The Fokker Scourge (Fokker Scare) occurred during the First World War from July 1915 to early 1916.Franks 2001, p. 1. Imperial German Flying Corps () units, equipped with (Fokker monoplane) fighters, gained an advantage over the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the French .
The Fokker was the first service aircraft to be fitted with a machine gun synchronised to fire through the arc of the propeller without striking the blades. The tactical advantage of aiming the gun by aiming the aircraft and the surprise of its introduction were factors in its success.Kennett 1991, p. 110.
This period of German air superiority ended with the arrival in numbers of the French Nieuport 11 and British Airco DH.2 fighters, which were capable of challenging the Fokkers, although the last Fokkers were not finally replaced until August–September 1916.Bruce 1968, v.2, p. 20.
The term "Fokker Scourge" was coined by the British press in mid-1916, after the had been outclassed by the new Allied types.Robertson 2003, p. 103. Use of the term coincided with a political campaign to end a perceived dominance of the Royal Aircraft Factory in the supply of aircraft to the Royal Flying Corps, a campaign that was begun by the pioneering aviation journalist C. G. Grey and Noel Pemberton Billing M.P., founder of Pemberton-Billing Ltd (Supermarine from 1916) and a great enthusiast for aerial warfare.Hare 1990, pp. 91–102.
Background
Early air warfare
As aerial warfare developed, the Allies gained a lead over the Germans by introducing machine-gun armed types such as the Vickers F.B.5 Gunbus fighter and the Morane-Saulnier L.Cheesman 1960, p. 177.Bruce 1989, pp. 2–4. By early 1915, the German (OHL, Supreme Army Command) had ordered the development of machine-gun-armed aircraft to counter those of the Allies. The new "C" class, armed two-seaters and twin-engined "K" (later "G") class aircraft such as the AEG G.I were attached in ones and twos to (FFA) artillery-observation and reconnaissance detachments for "fighter" sorties, mostly the escort of unarmed aircraft.Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 18.Jones, 2002, p. 469
On 18 April 1915, the Morane-Saulnier L of Roland Garros was captured, after he was forced to land behind the German lines.Bruce 1989, p. 3. From 1April, Garros had destroyed three German aircraft in the Morane, which carried a machine-gun firing through the propeller arc. Saulnier had failed to develop a synchroniser and with Garros, as an interim solution, fitted metal wedges to the propeller; bullets that hit the blades were deflected by them.Cheesman 1960, p. 178. Garros burned his aircraft but this failed to conceal the nature of the device and the significance of the deflector blades. The German authorities requested several aircraft manufacturers, including that of Anthony Fokker, to produce a copy.
Synchronisation gear
The Fokker company produced the (push rod controller), a genuine synchronisation gear. Impulses from a cam driven by the engine controlled the timing of the machine-gun for its fire to be limited to the intervals between the propeller blades' travel past the barrel.Grosz 1989, p. 2. Unlike earlier proposed gears, the was fitted to an aircraft and proved effective. In a postwar biography, Fokker claimed that he produced the gear in 48hours but it was probably designed by Heinrich Lübbe, a engineer.Weyl 1965, p. 96. Among several pre-war patents for similar devices was that of Franz Schneider, a Swiss engineer who had worked for Nieuport and the German LVG company.Woodman 1989, pp. 180–183.
The device was fitted to the most suitable Fokker type, the Fokker M.5K (military type name "Fokker A.III"), of which A.16/15, assigned to Otto Parschau, became the prototype of the Fokker Eindecker series of fighter designs.*Gray and Thetford 1961, p. 83. Fokker demonstrated A.16/15 in May and June 1915 to German fighter pilots, including Kurt Wintgens, Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann.Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 9. The Fokker, with its typical controls, an over-sensitive balanced elevator and dubious lateral control, was difficult to fly; Parschau, who was experienced on FokkerA types, converted pilots to the new fighter.Immelmann 2009, p. 77.Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 10. The early were attached to FFAs, in ones and twos, to protect reconnaissance machines from Allied machine-gun-armed aircraft.
Operational service
Service début
Fokker E.5/15, the last of the pre-production series, is believed to have been first flown in action by Kurt Wintgens of FFA6.Van Wyngarden 2006, pp. 11–12. On 1and 4July 1915, he reported combats with French Morane-SaulnierL (Parasols), well over the French lines. The claims were not confirmed but research has shown that the first claim matches French records of a Morane forced down on 1July near Lunéville, with a wounded crew and a damaged engine, followed three days later by another.Van Wyngarden 2006, pp. 10–12. By 15July, Wintgens had moved to FFA48 and scored his first confirmed victory, another MoraneL.Franks 2001, pp. 10–11. Parschau had received the new E.1/15 (Fokker factory serial 191), the initial example of the five Fokker M.5K/MG service test examples for the line of aircraft, when the A.16/15 (green machine), he had flown since the beginning of the war, was returned to the Fokker Flugzeugbau factory in Schwerin–Gorries for development.Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 12.
