Original subtitles

For the first time in history, the sky is a battlefield.

In World War I, brutal air combat with wood and canvas bite lanes forges a new

kind of warrior.

The Dogfighter.

In the freezing air at 15,000 feet.

These fearless pilots duel to the death in dizzying aerobatic combat.

Now you're in the cockpit as the first dogfighters invent aerial warfare.

Experience the battle.

Dissect the tactics.

Relive the dogfights of World War I.

June 1917, 15,000 feet above La Salle, France, on the Western Front.

A lone Albatross D3 hunts for enemy reconnaissance aircraft and observation

balloons.

An icy 100-mile-per-hour wind stings exposed skin as the pilot searches the

sky.

He is 21-year-old Ernst Udet.

destined to become a top German ace.

Second only to Manfred von Richthofer, the Red Baron.

Here's someone who, by his own admission, had no qualms whatsoever

about going head-to-head with an opponent in the interest of making the

opponent flinch first.

Not long into the mission, Odette spots someone.

From the west, the small dot approaches fast.

At first... Small and black, it grows quickly as it approaches.

A SPAD, an enemy fighter.

The aircraft has the distinctive brown markings and stub nose of a French SPAD

7.

The adversaries close, head on.

At the same height, we go for each other, passing at a hair's breadth.

We bank into a left turn, then begins the circling.

Odette yanks the stick back and applies rudder. The simple but responsive cable

and pulley controls snap the bike lane into a tight bank.

Like heavyweight boxers, the opponents test each other's defenses, holding back

aggressive moves until they determine their enemy's skill.

It wasn't the first pass that really gave them the initial insight into how

good of an opponent they were facing.

It was the first turn. The technological advantages of fighter aircraft in World

War I weren't in the normal vertical flight pass. It was the turn.

How quickly did the guy turn? How quickly could he recover?

How much altitude could he gain in the turn without stalling the aircraft?

The Albatross D3, flown by Ernst Udet, is a fast-climbing and maneuverable

fighter that dominated the Allies when first sent into combat.

The French-built SPAD 7 is sturdy, with a 150-horsepower Hispano-Suiza

V8 engine and a top speed of 119 miles per hour.

The SPAD is 10 miles per hour faster than the Albatross and better in a dive.

But the D3 is more maneuverable and has a better rate of climb.

Ernst Houdet throws the stick left. The rushing wind and the staccato clatter of

his Mercedes engine are deafening. He closes on the Frenchman.

He passes me, so close that his propois shakes me back and forth.

I can make it out. View, it says there. View, the old one.

That's Guinemere's sign.

It is France's ace of aces, Georges Guinevere.

He's already brought down 30 German aircraft, including a close friend of

Oudet, Putz Heinisch.

Anger surges. Oudet must take revenge for Heinisch's death.

He'll attempt a half-loop.

one of the first air combat maneuvers later named for German ace Max

Immelmann. Houdet will pull back on the stick, climb, go inverted, then roll out

at the top, hoping to surprise Guynemer with a diving attack.

Houdet pitches up, craning his neck around to keep his eyes on Guynemer.

To his horror, the French ace has anticipated his move perfectly.

and fires into Udet's machine.

Metallic hail rattles through my right wing plane and rings out as it strikes

the struts.

Udet reacts through sheer instinct.

choking back the panic while struggling to regain the advantage.

Drive your car at 60 miles an hour down the highway.

Stick your head out the window.

Now imagine you're going twice that fast.

Now imagine it's zero degrees outside, and it's hard to breathe, and it's cold,

and the air is biting.

Throw in the fact that your seat is on top of a 20-gallon tank full of aviation

gas. That's what it was like in a World War I fighter plane cockpit.

Odette rolls and reverses. The tight turning radius of the D-3 plays to his

advantage.

He manages to get Guinevere in front of him for a fleeting moment.

I'm sure he's coming down with the fangs out, blood in the mouth, and he's coming

down to kill.

I push the button on the stick, and the machine gun remains silent.

Stoppage.

His twin 7.92mm Spandau machine guns are jammed.

It's a common problem for the first dogfighters.

The gun jam is a huge problem. They can't put any weapon on the enemy at

that point, and then they're a sitting duck.

Odette frantically pounds the gun, trying to clear the jam.

It's no use.

At that point, he was just a target for Dinamar. So he was doing a lot more

wider circling, a lot more climbing, trying to stall the plane, doing things

that were much more evasive.

Udet and Dinamar roll right and pull into each other again.

With his left hand, Udet tries to work around through his machine gun.

But then... Disaster!

From overhead, Ginamare observes the German's plight.

Now he knows what gives with me. He knows I'm helpless prey.

Udet cranks over into another left turn.

He has no cockpit armor. He has no parachute.

To be shot down from this altitude in World War I is certain death.

Guinevere reverses for a final climactic head-on pass.

Udet knows it is about to end.

He skims over me, almost on his back. Then it happens. He sticks out his hand

and waves to me.

Waves lightly, and dives to the west in the direction of his lies.

I fly home.

I'm numb.

Incredibly, Georges Guinemere has spared Ernst Udette.

There are people who claim Ginnomir had a stoppage himself then.

Others claim he feared I might ram him in desperation, but I don't believe any

of them.

I still believe to this day that a bit of chivalry from the past has continued

to survive.

Pilots like Ernst Odette and Georges Guynemer had benefited tremendously from

technological improvements that had taken place in the three years since the

start of the war.

