As an aside to the discussion about German aircraft in Palestine in another thread, its worth mentioning that there is another piece of German aviation history in Ben Noot's papers. It is a rubbing, taken off an engine plate I guess, from a plane "Brought down at Lahana on January 15th 1917"

The rubbing bears the words

ALBATROS-WERKE
G.m.b.h.
Berlin-Johannisthal
Type: (unclear - possibly B VFF) No.808 ?R

Ben's accompanying letter has a small piece of varnished plywood pinned to it, which was taken off the plane, and his account of the incident is thus:

"Enclosed I am sending you a piece of an aeroplane which was brought down by one of our airmen not far from the camp. I had a fine view of the fight. It was a comparitively poor scrap, the Germans giving in after trying to get past our aviator and failing. When he came down he tried to burn his papers and his aeroplane. He succeeded in destroying the former but failed in the latter. Our airman, who was flying just overhead at the time, saw them attempt to destroy the machine and fired three shots which frightened the enemy off. Then all of us from the camp had run over in the meantime and were by now close upon the two airmen, they surrendered to one of our officers. Then our airman came along and wanted to know why the ______ they didn't use the machine gun on him as he went up to fight them, not to bring them down. I am also sending enclosed an impression of the plate on the machine, which I omitted to mention was captured intact, and as it was one of the newest make it is reckoned to be a valuable prize. The airmen were a Captain and a Sergeant Major, the former being an observer. I am buying some photographs of the affair and these I will send on to you."

In the papers there is a photograph which I will have to scan and upload when I find it, which I suspect may be of one of the airmen involved.

Does anyone know anything about the aviators and aircraft involved I wonder?

Paul

Casualties of the German Air Services shows that Uffz Christian Bohensiek (pilot) and Ltn Otto Martin Graf von Schwerin (observer) of Flieger Abteilung 66 were brought down and captured at La Lana, Salonika, on 14 January 1916. Above the Trenches shows that a victory over an Albatros C-type on that day was credited to Lt G W Murlis-Green, flying BE 12 6601, and Lt F G Saunders, flying BE 12 6603, both of No 17 Sqn RFC.

That's the closest incident over Macedonia that I could find.

I hope that this helps.

Gareth

Probably not an engine plate Albatross did have a small build plate on the fuselage. The aircraft was built in 3 plants (Alb, O.A.W and Bay.) The rubbing indicates that the one in question was built in the first of these which was the parent factory. I suspect its not B VFF but C VII. Over 350 of these C VIIs were in service on all fronts. It was a stop gap until the CX became availble but proved very succesful in its own right. It would have had a Benz Bz IV engine and any engine plate should reflect the Benz and not the Albatross as this power plant could be used on other types.