HERMANN GÖRING
After Hermann Göring attained his eighteenth confirmed victory on 7 April 1918, Jagdstaffel 27 went into a slump. It is difficult to understand how his Staffel, operating in the same sector as the four Staffeln of the Richthofen Jagdgeschwader and flying the same type of aeroplanes, could be so lacking in success. To be sure, Göring and his men flew two or more patrols a day, but they did not seem to have ‘the knack’ for engaging their opponents as readily as did the heirs to the Red Baron.
From mid-April through the end of May 1918, one Richthofen Staffel, the Red Baron’s own Jasta 11, logged twelve victories.2 During the same period, Jasta 27 would have been without claims if not for the one submitted by Oberleutnant Maximilian von Förster on the 31st. And, for reasons that were routinely not explained, the office of the commanding general of the Luftstreitkräfte, or Kogenluft, denied the Förster claim, which was recorded by Jasta 27 as its fifty-first victory.3 However Staffel-level recognition had no official standing.
Despite that disappointment, Friday, 31 May 1918 became a special day for Hermann Göring in another struggle. Following a second bureaucratic ‘campaign’ led by his superiors, finally he was awarded the Pour le Mérite. The recommendation citation was approved by the Kogenluft himself, Generalleutnant Ernst von Hoeppner, who hailed Göring as an: