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Pre-WW2 Military and Naval Aviation Please use this forum to discuss Military and Naval Aviation before the Second World War. |
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Freikorps Air Force Air to Air Victories
Was there such a list of German Freikorps Air Force air to air victories over the Bolshevist Air Force on the Baltic Front in 1919-1920? Was there a book about the activities of the Freikorps Air Force? Several German fighters pilots who score air to air victories on the Western Front during WWI,may have added a few more air to air victories over the Bolshevist Air Force while flying with the Freikorps Air Force.
Edward L. Hsiao |
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Re: Freikorps Air Force Air to Air Victories
I have never read of any aerial victories during the Baltic fighting, although several aircraft were used they were largely used for reconnaissance/ bombing and ground attack. Even major conflicts like the Russian Civil War and Russo-Polish War brought very few air-to-air engagements. The Freikorps units were small and their opponents, the Red Army, Estonia and Latvia (the last two not Bolshevik) had few aircraft. I am not even sure there was anything that could be called a Freikorps air force. Units were formed around the various German right-wing bandit gangs without any real cohesion, and without any impact. The Freikorps disappeared from the Baltic leaving nothing behind but a legacy of incompetence, murder and theft.
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Re: Freikorps Air Force Air to Air Victories
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Re: Freikorps Air Force Air to Air Victories
Just a couple of things I remember about this, based on two books I read a while go: "Operation Kronstadt" by Harry Ferguson (about British naval and covert intervention in the Baltic) and "The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923" by Robert Gerwarth.
I don't think either mentioned Freikoprs air power but they do provide a lot of background to the conflicts that continued in "peacetime". In theory, of course, Germany should not have had military aircraft after the Versailles Treaty was signed in 1919 and I believe that Allied inspection teams were sent in to enforce this. As I understand it the Freikorps fought Bolsheviks within Germany but was fighting the Poles on Germany's eastern borders. The Poles were themselves fighting the Red Army's attempts to move west in 1920 and defeated them in the Battle of Warsaw. However there was a German force in the Baltic states that essentially refused to give up in 1918 and fought the (Red) Russians during the Russian Civil War. As far as I know this was a regular army formation (or began as one) rather than being raised as a Freikorps. |
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