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Lieutenant Boelke on January 13, 1916, shot down a British aeroplane, as did also Lieutenant Immelmann one northeast of Tourcoing and the other near Bapaume. Both were decorated with the Order of Pour-le-Mérite by the emperor. A third British aeroplane was shot down in an aerial fight near Roubaix, and a fourth was brought down by German defense guns near Ligne, northwest of Lille.
The tendency in recent months, especially on the western battle front, has been the "attack in squadrons," instead of the individual combats which made international heroes out of Boillot, Immelmann, Boelke, Warneford and Navarre. The squadron attack was first employed by the Germans in the Verdun operations.
Six hundred shots a minute and the sight of this charging demon were enough to test the nerve of any threatened aviator. In some fashion Boelke was enabled to give a slight spiral form to his dive so that his victim was enveloped in a ring of bullets that blocked his retreat whichever way he might turn for safety. Personality in fighting counted much for success.
It was reported that five machines fell during a fight, two of which were British. On another occasion one British pilot encountered a formation of ten German machines, attacked them single handed and dispersed them far behind their own lines. On October 28, 1916, it was announced that Captain Boelke, the famous German aviator, had been killed in a collision, with another aeroplane.
It was exceptional to find a German flyer like Boelke who really went in for single-handed duels in the air. As a rule they preferred to attack a single plane with half a dozen, and so make as sure as they could of victory at a minimum of risk. But that policy did not always work sometimes the lone British flyer came out ahead, despite the odds against him.
Boelke was killed before the air duel vanished to be replaced by the battle of scores of planes high in air. Immelman survived longer, but with the incoming of the pitched battle his personal prowess counted for less and his fame waned. In July, 1917, arrangements were complete in the United States for the immediate training in the fundamentals of aviation of ten thousand young Americans.
At first the report included his famous comrade, Lieutenant Boelke, among the killed, but news received later mentioned his name among the fighting corps. Dover and other ports on the English coast were raided by two German sea planes on June 9 and 10, 1916, according to the German official report. The British denied that any such raid took place.
He deplores enemy attacks on unfortified districts, and claims that the French military powers confess that such acts are not glorious by their failure to pin decorations on the breasts of the aviators who perpetrate them, in the same way as the German Staff honours heroes like Boelke and Immelmann, who fight, as do all German aviators, like men.
A British aeroplane was shot down in a fight northeast of Cambrai, and on January 6, 1916, the Allies made an aircraft attack upon Douai, which failed, and two British aeroplanes were shot down by German aviators. One of these was brought down by Lieutenant Boelke, and was the seventh aeroplane that he had disabled. January 10, 1916, a German air squadron attacked the warehouses of Furnes.
Of the eight British officers on these four aeroplanes six were killed and two wounded. On January 15, 1916, Lieutenant Boelke again shot down an enemy aeroplane, which fell within the British lines and was set on fire by German artillery. On January 18, 1916, there were aerial battles near Paschendaele and Dadezelle in Flanders, and three of the four occupants of one machine were killed.
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