Air to ground communication through wireless radio-telegraphy had been used by dirigibles and tethered observation balloons since 1912,⁵² but light-weight transmitting equipment for aeroplanes did not reach the Western Front until December 1914.⁵³ Given the time needed to distribute equipment to frontline units, it was not until 29 April 1915 that Loerzer piloted the first flight in which Göring could use that new technology to contact ground units. Radio-telegraphy represented a vast improvement in ranging artillery fire; instead of having to tuck written notes into a pouch or canister to be dropped at the artillery battery, the observer could use Morse code to transmit information to ground radio receiver units. Due to engine and wind noises, the observer could not receive radiotelegraphy messages. Loerzer and Göring continued those missions into May.⁵⁴

War in the Air

In the 1930s Göring’s first two biographers created the impression that their subject achieved FFA 25’s first air combat success while flying with his close friend Bruno Loerzer. However, the unit’s air combat summary to the office of the Feldflugchef [chief of field aviation], submitted on 2 June 1916, showed a different picture. According to that source, on 20 May 1915, the honour of the first aerial “kill” went to twenty-nine-year-old Hauptmann Karl Keck. His pilot, twenty-one-year-old Offizierstellvertreter Adolf Schmidt, brought their aeroplane into position so that Keck could shoot down an enemy aircraft over Fresnoy. Six days later, the same crew downed an enemy aircraft over Vienne,⁵⁵ some thirty kilometres west of Verdun. In his nine years in Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 125,⁵⁶ Keck had had much experience with the light rifle he would carry aboard his two-seater, thereby providing the marksmanship needed in aerial combat. And his efforts were handsomely rewarded, when, on 21 December 1915, he was awarded the Kingdom of Württemberg’s Knight’s Cross of the Military Merit Order.⁵⁷