Air battle with three big French warplanes, Caudrons.
After fifteen minutes managed to shoot down one...
It went down toward the French lines in a steep glide
with its port engine on fire and Lieutenant Göring
giving chase; we managed to force it to land behind
our lines (southeast edge of Haumont Woods). We
circled overhead at feet until we observed them
taken prisoner... Their plane had about a dozen hits.
The crew, an officer and a sergeant, were both unin-
jured.On June , , he was given a new Halberstadt plane,
No. D. He had been comfortable at Stenay Airfield he
pasted into his album pictures of himself at his well-appointed
writing desk and even better-appointed dressing table but
from July he flew sorties from Metz over the Third Army’s
front. A typical action report six days later records four missions
by him: In one dogfight over Côte Claire he fired five rounds
into an enemy Voisin, killing the observer, then lost his quarry
as it plunged into the clouds. Gradually his score increased, al-
though some claims were disallowed. “I regret,” wrote the lieu-
tenant colonel commanding the Fifth Army’s air element, “that I
am unable to credit to Lieutenant Göring the plane shot down
on July .” He was, however, credited with a twin-engined
Caudron destroyed at Mameg on the thirtieth (his third kill).
For three months after that the Göring file recorded only a
series of new postings back to Field Air Detachment, then
back again to Combat Squadron (Kampfstaffel) Metz, and three
weeks after that, on September , to Fighter Squadron
(Jagdstaffel). Bored as the fighting stagnated, he asked to be
posted to Fighter Squadron; the crown prince gave permis-
sion, and on October , again with his buddy Loerzer, Göring