As H.A. Jones, the Royal Air Force historian, noted: ‘[A]nother attack, immediately following the Flanders offensive, would … create a feeling of uncertainty and so make the [Germans] uneasy throughout the winter. [They] would realise the danger of withdrawing too many troops to back areas for rest and training.’⁴ Thus, while the four Jagdstaffeln of Manfred von Richthofen’s highly successful Jagdgeschwader I were transferred southward to the Somme Sector⁵ to aid the 2nd Army in the Battle of Cambrai, Oberleutnant Hermann Göring’s Jasta 27 and most other air units in Belgium and northern France remained in place to help the 4th Army maintain its perimeter.

Heavy, low-hanging clouds on the morning of Thursday, 1 November, caused a lull in air activity⁶ that provided cover for Jasta 27 as it moved back slightly – some eight kilometres southeast – from Iseghem to Bavichove. As he did not fly that day, Göring had time to draft a report justifying his taking five days’ leave during the fighting in Flanders. Directed to his immediate superior and sometime patron, Hauptmann Percy Baron von Ascheberg, the Gruppenführer der Flieger 15, Göring wrote:

‘The five days of furlough I requested in October were used merely to settle a family matter. Because of the long distance and poor train connections to Upper Bavaria, at that time I was on the train four days and at home only thirty-seven hours. Before that my last convalescent leave was in January 1917 in conjunction with my discharge from the field hospital (recovery from my severe wounds). Although I had four weeks of leave at that time, I interrupted it two weeks early in order, as the only senior Jagdflieger [fighter pilot], to help with the establishment of the new Jagdstaffel 26. I have been flying continually at the frontlines since January 1917. In my capacity as Staffelführer I must fly many times a day in order to lead my Staffel …Since January 1917 I have made over 200 Jagdflüge [fighter flights]. In so doing, once I was shot down and had to land in a loose [wire] entanglement. I have been flying at the frontlines for three years without having had a compassionate or homeland command. Now, I feel a certain exhaustion, especially after the heavy fighting in Flanders.’⁷

His report was essentially true, but as he often did Göring took some liberties with the facts. He did cut short his leave earlier in the year and, when he joined Bruno Loerzer’s Jasta 26 on 15 February 1917⁸ (not in January, as stated), Göring was the senior Jagdflieger in terms of enemy aeroplanes shot down. He had three to his credit, Loerzer had two,⁹ as did new arrival Leutnant der Reserve Friedrich Weitz and Offizierstellvertreter Rudolf Weckbrodt had one.¹⁰ And, while Göring had been shot down into some frontline barbed wire ‘entanglements,’ that incident occurred in late May 1916, as recounted on pages 75-76 of this book. Surely, Göring’s mention of ‘a certain exhaustion’ relates to the toll taken by recurrences of his rheumatoid arthritis. No doubt aggravated by the many recent cold and rainy days, the episodes would have been painful and debilitating – and would have affected his ability to fly.

Göring’s Sixteenth Victory

Despite his continuing ailments, Göring led Jasta 27 in the air in early November and, on the 7th of that month claimed his next victory. During a morning flight, from 8:30 to 9:45 a.m. that day, he led nine Albatros fighters over Houthulst Forest, northwest of Poelcapelle. He reported encountering four Airco D.H.5 single-seat fighters behind British lines and claimed to have shot down one of them.¹¹ The visibility was poor, according to the six D.H.5 pilots of 32 Squadron, RFC,¹² who were in that area at that time. The British pilots’ report further noted: ‘Five [enemy] scouts over Poelcapelle, one attacked, indecisive, at 2,000 feet, at 8:15 a.m. by Lt. Glentworth’.¹³

From the German and British accounts, it is clear that Jasta 27 and 32 Squadron, RFC skirmished briefly at that time – listed as 9:15 a.m. (German time) and 8:15 a.m. (British Summer Time, still in effect) – over or near Poelcapelle, Belgium. Due to the poor weather conditions, the encounter most likely ended quickly, with no losses on either side. Nonetheless, Göring pressed his claim and received confirmation for a D.H.5 in that brief encounter.¹⁴ The object of his attention, most likely Lieutenant Viscount Glentworth (Edmund William Claude Gerard de Vere Percy), reported exchanging fire with a German aeroplane, but the young Irish aristocrat returned safely from that flight in D.H.5 A.9282.¹⁵