“Ultimately, many of Boelcke’s dictums from the dawn of aviation are still valid today, despite a quantum leap in technology,” Ferguson says. In the current era of sophisticated surface-to-air threats, some of Boelcke’s rules, such as always continue the attack you have begun, may not universally apply, but aerial combat is still about fundamentals, says Navy Commander Brian Ferguson, who trains fighter pilots of all services as an F-5 adversary pilot. Robin Olds’ aggressive style fit the nickname of his unit, the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base. “The focus on roles and missions, tactics, situational awareness… Obviously very different from World War I, but too many times, we focus on what’s changed.” Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies at Alabama’s Maxwell Air Force Base. “I’ve always believed that by the end of World War I, any modern airman would recognize what’s going on,” says Richard Muller, who teaches air power history at the U.S. Its precepts would guide every subsequent generation of fighter pilots. By the early 20th century, Boelcke had written the canon-Dicta Boelcke-for a new type of warfare. Similarly, any Army or Marine Corps private knows the 14th century French terms enfilade (to put on a string) and defilade (to slip off), made historic by Napoleon but first used by the English during their Hundred Years War against the French, to describe the angles from which an attacking army fires on a foe. Clausewitz is still studied as part of the centuries-old lessons of ground conflict. Most mid-grade officers of any service know the book On War by Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian officer who fought against Napoleon in the 1815 Waterloo Campaign. The great irony was that Boelcke, a leading aerial tactician who had written an elegant list of commandments followed to this day, died breaking one of his own rules: Two aircraft should not attack the same opponent. Respected on both sides of the trenches, Boelcke was not only mourned in Germany as a national hero but also honored by the RFC, which dispatched an aircraft to drop a wreath over his home airfield. Popular accounts of the crash tell of Boelcke’s skill in bringing his airplane down in a survivable controlled crash, but his failure to secure his lap belt before takeoff likely sealed his doom. The wing failed, the airplane dropped from the sky, and within minutes, Germany’s leading ace-with 40 victories-was dead at the age of 25. Boelcke tried to break away, but Bohme’s landing gear tore a strip of fabric from the top wing of Boelcke’s Albatross D.II. Boelcke and Erwin Bohme chased the tail of the same aircraft, piloted by Alfred McKay of the Royal Flying Corps. On October 28, 1916, German pilot Oswald Boelcke, in flight with five squadron mates, including Manfred von Richthofen, closed on a group of British de Havilland DH 2 fighters.
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