Leutnant Karl Plauth was a German 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. He would crash a

Junkers A 32 The Junkers A 32 was a mail plane built in prototype form in Germany in the late 1920s, and later developed as a prototype Aerial reconnaissance, reconnaissance-bomber under the designation K 39. The design was a conventional low-wing Cantilever# ...

to his death on a test flight.

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 ...

Karl Plauth was born on 27 August 1896 in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, Germany.''Above the Lines: The Aces and Fighter Units of the German Air Service, Naval Air Service and Flanders Marine Corps, 1914–1918'', p. 181 Plauth originally served in a

pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a person who is among the first at something that is new to a community. A pioneer as a settler is among the first settling at a place that is new to the settler community. A historic example are American pioneers, perso ...

battalion early in the First World War. After being wounded during the

Battle of Verdun The Battle of Verdun ( ; ) was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front in French Third Republic, France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north ...

and earning a First Class

Iron Cross The Iron Cross (, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire (1871–1918), and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). The design, a black cross pattée with a white or silver outline, was derived from the in ...

, he transferred to flying service. After a stint in ''Flieger-Abteilung 204'' (Flier Detachment 204),. he was assigned to fly a

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'', pp. 11–13 with Royal Prussian '' Jagdstaffel 20'' (Fighter Squadron 20) on 14 June 1918. Plauth scored his first triumph on 9 July 1918. On 14 July, he was shot down, totaling his airplane, lacerating his head and blackening his eye. He was grounded for eight days because of the eye.''Fokker D.VII Aces of World War I, Part 2'', p. 13 That did not deter him from scoring again on the 31st. By 28 September, his tally stood at 10. The following day, he became the ''

Staffelführer ''Staffelführer'' (, " Formation leader") was one of the first paramilitary ranks used by the German ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) in the early years of that group's existence. The later SS rank of ''Staffelführer'' traces its origins to the First ...

'' of Royal Prussian '' Jagdstaffel 51''. As their leader, he shot down seven more enemy aircraft during October, 1918, bringing his total to 17. However, he was no killer; he preferred to see his opponents survive. He was piloting the

, which he helped design, on a test flight on 2 November 1927, when it failed to pull out of a loop. He died in the resultant crash.

End notes

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 I, Part 2''. Greg VanWyngarden, Harry Dempsey. Osprey Publishing, 2004.

Biography

End notes

References

Further reading