‘Just as my machine went into a side-slip … I caught it again, I thought: “He was, of course, probably too high to hit and the time was too short.” Then I saw individual pieces of the aeroplane falling by me … I recognised the British cockade. I made note of the place where the main piece fell, which took a relatively long time, and then gathered again … the other members of my swarm.’7
The Sopwith Triplane could ‘out-climb and out-turn the Albatros and was fifteen miles per hour faster’.8 This time, however, the Sopwith ‘Tripehound’, as it was nicknamed, perished under the guns of a more experienced Albatros pilot. A British source noted that nineteen-year-old Canadian Flight Sub-Lieutenant Theodore C. May, RNAS9 ‘was last seen folding up and falling near Moorslede when diving to attack [enemy aircraft]. An unconfirmed report in [the] German press states that “J.C. May [sic]” is dead.10 Twenty minutes later and about three kilometres to the west, Staffelführer Göring (in his new Albatros D.V) and seven of his men attacked a flight of British two-seaters. Göring wrote in his combat report:
‘At about 8:30 in the evening … my Staffel [engaged in] aerial combat with an enemy formation. Quickly, I attacked the enemy machines … after which they disappeared in the extraordinary haze and clouds; at 3,200 metres’ altitude I cornered an opponent – apparently a Martinsyde – which I forced down in a spiral fight. The opponent spun often and lastly crashed from a 200-metre altitude north of Polygon Wood (south of Passchendaele). I circled the area several times and then flew back. I had come down to about 200 metres. The opponent had a large C or G on the upper wing. Time of crash 8:40 p.m.’