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Re: Photos Airco
Very interesting update (as usual) Col
However Oblt Gerhard Felmy, who belonged to FA 300, was neither an ace nor on duty on March 5th 1917.
He had arrived to Palestine 11 Sep 1916 and been wounded on 2 Dec 1916 (when he also claimed his only victory) and transferred back to Germany. Officially he was transferred out from FA 300 on 16 Aug 1917 and while in Germany he was not declared fit again until 9 Jan 1918.
As far as I can see neither FA 300 nor any other German unit made any claim on March 5th.
There was another Felmy in FA 300, Hptm Hellmuth Felmy who was the Abteilung leader from 23 Aug 1916 to 1 Nov 1917. He made a total of 4 claims during his period of duty with the unit.
Thus none of them were any ace as such. To me it seems Michael Napier simply lumps them together and making 1 + 4 into 5.
Checking Henshaw he firmly states the British crew was on a low level patrol, shooting up "everything in sight" and were hit by groundfire. Oddly enough Henshaw has not managed to identify the serial number of the DH.1A. He had obviously not read Napier's book....
Cheers
Stig
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