air base in 2006, a military history collection is dedicated to the historical person of Oswald Boelcke and, within the framework of the air base’s history, also critically examines the co-optation of his name during the Nazi era as well as the epoch of nuclear sharing. The collection is well worth seeing.

Currently (September 2026), the “Boelcke” Wing is indirectly involved in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. After Russian drones repeatedly penetrated Polish airspace in September 2025, it deployed several aircraft and personnel to Polish territory near the Russian Kaliningrad Oblast as part of NATO Operation Eastern Sentry, German for “Watch in the East”.

Nörvenich – A Street Sign Raises Questions

A more peaceful detail rounds off the topic and leads directly back to its beginnings.