Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,817
The First Shotdown!
On October 5, 1914, the French pilot Sergeant Joseph Frantz (front left) flies together with his gunner and observer Louis Quenault ...
... who is stationed at Escadrille 214 in Lhéry (Marne), flies with his "Voisin III" double-decker ...
... flies patrol in the sky near the city of Reims ...:
A few kilometers southwest of the city they meet a German reconnaissance aircraft of the type "Aviatik B.1" ...
... which is flown by Unteroffizier Wilhelm Schlichting, while the observer sitting in front of him, Lieutenant Fritz von Zangen, looks out for French troop movements on the ground ...:
Sergeant Frantz manages to maneuver his aircraft very close to the German reconnaissance aircraft - and the gunner Quenault, who is seated in the bow, can fire at the "Aviatik" with targeted bursts of his "Hotchkiss" machine gun ...:
The German plane crashes on fire, Schlichting and von Zangen, who, like all Fileger people of their time, are on the move without parachutes, perish...:
It is the first time in history that an airplane has been destroyed by someone else's machine gun fire in a dogfight!
Three days later the French papers "Le Temps" and "Le Figaro" will make a big deal out of it, which is why we still know the names of those involved ...
On October 5, 1914, the French pilot Sergeant Joseph Frantz (front left) flies together with his gunner and observer Louis Quenault ...
... who is stationed at Escadrille 214 in Lhéry (Marne), flies with his "Voisin III" double-decker ...
... flies patrol in the sky near the city of Reims ...:
A few kilometers southwest of the city they meet a German reconnaissance aircraft of the type "Aviatik B.1" ...
... which is flown by Unteroffizier Wilhelm Schlichting, while the observer sitting in front of him, Lieutenant Fritz von Zangen, looks out for French troop movements on the ground ...:
Sergeant Frantz manages to maneuver his aircraft very close to the German reconnaissance aircraft - and the gunner Quenault, who is seated in the bow, can fire at the "Aviatik" with targeted bursts of his "Hotchkiss" machine gun ...:
The German plane crashes on fire, Schlichting and von Zangen, who, like all Fileger people of their time, are on the move without parachutes, perish...:
It is the first time in history that an airplane has been destroyed by someone else's machine gun fire in a dogfight!
Three days later the French papers "Le Temps" and "Le Figaro" will make a big deal out of it, which is why we still know the names of those involved ...
