The Jasta War Chronology

a Complete Listing of Claims and Losses, August 1916 to November 1918

This companion volume to the earlier works The Jasta Pilots and Above the Lines makes a useful addition to these books. As the title indicates it provides a detailed daily tally of the Jasta's claims and losses for each day from the time of their earliest formation up until the Armistice. Details of crashes and accidents not directly related to combat, hut involving Jasta pilots and aircraft are also listed on the day of occurrence. Where possible the names and fate of Allied aircrew and serial numbers of the aircraft claimed as victories are given for each day in the form of footnotes. This latter information makes an extremely useful cross reference, with the Allied volumes in this series.

The value of this book cannot be denied. The listing of information in this particular fashion allows the researcher swiftly to form an impression of what the probable state of morale was within a certain Jasta for a particular week or month. It does, however, have to be said that the book suffers from an unfortunate sprinkling of typographical errors. Although these are unlikely to cause more than brief confusion to the serious researcher, they are frustrating to encounter. Possibly to say so is to expect an unreasonable degree of perfection from Norman Franks and his team, but personally I met these small, but seemingly needless, errors with the same sense of dismay I might have felt at finding typos in a nicely bound Bible.

One example of this is the double entry of Kurt Wolff's twenty-sixth victory on 29 April 1917 as his second 'twenty-third' victory on 28 April 1917. In obvious errors in the proof-reading process, people are occasionally assigned to the incorrect Jasta. On 1 May 1917, Kurt Wolff's Jasta number is given as '27', on 27 July 1917 Kurt Wiisthoff of Jasta 4 is assigned to Jasta 11, while on 4 November 1918 this process is reversed and Noltenius of Jacta 11 is assigned to Jasta 4, thereby miscrediting Jasta 11's 350th victory. A footnote 'i' goes missing on 1 April 1918, while on 2 April 1918 two footnotes with the came letter give different information. Slight variations in the spelling of names also occur in a couple of incidences.

The discovery of these errors has left me in the uncomfortable position of feeling that not to mention them would be incorrect, while to do so is to appear back-biting and petty over what is, on the whole, a unique, well researched book. Ultimately, The Jasta War Chronology must be taken as a useful addition to an invaluable series.

Noted Errors

pages 52-53:
- 29 April 1917, Kurt Wolff's BE2f W of Gavrelle at 1745, his 26th is ALSO put down under 28 April numbered as 23, along with his real number 23.
page 53:
- 30 April 1917, Lothar von Richthofen's 15 victory is given as his first, and the typing of the time is not complete.
page 55:
- 1 May 1917, Kurt Wolff's Jasta number wrongly given as 27 beside his 29th victory.
page 70:
- 18 June 1917, Manfred von Richthofen put as being of JGl, when it bad yet to be formed for a few days.
page 80:
- 27 July 1917 K. Wusthoff noted as being of Jasta 11, instead of Jasta 4.
page 155/156:
- 1 April 1918, note 'i', regarding Hans Joachim Wolff's SE5 is missing.
page 156:
- 2 April 1918, there are two note 'e's' each giving different information.
page 158 and 166:
- Scholtz spelt as Scholz.
page 222 and 236:
- Kockeritz spelt as Kokeritz.
page 282:
- Noltenius put down as being of Jasta 4, not 11. (Affects crediting on Jasta 11's 350th victory.)