Vizefeldwebel Josef Schwendemann was a World War I

flying ace A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviation, military aviator credited with shooting down a certain minimum number of enemy aircraft during aerial combat; the exact number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ...

credited with 17 aerial victories.The Aerodrome website page on Schwendeman

Retrieved 5 January 2010.

Biography

See also

Aerial victory standards of World War I During World War I, the national air services involved developed their own methods of assessing and assigning credit for aerial victories. For various reasons, all belligerents engaged in overclaiming aerial victories to a greater or lesser degre ...

Josef Schwendemann is believed to have been born in 1888. Initially serving in the trenches early in World War I, and twice being wounded, Schwendemann transferred to ''Die Fliegertruppe'' (The Flying Troupe) in June 1916. He served with ''Schutzstaffel 14'' from February 1917 before being sent to fighter school to become a pilot. He was posted to ''

Jagdstaffel 41 Royal Prussian Jagdstaffel 41, commonly abbreviated to Jasta 41, was a "hunting group" (i.e., fighter squadron) of the ''Luftstreitkräfte'', the air arm of the Imperial German Army during World War I. The unit would score 73 aerial victories durin ...

'' in September. On the 19th, he shot down his first enemy. He would run off a string of 11 more victories by 25 July, the majority being opposing enemy fighters. He was then supplied with a new

Fokker D.VII The Fokker D.VII is a German World War I fighter aircraft designed by Reinhold Platz of the '' Fokker-Flugzeugwerke''. Germany produced around 3,300 D.VII aircraft in the second half of 1918. In service with the ''Luftstreitkräfte'', the D.VII ...

;''Fokker D VII Aces of World War 1, Part 2.''. p. 65 he scored five more victories with it, though details have been lost. On 30 September 1918, he was honored Prussia's highest decoration for valor, the Golden Military Merit Cross.''Above the Lines: The Aces and Fighter Units of the German Air Service, Naval Air Service and Flanders Marine Corps, 1914–1918'', p. 209

Sources of information

References

* ''Above the Lines: The Aces and Fighter Units of the German Air Service, Naval Air Service and Flanders Marine Corps, 1914–1918''.

Norman Franks Norman Leslie Robert Franks (1940 – 21 May 2023) was an English militaria writer who specialised in aviation topics. He focused on the pilots and squadrons of World Wars I and II. Biography Franks published his first book in 1976. H ...

, Frank W. Bailey, Russell Guest. Grub Street, 1993. , . *''Fokker D VII Aces of World War 1, Part 2.'' Norman Franks, Greg VanWyngarden. Osprey Publishing, 2004. , 1918 deaths 1888 births German World War I flying aces Luftstreitkräfte personnel German military personnel killed in World War I {{germany-mil-bio-stub