Werner Voss (German Ace)

The great ace Werner Voss watches an aircraft being demonstrated alongside legendary fighting scout designer Anthony Fokker. Voss, with his 'Blue Max' worn around his neck, would soon claim his final kills in an early pre-production example of Fokker's famous triplane scout

Werner Voss was born in Krefeld on 13 April 1887. When he was 27, he enlisted in his local militia, then went to war with the 2. Westfälische Husaren Regiment Nr 11 - a unit known as the 'dancing hussars'. Like so many other cavalrymen, the stalemate of trench warfare failed to meet his expectations, and he transferred into aviation in August 1915. Once trained, Voss was assigned to Kasta 20 of Kagohl IV, and he began his career as a pilot in the Verdun area. He was happily transferred to Jasta Boelcke on 21 November 1916, and opened his account with two victories six days later.

Voss scored rapidly in February and March 1917, and on the 17th of the latter month he received the Knight's Cross with Swords of the Royal Hohenzollern House Order (the 'Hohenzollern'). With his tally at 24, he received the 'Blue Max' on 8 April. This was followed by routine leave, during which Voss missed most of the killing time of 'Bloody April'. In May 1917 he returned to Jasta Boelcke and brought his score to 28 (12 of them being hapless BE 2s), but the young fighter ace - he had just turned 20 - was dissatisfied with his Staffelführer, the veteran Hauptmann Franz Walz. Along with another misguided young pilot, Werner Voss submitted charges to his superiors that Walz was 'war-weary', and that an elite unit like Jasta Boelcke required a more dynamic leader. Their blatant disregard for the military code of conduct and the chain of command saw both pilots posted out of the prestigious Jasta. Voss received a severe, but private, reprimand, his youth and record saving him from harsher punishment.

Voss was given acting command of Jasta 5 on 20 May, then a scant nine days later he moved to Jasta 29. His time as Staffelführer only lasted five days, whereupon he went to command Jasta 14. Voss seems to have cared little for the responsibilities of command, and despised paperwork. At the end of July 1917 his old comrade Manfred von Richthofen called upon him to take command of Jasta 10, and Voss was soon building up the score of this previously lacklustre unit. Issued with one of the first Fokker FI triplanes to reach the front in early September 1917, Voss saw considerable action in the machine up until his death in action in the storied clash with seven SE 5as of the crack No 56 Sqn on 23 September 1917. Aged just 20, Voss had been credited with 48 victories prior to his death.

Albatros D III of Leutnant Werner Voss, Jasta 2 Boelcke and Jasta 5, mid-1917
Werner Voss, during his period with Jasta Boelcke, flew this much-decorated Albatros D III. When interviewed by historian Alex Imrie (circa 1960), Voss' motor mechanic Karl Timm recalled that the ace instructed him and Flieger Christian Rüser (the airframe mechanic) to paint a red heart with white border on both sides of the fuselage, and there are photos of Voss himself touching up the white border. Then Voss had them add a white swastika (merely a good luck symbol at this time). Timm told Voss he thought this looked a bit bare, and suggested that he add a laurel wreath around the swastika, which the pilot agreed to. Voss continued to fly this D III in these markings at Jasta 5, but it almost certainly did not follow him to Jasta 10.