Göring and Loerzer were close friends, but they were also competitors of sorts, with Loerzer usually gaining awards and choice assignments ahead of Göring. On 11 February 1918, however, Göring was the first of the two men to receive the Grand Duchy of Baden’s premier bravery award, the Knight’s Cross of the Military Karl Friedrich Merit Order. Baden’s honour was significant, as only 288 were awarded in World War I and of that number only eight were bestowed upon airmen.²⁹ For the moment, Göring had the satisfaction of knowing he had received a prestigious award that had thus far eluded Loerzer.

But his time of glory was short. The following day, Loerzer was awarded the top prize –Prussia’s and Germany’s highest bravery honour – the Pour le Mérite.³⁰ He had attained the requisite twentieth victory on 19 January 1918. Additionally, he was appointed commander of Germany’s newest fighter wing, Jagdgeschwader III. Based on the same four-unit organisation that Richthofen established with JG I, JG III was composed of Jastas 2, 26, 27 and 36.³¹

Jasta 27 changed airfields on 13 February and moved about nine kilometres southwest from Bavichove to Marcke, southwest of Courtrai, Belgium. The relocation meant that, once again, Göring would live in baronial splendour. Seven months earlier, the estate of Belgian Baron Jean de Béthune had been occupied by the German local command and converted to military use. The broad lawns, the baron’s castle and other buildings in a nearby area called Marckebeke became the central location for von Richthofen’s JG I.³² Following the Geschwader’s departure for the Somme Sector, Hermann Göring became the new temporary lord of the manor at Marckebeke castle.

Göring’s Seventeenth Victory

The unit’s first contribution to JG III was a pair of S.E.5 fighters brought down on the morning of 21 February by Oberleutnant Hermann Göring and Leutnant der Reserve Rudolf Klimke. The nine-plane patrol was less than ten kilometres from its airfield, when, Göring wrote (in 1933), they were ‘attacked by two English fighting aeroplanes’ that he had observed flying above them.³³ He said he identified the patrol leader (but does not say how) and then ‘he and I closed in battle’.³⁴

The encounter developed quickly into a fierce fight, going from 4,500 metres to 2,000 metres and then back up to 3,000. Göring judged his adversary to be an experienced, highly capable fighter pilot and wrote:

‘I was very soon conscious of the fact that my plane was riddled with bullets. Providence or miracle must have …saved me from getting wounded. Never in all my four years’ experience as a fighting aviator had I met with such an adversary … In the space of that few minutes’ fighting we went through all the possible experiences of flying – we stalled, we looped, we side-slipped – and always we stuck together, neither of us leaving the other for a moment’s respite.’³⁵