By the end of July 1915, about fifteen were operational with various units, including the five M.5K/MGs and about ten early production E.I airframes. The pilots flew the new aircraft as a sideline, when not flying normal operations in two-seater reconnaissance aircraft. Boelcke, in FFA62, scored his first victory in an Albatros C.I on 4July.Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 13. M.5K/MG prototype airframe E.3/15, the first delivered to FFA62, was armed with a Parabellum MG14 gun, synchronised by the unreliable first version of the Fokker gear. At first, E.3/15 was jointly allocated to him and Immelmann when their "official" duties permitted, allowing them to master the type's difficult handling characteristics and to practice shooting at ground targets.Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 14. Immelmann was soon allocated a very early production Fokker E.I, E.13/15, one of the first armed with the lMG 08 (a lightened version of the MG08 Spandau) machine-gun, using the more reliable production version of the Fokker gear.Woodman 1989, pp. 180–183.
The Scourge begins
The Fokker Scourge is usually considered by the British to have begun on 1August, when B.E.2cs of 2 Squadron Royal Flying Corps (RFC) bombed the base of FFA62 at waking the German pilots, including Boelcke (most likely, still with E 3/15) and Immelmann (flying E 13/15), who were quickly into the air after the raiders. Boelcke suffered a jammed gun but Immelmann caught up with a B.E.2c and shot it down. This aircraft was flown as a bomber, without an observer or Lewis gun, the pilot armed only with an automatic pistol. After about ten minutes of manoeuvring (giving the lie to exaggerated accounts of the stability of B.E.2 aircraft) Immelmann had fired 450rounds, which riddled the B.E. and wounded the pilot in the arm.Van Wyngarden 2006, p. 15. By late October, towards the end of the Battle of Loos, more Fokkers (including the similar Pfalz E-type fighters, which were also called Fokkers by Allied airmen) were encountered by RFC pilots and by December, forty Fokkers were in service.Franks 2001, p. 59.Jones, 2002, p. 144Wise, 1981, p. 355
In the new fighters, pilots could make long, steep dives, aiming the fixed, synchronised machine-gun by aiming the aircraft. The machine gun was belt-fed, unlike the drum-fed Lewis guns of their opponents, who had to change drums when in action. The Fokker pilots took to flying high and diving on their quarry, usually out of the sun, firing a long burst and continuing the dive until well out of range. If the British aircraft had not been shot down, the German pilot could climb again and repeat the process. Immelmann invented the Immelmann turn, a zoom after the dive, followed by a roll when vertical to face the opposite way, after which he could turn to attack again.Jones, 2002, p. 150 +RFC aircraft losses(June 1915to January 1916)Wise, 1981, p. 355 Month Total June 6 July 15 August 10 September 14 October 12 November 16 December 17 January 30 Total 120 The mystique acquired by the Fokker was greater than its material effect and in October, RFC HQ expressed concern at the willingness of pilots to avoid combat. RFC losses were exacerbated by the increase in the number of aircraft at the front, from 85 to 161 between March and September, the hard winter of 1915–1916 and some aggressive flying by the new German "C" type two-seaters.Wise, 1981, p. 355Hoeppner 1994, p. 38 Boelcke and Immelmann continued to score, as did Hans Joachim Buddecke, Ernst von Althaus and Rudolph Berthold from FFA23 and Kurt vonCrailshein of FFA53. The "official" list of claims by Fokker pilots for the second half of 1915 was no more than 28, many of them over French aircraft. Thirteen aeroplanes had been shot down by Immelmann or Boelcke and the rest by seven other Fokker pilots.Franks 2001, p. 41. January 1916 brought thirteen claims, most of them against the French, followed by twenty more in February, the last month of the "scourge" proper. Most of the victories were scored by aces rather than the newer pilots flying the greater number of Fokkers. Allied casualties had been light by later standards but the loss of air superiority to the Germans, flying a new and supposedly invincible aircraft, caused dismay among the Allied commanders and lowered the morale of Allied airmen. In his memoir Sagittarius Rising (1936), Cecil Lewis wrote,
On 14 January, RFC HQ issued orders that until better aircraft arrived, long and short-range reconnaissance aircraft must have three escorts flying in close formation. If contact with the escorts was lost, the reconnaissance must be cancelled, as would photographic reconnaissance to any great distance beyond the front line. Sending the B.E.2c into action without an observer armed with a Lewis gun also became less prevalent.Terraine 1982, p. 199. The new tactic of concentrating aircraft in time and space had the effect of reducing the number of reconnaissance sorties the RFC could fly.Jones, 2002, pp. 156–157
New defensive formations were devised; a II Wing RFC method was for the reconnaissance aircraft to lead, escorted on each side higher, with another escort behind and above.Jones, 2002, pp. 147–148 On 7 February, on a IIWing long-range reconnaissance, the observation pilot flew at ; a German aircraft appeared over Roulers (Roeselare) and seven more closed in behind the formation. West of Torhout (Thourout) two Fokkers arrived and attacked at once, one diving on the reconnaissance machine and the other on an escort. Six more German aircraft appeared over Cortemarck (Kortemark) and formed a procession of fourteen aeroplanes stalking the British formation. None of the German pilots attacked and all the British aircraft returned, only to meet two German aircraft coming back from a bombing raid, which opened fire and mortally wounded the pilot of one of the escorts. The British ascribed their immunity to attack during the 55-minute flight to the rigid formation which the two Fokkers were unable to disrupt.Jones, 2002, pp. 157–158