Extract from VHth Corps Summary.
A Combat in the Air.
The Ypres Times.
17
Imperial War Museum.] rPhoto. Crown Copyright.
CAPTURED FOKKER MONOPLANE.
It should be explained that the Fokker is a monoplane, expressly built and con
trived for fighting and for pursuit of the enemy, to which duties its activities are by
strict order confined, and for which it is especially adapted on account of its high speed
It is not allowed to expose itself by venturing across our lines on reconnaissance work.
It must be added that, in contrast to the arrangements on our aeroplanes, the
machine-gun on the Fokker is immovably fixed in front of the pilot, with barrel straight
to the frontthe correct aim of the gun being ensured by manipulation of the whole
machine, just as the correct aim of a torpedo from a submarine is contrived only by
manipulation of the boat itself. The Fokker's machine-gun, being fixed, and fixed on
the same plane as the body of the machine, fires through the propeller. Such bullets
as miss the propellor naturally carry straight to the front, while such as are intercepted
by its blades are dispelled by angled and bullet-proof deviators attached to the back-
face of these blades.
A recent fight, in which two aeroplanes from the squadron with our Corps were
engaged against heavy odds, deserves description in some detail.
One of our machines, to which another was acting as escort, was engaged in recon
naissance work over Cambrai on the morning of December 29th. They were attacked
by six German Fokker machines, firing through the propellor.
