Brünhilde mit Bomben für Tommy

In this installment of Stringbags we present a couple'a photos from May of 1918 which show a Halberstadt CL.II of Royal Bavarian Schlachtstaffel 27b just prior to a sortie during the Ludendorff Offensive.


In the first photo an armorer is seen loading potato mashers into a rack for use by the observer. Affixed to the spine of the kite, just behind the cockpit, is an assortment of flare cartridges.

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In this second shot the crew is mounted up and ready for engine start. The inscription on this postcard reads, roughly:

"Schlachststaffel Ready for Takeoff - The aircraft are equipped with machine guns, signal cartridges, and hand grenades."

In the background is another Halberstadt, #5, named 'Thea'. This machine was captured by New Zealand forces after being forced down near Bapaume in late August of 1918.

Source

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Balancing Act

We have no information to share about this incident... except maybe that the driver of this Camel has undoubtedly seen much better days.

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Luft-Luft-Foto

Today we bring you a groovy air-to-air photo of one Leutnant Otto Kissenberth of FFA 9b (FFA = Feld-Flieger Abteilung) cruising over Colmar in his Fokker D.II, circa 1915.

Kissenberth went on to command Jasta 23 and score a total of twenty victories, the last of which was gained on May 20th, 1918 while flying a captured Sopwith Camel! Nine days later he was severely injured in a crash of this same Camel and his combat career came to an end. Kissenberth, an avid mountain-climber, (evidenced by the 'Edelweiss' emblem that normally adorned his personal aircraft) died in August of 1919 after a fall while indulging in his favorite pastime.

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Totenkopf

In this installment of 'Stringbags' we present a photo showing a Siemens-Shuckert D.III in Swiss markings and adorned with a Totenkopf (skull and crossbones or, more literally, 'death's head') motif.

Your blogmeister has done only minimal digging on this one, but it seems that this particular bird, along with a few others, was deliberately flown to Switzerland in November of 1918, possibly by a German pilot named Lange of Kest 5, in order to prevent the machine from falling into the hands of Allied forces.

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