Werner Voss

[Jim]

Werner Voss was born in Krefeld on 13 April 1887. When he was 27, he enlisted in his local militia, and then went to war with the 2. Westfälische Husaren Regiment Nr 11, a unit known as the ‘dancing hussars’. Like so many other cavalrymen, the stalemate of trench warfare failed to meet his expectations, and he transferred into aviation in August 1915. Once trained, Voss was assigned to Kasta 20 of Kagohl IV, and he began his career as a pilot in the Verdun area. He was happily transferred to Jasta Boelcke on 21 November 1916, and opened his account with two victories six days later. Voss scored rapidly in February and March 1917, and on the 17th of the latter month he received the Knight’s Cross with Swords of the Royal Hohenzollern House Order (the ‘Hohenzollern’). With his tally at 24, he received the ‘Blue Max’ on 8 April. This was followed by routine leave, during which Voss missed most of the killing time of ‘Bloody April’. In May 1917 he returned to Jasta Boelcke and brought his score to 28 (12 of them being hapless BE 2s), but the young fighter ace, he had just turned 20, was dissatisfied with his Staffelführer, the veteran Hauptmann Franz Walz. Along with another misguided young pilot, Werner Voss submitted charges to his superiors that Walz was ‘war-weary’, and that an elite unit like Jasta Boelcke required a more dynamic leader. Their blatant disregard for the military code of conduct and the chain of command saw both pilots posted out of the prestigious Jasta. Voss received a severe, but private, reprimand, his youth and record saving him from harsher punishment. Voss was given acting command of Jasta 5 on 20 May, then a scant nine days later he moved to Jasta 29. His time as Staffelführer only lasted five days, whereupon he went to command Jasta 14. Voss seems to have cared little for the responsibilities of command, and despised paperwork. At the end of July 1917 his old comrade Manfred von Richthofen called upon him to take command of Jasta 10, and Voss was soon building up the score of this previously lacklustre unit. Issued with one of the first Fokker FI triplanes to reach the front in early September 1917, Voss saw considerable action in the machine up until his death in action in the storied clash with seven SE 5as of the crack No 56 Sqn on 23 September 1917. Aged just 20, Voss had been credited with 48 victories prior to his death.

SPECIFICATION
Albatros D III
TYPE: single-seat, single-engined biplane fighter
ACCOMMODATION: pilot
DIMENSIONS: length 24 ft 0 in (7.33 m)
wingspan 29 ft 8 in (9.04 m)
height 9 ft 9.25 in (2.98 m)
WEIGHTS: empty 1457 lb (661 kg)
maximum take-off 1953 lb (886 kg)
PERFORMANCE: maximum speed 107 mph (180 kmh) range 217 miles (350 km)
powerplant Mercedes D III
output 160 hp (119.2 kW)
ARMAMENT: two fixed Maxim LMG 08/15 7.92 mm machine
guns immediately forward of the cockpit
FIRST FLIGHT DATE: August 1916
OPERATORS: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey PRODUCTION: 1532 Designed to wrest from the Allies the aerial superiority gained by the Nieuport 11 Bébé and Airco DH 2 over the once all-conquering Fokker E III, the Albatros-Werke machines made their combat debut in the summer of 1916. The first of the genus, the D I and D II had an immediate impact on the air war in the autumn of that year, these fighters establishing new standards in airframe elegance. Boasting a neatly-cowled Mercedes D III inline engine and a carefully streamlined semi-monocoque wooden fuselage, the Albatros scout looked like nothing else at the front at that time. They were also the first quantity-produced fighters to mount twin-synchronised machine guns. The D III was a further evolution of the Albatros D l/ll design, this version abandoning the solid parallel-structure single-bay wing cellule in favour of the lighter, lower-drag Nieuport-style sesquiplane cellule. Some 400 were ordered by the Germans in October 1916, and production examples reached frontline Jastas from December of that same year. Early D Ills suffered from chronic wing failure in the first months of operational service due to torsional flexibility of the lower wing - reinforced wings were introduced with the second batch of 840 machines. The D III was also licence-built by Oeffag in Austria, and these were progressively fitted with more powerful engines that produced up to 225 hp. Some 220 examples were also supplied to the Austro-Hungarians in 1917-18, and Poland procured 60 Oeffag-built machines post-war. The D III disappeared from service over the Western Front during mid 1918, but saw combat with the Austro-Hungarians until war’s end.

Albatros D III of Leutnant Werner Voss, Jasta 2 Boelcke and Jasta 5, mid-1917Werner Voss, during his period with Jasta Boelcke, flew this much-decorated Albatros D III. When interviewed by historian Alex Imrie (circa 1960), Voss’ motor mechanic Karl Timm recalled that the ace instructed him and Flieger Christian Rüser (the airframe mechanic) to paint a red heart with white border on both sides of the fuselage, and there are photos of Voss himself touching up the white border. Then Voss had them add a white swastika (merely a good luck symbol at this time). Timm told Voss he thought this looked a bit bare, and suggested that he add a laurel wreath around the swastika, which the pilot agreed to. Voss continued to fly this D III in these markings at Jasta 5, but it almost certainly did not follow him to Jasta 10.

[liowkc]

"At 48 kills, Werner Voss is ranked fourth among Germany's aces and around 14th among all World War I aces. This in itself is a remarkable feat but when you realize just how short his career was, the remarkable becomes amazing in the annals of aerial combat. Voss achieved his 48 victories in just over ten short months. It took von Richthofen, the Red Baron two years to achieve his 80 victories. At the time of Voss's death, he was just 12 kills short of von Richthofen's record. Von Richthofen had shot down 9 planes before Voss had made a confirmed Kill. In other words Plane for plane, Voss had shot down 48 to von Richthofen's 51 kills during the same time period. "

Source:

Werner Voss -- 48 Victories