‘Soon after take-off the formation was assembled and we set out in the direction of the frontlines. In order to fly and fight in a more mobile way, I had the Staffel separated into two flights of five units each. I led the lower one and the upper one had to stay closely above us and follow. In the sector from Lens to Lille a relative calmness prevailed. From time to time a lone artillery spotter aeroplane moved about with great effort far behind its own lines. We flew on and on northward toward our chief objective, the Wytschaete Salient.

‘When we arrived at Ypres, we were at 5,000 metres altitude. A marvellous view of Flanders was spread out below us. In the distant background gleamed the coast of France, stretched along the sea; we could clearly recognise Dunkerque and Boulogne; we knew that in the pale mist at the end of the horizon were the chalk cliffs of the British Isles. Below us lay Ypres and the enemy positions, which were situated around the heavily shelled city in a salient opening to the west. To the north the Flanders coast stretched on from Ostende to the mouth of the Schelde river. The Schelde itself glistened in the sunshine on to Holland. From 5,000 metres the eye took in a view of this piece of the earth, above which arched the sky in light blue.

‘But danger also lurked here and we had to … examine everything carefully. A sudden flash in the sun could betray us or the enemy. Despite having dark-green lenses in our goggles it was difficult to make out objects in the blinding flood of sunlight … Just then I recognized that six enemy fighter aircraft were above us and … flying with us. Blue-white-red cockades clearly shone on their silver-grey wings. Yet they did not attack us, as we were too many for them; they simply followed at an ominously close distance. For the present, we … could do nothing other than be careful.

‘Then I sighted more opponents. A formation of enemy Spad single-seaters approached from the rear left, another of [Sopwith] Triplanes from ahead on the left, both still some kilometres away, but heading towards us. At this moment, coming from in front of us, there suddenly appeared a squadron of British Sopwith [Pup biplane] single-seat fighters. Now they had to be dealt with. If I were to attack them, I would immediately have the six Nieuports soaring over us and down on our necks and a few minutes later both of the other enemy formations would be rushing toward us, as well. If I were to avoid them, then I must abandon the frontlines altogether, and the airspace would be free for the Englishman; he could do whatever he wanted over our lines.

‘I decided to attack immediately, no matter what the cost. Now everyone had to show what he could do and what he was good for. There was no longer any thought of retreat; we had started a fight against a force four times greater than ours, now we battled desperately for our survival. This is how I wished to put the Staffel to the test. The aerial battle was upon us. I gave the signal to attack – nosed over steeply with my machine – and charged into the Sopwiths. Immediately, they dispersed and the field of combat went downwards. There was wild firing all around me. From all sides you could see smoke trails of one’s own and enemy incendiary bullets; tracer ammunition flew past me. Machines turned wildly, reared up, dived down, and looped.

‘The enemy had now thrown himself into the battle in full strength; we duelled against thirty to forty enemy single-seaters. The greatest danger was [that we would] ram into each other. I sat behind a Sopwith that tried to elude my field of fire by desperately twisting and turning. I pushed him down ever lower as we came ever closer to enemy territory. I believed I would surely shoot him down, as he had taken some hard hits, when a furious hail of machine-gun fire opened up behind me. As I looked around, I saw only cockades; three opponents were on my neck, firing everything they had at me. Once again, with a short thrust, I tried to finish off the badly shot-up opponent ahead of me. It was too late. Smack after smack the shots from behind hit my machine. Metal fragments flew all around, the radiator was shot through; from a hole as big as a fist I was sprayed in the face by a heavy stream of hot water. Despite all that, I pulled the machine about and upwards and fired off a stream of bullets at the first fellow I saw. Surprised, he went into a spin. I caught up with the next opponent and went at him desperately, for I had to fight my way back across the lines. He also ceased fighting. It was a decisive moment. My engine, which was no longer receiving water from the radiator, quit and with that any further fighting by me was over.

‘In a glide I passed over the lines and our positions. Close behind them I had to make a forced landing in a meadow. The landing proved to be a smooth one, and the machine stayed upright. Now I saw all of the damage. My worthy bird had received twenty hits, some of them very close to my body. I looked around me apprehensively; what had happened to my Staffel? There was a noise above me and shortly thereafter one of my pilots landed in the same meadow. His machine looked pretty bad too; various parts were shot to pieces. Another two pilots also had to make forced landings with shot-up machines. But the pilots were safe and sound. The Staffel had prevailed in the toughest battle. Despite its numerical superiority, the enemy had quit the field of battle. Everything had been observed from down below and we reaped our rewards of recognition. Far more important for me, however, was the feeling that I could depend on my Staffel. During this violent Flanders battle the Staffel had delivered on what it had promised on one fine June day – to fight and to be victorious.’⁵

Hermann Göring had such a good sense of history that, after he took formal command of Germany’s military air arm in 1935,⁶ he directed the Luftwaffe’s historical branch to review all records and reports pertaining to his military activities from 1914 through 1918. Ultimately, a daily summary of all his operational flights and other materials was compiled for use in a planned biography of him that would have been longer and more detailed than the 349-page volume⁷ his aide Dr. Erich Gritzbach had written. Had that project been completed, Luftwaffe archivists documenting Göring’s World War I service would have faced the challenges this author found in trying to reconcile Göring’s post-1918 writings with the official records so carefully preserved. In the case of the preceding account about ‘a clear June day in … 1917,’ Jagdstaffel 27’s daily reports for June do not include a single day in which all of those actions occurred or of his leading two flights of aeroplanes ‘of five units each’ at the same time, as claimed in the article.

Daily Operations in June

Perhaps that 1930 text is a compilation of several air combats and related actions that occurred in June 1917, as seen in the following examples.

According to Jasta 27’s daily report for Saturday, 2 June, late in the morning, during clear weather in the Ypres Sector,⁸ Göring led five other Albatros D.III fighters from Bersée airfield southwest to Arras, then northward along the frontlines to Ypres at 5,000 metres and back southeast to the airfield.⁹ His Staffel’s mission was well defined: