Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, July 1, 1915. Synchronization Gear.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, July 1, 1915. Synchronization Gear.: 

Thursday, July 1, 1915. Synchronization Gear.

South African forces under Louis Botha defeated German colonial forces at the Battle of Otavi in German South West Africa with assistance from Canada, Great Britain, Portugal and Portuguese Angola. 

The Battle of Gully Ravine started at Gallipoli.  Two Victoria Cross awards would occur due to today's actions.

German fighter pilot Kurt Wintgens became the first person to shoot down a plane using a machine gun equipped with synchronization gear, starting the "Fokker Scourge".

Of the event, he wrote:

Dear Karl:

Unfortunately I gave you the wrong address last time, for during my voyage to Mühlhausen I got a different destination and for the time being I am with the Bavarian (unit) Abteilung 6b. Up to now nothing of real interest happened. In Mannheim I had tested the machine and then from Strasbourg by air to the Front, where lately a (Morane) Parasol fighter monoplane à la Garros had made its presence felt.

I had flown to the Front a couple of times without seeing an opponent, until yesterday evening when the big moment came. Time: 6:00 o'clock. Place: east of Lunéville. Altitude: between 2,000 and 2,500 m. Suddenly I notice a monoplane in front of me, about 300 m higher. And at the same moment he had already dived in front of me, fiercely firing his machine gun decently. But as I, at once, dived in an opposite direction under him, he missed wildly. After four attacks I reached his altitude in a large turn, and now my machine gun did some talking. I attacked at such a close distance that we looked each other into the face.

After my third attack he did the most stupid thing that he could do – he fled. I turned the crate on the spot and had him at once, beautifully, in my (gun)sight. Rapid fire for about four seconds, and down went his nose. I could follow him until 500 meters, then, unfortunately, I was fired upon from the ground too hotly; the fight (now) being far over the French lines. Hopefully, I'll soon meet a biplane.

Cordial greetings and so long,

Your friend,

— Kurt"

He'd be killed in action in September, 1916.

The US Navy started the Office of Naval Aeronautics.

The United States Forest Service combined the Jemez National Forest and Pecos National Forest in northern New Mexico to establish the Santa Fe National Forest, which luckily for us today was not hacked up to be sold by Sen. Mike Lee.

The Moapa National Forest was absorbed into the Toiyabe National Forest in Nevada, which fortunately Mike Lee has to keep his hands off of for the time being.

New York City established in the Child Welfare Board.

Blues great Willie Dixon was born.

Last edition:

Wednesday, June 30, 1915. Armenian massacre.

Labels: Armenia, Armenian Genocide, boats and ships, French Army, Gallipoli, Mexican Revolution, Ottoman Army, Ottoman Empire, Shabin-Karahisar uprising, Texas (El Paso), Victoriano Huerta

Lex Anteinternet: May 8, 1920 Endings

Lex Anteinternet: May 8, 1920 Endings:

May 8, 1920 Endings

On this day in 1920, the Luftstreitkräfte, the World War One equivalent of the Luftwaffe, more or less, officially came to an end.

Disassembled German aircraft on display in London, 1918.

The organization, not surprisingly, had gone through several names and structures before achieving its final one in October 1916.  It did not include naval flyers, who remained in the navy, and its association with the German army was organizational such that it was part of the army.  It oddly did not include every German army pilot, however, as Bavaria retained an element of organizational control over men recruited from its territory, including at least theoretically its own air force.

After the German surrender it basically came to an end and its one and only commander, Ernst von Hoeppner, left his appointed position as its chief in January 1919 as part of the dissolution of the force in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles which prohibited the Germans from having military aircraft.  After that point it existed on paper until this day in 1920.

Ernst von Hoeppner, the commander of the Luftstreitkräfte from October 1916 until January 1919.  He returned to the cavalry branch from which he had come and retired in November 1919, dying from the flu at age 62 in 1922.

The German government did field aircraft as late as 1920 when it put down the Ruhr Rebellion, but those aircraft and their pilots were at least theoretically in the Freikorps.

On the German air arm and symbols, an interesting thing to note is how the stylized cross borrowed from the Teutonic Knights has evolved in the German air arm. From 1914 to 1915, it was the full cross pattée associated somewhat inaccurately with the Medieval crusading order that was painted on the sides and wings of German aircraft.  In reality, the Teutonic Knights only occasionally employed this style of cross, but it was heavil adopted by the German crown after unification of the country during the Franco Prussian War.

German cross pattée originally used on German aircraft.

In 1915, the cross pattée was slimmed down a bit for some reason.

Cross pattée used from 1915 until March 1918.

In March 1918, it was made a simple straight cross.

German aircraft symbol from March 1918 until the end of the war.

The revived Luftwaffe continued to use the simple cross throughout its existence from 1935 until 1945, in a modified form that added emphasis to the lines, but when the post war Luftwaffe was recreated, it went back, with the rest of the German military, to the cross pattée.