On October 5, 1914 (100 years ago today), French pilot Sgt. Joseph Frantz and his mechanic/gunner, Cpl. Louis Quénault, shot down a German biplane a mere 600 feet above the startled French and German soldiers near Reims to record what is considered the first official aerial combat victory, with a machine gun, in history. The key in this encounter was the 8-millimeter Hotchkiss machine gun fixed to the front of the French Voison biplane. Mounted guns would soon be standard equipment for WWI combat aircraft, but when the head of Frantz’s V 24 escadrille had requested them for his squadron, he was at first ridiculed for his “Jules Verne” idea. The Hotchkiss proved its worth when Frantz got into a chase with a two-man German Aviatik biplane during a morning bombing mission near the village of Jonchery-sur-Vesle, not far from the trenches. Frantz recalled later that he saw the passenger in the enemy airplane ahead of him take out a rifle as Quénault fired 47 rounds, finally hitting the retreating Aviatik’s fuel tank. The Germans flamed, flipped over, spurting a cloud of burning gasoline, then dropping straight down trailing smoke and crashing in a swamp. In less then 10 minutes, it was over. The pilot, Wilhelm Schlichting, had been killed by a bullet. His observer, Fritz von Zangen, died in the crash. Sgt. Frantz, who lived to the age of 89 (dying in Paris in 1979), would later recall his enemies’ deaths without satisfaction. After the French pilot landed and arrived at the crash scene, souvenir hunters were already going through the wreckage, and someone handed Frantz a picture of one of the Germans. He handed it back moments later. The victory was applauded in the French press, and Frantz was awarded the Legion of Honour, while Quénault got the Médaille militaire. Part of the reason for their fame is that there had been so many witnesses. According to an account in the Daily Telegraph reprinted in Flight magazine on October 16, 1914, “All the French troops on the spot forgot the danger of passing shells, and jumped out of the trenches to watch the air fight.” The age of aerial combat had begun.
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 20:22:15 +0000
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