Despite a glaring factual error – Jasta 27 had a total of only ten (not forty-nine) confirmed aerial victories as of 5 August 1917¹⁷ – Sixt von Arnim’s letter was sent to Generalleutnant Ernst von Hoeppner, commanding general of the Luftstreitkräfte, by the newly appointed officer in charge of aviation for the 4th Army, Hauptmann Helmuth Wilberg – a friend Göring had made during the Battle of Verdun over a year earlier.¹⁸ There can be little doubt that Göring provided the information for Sixt von Arnim’s letter. That no one checked the figure before the general signed the letter is another example of Göring’s incredible good luck, which only fuelled his brazen self-confidence.

In fact, Jasta 27’s tenth victory was also Göring’s eleventh individual confirmed victory,¹⁹ which was scored on Sunday evening, 5 August. In that fight, his patrol attacked nine Sopwith F.1 Camels, among the Royal Flying Corps’ newest fighter aeroplanes. South of Houthulst forest, Göring got on the tail of one Camel and opened fire from a distance of fifty metres. ‘Suddenly, flames … and heavy smoke came out of the machine and the opponent went [down] into a deep spiral in the dense cloud mass’,²⁰ he reported. Göring’s opponent, Lieutenant Gilbert Budden²¹ of 70 Squadron, RFC, made it back to British lines, where he was reported as: ‘Wounded in left arm. Forced landing near Bailleul owing to machine being damaged during combat.’²²

Surely, the nomination process for Göring’s Pour le Mérite award was aided when, on 15 August, Generalleutnant Freiherr von Stein praised Jasta 27’s most recent efforts in the Battle for Ypres. Published in the daily report of the Ypres battle group (and widely circulated within the 4th Army), Freiherr von Stein’s letter commended Jasta 27’s Leutnant der Reserve Ludwig Luer and Vizefeldwebel Max Krauss for each shooting down a British tethered observation balloon northwest of Ypres. He also praised Vizefeldwebel Alfred Muth for attempting to shoot down yet another balloon, which ‘was prevented … by balloon defence aeroplanes and [then Muth] became engaged in intense aerial combat’.²³ All of these actions reflected favourably on Göring’s leadership capabilities.

Command responsibilities were much discussed among career officers such as Göring and Loerzer, as new levels of opportunity were opening in the Luftstreitkräfte. On 23 June 1917, the chief of the general staff announced the formation of Germany’s first Jagdgeschwader [fighter wing] composed of Jagdstaffeln 4, 6, 10 and 11²⁴ in daily flights and led by Manfred von Richthofen, the highest-scoring fighter pilot of the war. The success of Jagdgeschwader I’s joint operations led to the establishment of four Jagdgruppen [temporary groupings of fighter units] in the 4th Army Sector. One of them, Jagdgruppe 15, was composed of Jastas 3, 8, 26 and 27,²⁵ with Jasta 8’s commanding officer, Hauptmann Constantin von Bentheim, in charge of the grouping. Bentheim was senior to Göring and Loerzer, but he had only one aerial victory to his credit, which robbed him of the prestige advantage that Richthofen and other group leaders enjoyed. Surely, Göring could imagine succeeding to Hauptmann von Bentheim’s position.

Göring’s ambitions must have been fuelled further when he was promoted to Oberleutnant on 18 August and, a week later, on Saturday, 25 August, he scored his twelfth confirmed victory.²⁶ Leading an evening patrol, this time in concert with Loerzer’s Jasta 26, Göring went after an F.E.2 two-seat reconnaissance aircraft, but broke off the chase when his twin Spandau machine guns jammed. After he had cleared the jam, he attacked a lone Sopwith Camel flying at 4,200 metres’ altitude south of Ypres. Göring reported that he drove the British fighter down to 1,800 metres, firing steadily until his opponent ‘fell downward, turning over several times and rearing up … [and then] crashed in the haze’. Most likely, his prey was Second-Lieutenant Orlando C. Bridgeman²⁷ of 70 Squadron, RFC, who returned to British territory and was reported as being ‘wounded during combat with E.A. [enemy aeroplane]’²⁸ at the time and in the area Göring reported.

His luck changed in early September, however, when he was informed of General von Hoeppner’s memorandum to the chief of the military cabinet, composed of Kaiser Wilhelm’s closest advisers. Dated 1 September 1917, it read: ‘I cannot at this time approve the [Pour le Mérite] proposal, since the award of an additional decoration for Leutnant Göring, after [having attained] only ten aerial victories, would show preference compared to [the achievements of] other fighter pilots.’²⁹ Hoeppner referred to the ten confirmed victories that Göring had scored at the time he was proposed for the high award and not the twelve that he had to his credit by the time this decision was made.

But even a ten- or twelve-victory score was no longer relevant to what Göring hoped to achieve. By August 1917 the number of confirmed aerial victories needed to qualify for the Pour le Mérite had risen to over twenty. As Neal W. O’Connor, a leading authority on German aviation awards in World War I noted, honouring airmen with this high bravery award ‘relied heavily on a statistical approach to their accomplishments and for fighter pilots this [standard] meant the number of their confirmed victories’.³⁰ When Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann became the first aviation recipients of the award, on 12 January 1916, each had shot down eight enemy aeroplanes. Exactly a year later, Manfred von Richthofen had sixteen confirmed kills when he became the thirteenth recipient. By the time Göring’s nomination was advanced, the twentieth aviation Pour le Mérite recipient, Leutnant Carl Allmenröder, had received the award on 14 June 1917 – with twenty-six confirmed victories to his credit.³¹

Perhaps Göring had not paid attention to the fighter pilots’ scores published in popular German news media several times a month. But his adversaries did. Thanks to the brisk trade in Allied and German magazines and newspapers in neutral countries, items from these media, as well as captured documents, were re-printed in widely-circulated intelligence summaries. Thus, British airmen learned that Göring had eight victories to his credit in early August 1917,³² two weeks later that he was commanding officer of Jasta 27³³ and, a week after that, that he had become a ten-victory ace.³⁴ It is more likely that, viewed through the lens of his own egocentricity, Göring considered his ten or twelve victories as qualitatively superior to other pilots’ achievements. In any event, the Luftstreitkræfte’s rejection of his nomination for the Pour le Mérite made him work harder to earn the ‘prize’ he thought he deserved.