Once more allied bombers roam the skies over the Reich. And again young pilots, crammed into their tiny machines, use the astonishing climb rates of their fighters to defend home and take the battle to the enemy. It’s summer of 1944, we are visiting Bad Zwischenahn, base of JG 400 and the feared Komet rocket fighters.
Or not. It is Autumn of 1918, we are in Baden, in a town called Lahr, home of Kampfein¬sitzerstaffel 5, and those pilots use fighters made by the Siemens-Schuckert-Werke. History repeats itself, sometimes.
Or not. It is Summer, but the year is 1922, and the Swiss Airforce wants to get one of their Siemens-fighters airborne.
However, most of you will know the legend of the „stab in the back“: communists, war winners and Jews were the ones to blame for the defeat of the Kaiserreich, but the German Army was "im Felde unbesiegt". In the years after the Great War a lot of stuff was published to prove that – but as well a book of a different kind, that was published in 1924. „Jüdische Flieger im Weltkrieg“ (“Jewish fliers in the Great War“) was written to prove that jewish fliers were as brave as their fellow comrades. The book showed a SSW D.III decorated with a swastika. Swastikas where used on all kind of aircraft on both sides of the front, but this one sparked my interest.
On November 13th 1918, following the cessation of hostilities on the 11th, (amongst other aircraft) three Siemens biplanes of Kest 5 landed in Switzerland, not to be interned by the Allies. Two of them were kept in flying condition, later bought by the Swiss government and used in their Airforce. One of those was the D.III, Militärnummer 8356/17, which would later be shown on the title of „Jüdische Flieger im Weltkrieg“. And again, during the second big war, the Swiss Government would use German aircraft for their home defense. History really repeats itself, sometimes.
This D.III is interisting even without the swastika. It was part of the pre-production-batch being delivered to the JaStas of JGII, soon developing troubles with their powerplants. The whole batch had to be returned to the manufacturer for repairs (Sounds like the development of the Fw 190 to me – history repeats itself, it seems). The reason for all those massive engine failures was the use of Ersatzöl, as castor oil was not available due to the allied blockade. This fighter was posted with Kest 5 after refurbishment used for home defense against the bombers of the IAF. For their time those Siemens-fighters had an astonishing rate of climb, making them useful for the Kest’s home defense sorties. The aircraft of Kest 5 were most probably painted black, using personal markings in white. During it’s time with the Swiss Airforce Militärnummer 8356/17 was painted light-blue, with wings in some kind of silver. I decided to use Misterkit’s Pfalz Silbergrau, instead of a pure metallic colour.
The pilot, Fritz Beckhardt,
was a highly decorated pilot, being a Member of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords (that was the highest award for NCOs, being presented only 18 times).
The Roden kit is well known, so I will skip lamenting over fitting issues, apart from one thing: I decided to use the pe-set made by brengun, but what a disappointment. Major parts were not fitting (the missing bulkhead behind the seat was much too large and had to be cut to fit at all), some necessary parts were missing and the instructions are a joke. In the end, you can’t see anything of the detailing I did inside the fuselage. Too bad.
Here are some pictures of what I did – I couldn’t bear to use only one of this aircraft’s colorful markings, this is why I used both…
This is what I used in addition to the kit from Roden: Tarnstoff by WNW, Decals from Pheon, PE from Brengun, MGs from Spandau, turnbuckles von Gaspatch (in 1:48, I really think the 1:32 ones are oversized), mustached pilots figure from Wings (he is Swiss, I think the mustache is fitting) and the small Staffelmaler by Kellerkind. I am happy, as this is now finished.
Stefan
[PS] Fritz Beckhardt survived the concentration camps, and the war, dying in 1962.