World War I started 11 years after the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk.

When the conflict began, the aircraft that were used were nothing but

glorified kites, powered with today what wouldn't even be a decent motorcycle

engine.

Air combat first developed around observation aircraft sent into enemy

airspace to spot artillery or track troop movements.

Smaller aircraft, called scouts in World War I, were designed to attack these

reconnaissance planes.

Essential to this mission was the use of forward-firing machine guns, first added

to scout planes in 1915.

For the first time, you can use the airplane as a platform. You point your

airplane at your target and fire.

And so it's far more accurate than trying to fire to the side or behind or

that sort of thing.

The enemy soon sent up their own scout planes to protect the reconnaissance

aircraft. And by the winter of 1915, dogfights became a fixture in the skies

of World War I.

German ace Werner Voss is a master of this new form of combat, racking up 48

kills by the fall of 1917.

September 23rd, 1917.

Werner Voss, flying a prototype Fokker triplane, wings into battle over the

Ypres salient in Belgium.

15 miles to the southwest.

Six British SE-5s patrol the skies over the front.

Soon, they will meet Werner Voss in battle.

He will pit his Fokker Triplane against the very best of the British Royal

Flying Corps in one of the most famous dogfights of World War I.

September 23, 1917.

Six British SE-5 fighters cruise over the Western Front near Houghton,

Belgium.

The SE-5s are B-Flight of 56 Squadron.

They are led by Captain James McCutton, Britain's Ace of Aces.

B-Flight descends through a thick overcast at 9,000 feet.

Below the clouds, unseasonably warm, humid air whips through their open

cockpits.

They were looking for either fighter aircraft on the opposing side or to find

an observation aircraft that was trying to take pictures on their side.

Flak bursts menacingly around them. The first anti-aircraft guns were nothing

but field artillery, modified to fire vertically.

McCutton quickly spots a German DFW.

a two-seat reconnaissance aircraft the german is below b flight and directly in

front the cotton pitches over into a dive to make a lightning quick

attack run at 50 yards he opens fire with a lewis machine gun mounted on the

top wing

The DFW's engine is hit hard.

It drops out of the sky.

But as B-flight pulls up, McCutton spots something in the distance.

We saw ahead of us, just above Polkapel, an SC half-spinning down, closely

pursued by a silvery-blue German triplane at very close range.

The SE-5's tormentor is German ace, Werner Voss.

He fires a burst into the British plane.

B flight looks on.

The wounded SE-5 trails thick black smoke as Voss engages a second SE-5.

Effortlessly, the triplane pitches up, wings over, and drops onto the SE-5's

tail.

With 56 Squadron looking on from above, the triplane has made quick work of two

SE-5s.

Foss's Fokker triplane is a prototype aircraft.

Though slower than most fighters on the front, its three wings give it

astonishing maneuverability.

McCutton and 56 Squadron Scout Experimental 5A, or SE-5A, operational

in May 1917, is easy to fly and an extremely stable gun platform.

Both planes are heavily armed with two machine guns, the SE-5 with a top speed

of 130 miles per hour, is faster than the Fokker, but the Fokker is more

maneuverable.

B-Flight is now above and behind Foss, in perfect attack position.

McCudden and Rhys Davids will lead the attack.

Keith K. Musprat and VP Cronin will follow.

The remaining two members of B-Flight stay up high as top cover.

McCudden signals the attack by rocking his wings.

And it was at that point that one of the epic dogfights of World War I began.

Dan, we dived at colossal speed.

I went to the right, Rhys Davids to the left, and we got behind the German

triplane together.

Confident of an easy kill, McCudden and Rhys Davids open up.

But Voss is anything but an easy target.

He's been trained in the Diktabolka, the first codified air combat tactics, laid

down in 1916 by German ace Oswald Bolke.

Rule 5 states you should always turn into your enemy's attack and put him on

the defensive.

Foss will boot hard right rudder and spin his machine around 180 degrees.

The bizarre maneuver takes advantage of the triplane's stunning agility.

The German pilot saw us and turned in a most disconcertingly quick manner. Not a

climbing nor Immelmann turn, but a sort of flat half spin.

The GR-1 triplane, having three wings, had an exceptional amount of lift to it.

What it allowed the triplane to do was to basically do what's called a flat

half spin or an uncoordinated turn.

The SE-5s face a torrent of tracers.

McCudden and Rhys-Davids fall into a steep climb called zooming in World War

I.

But Cronan's SE-5 is sluggish. He drops below Foss, his engine sputtering.

McCudden, Rhys Davids, and Musprat are here, above Foss.

Cronan is below the fight. Easy prey for the German ace.

Foss reverses and attacks Cronan.

Cronan's sputtering engine coughs to life.

He now turns directly into Vos and opens fire at 300 feet.

Vos breaks off his attack, but he's not running away, even if it's four against

one.

Cronin takes on a role in the battle at this point, not unlike Matador. He is

deciding to stay in the fight and to stay ahead of Vos and to act as a

distraction.

Cronin is thrown from side to side within the open cockpit.

I don't know how many times I got in a burst head-on, then dived in under him

while all the while he was drilling at and into me.

But dammit, why didn't the others take him on?

Did they think I was showing off?

Above the fight, McCudden circles, looking for an opening.

McCudden will wait for Foss to expose his six o'clock, then dive in and

attack.

Foss turns after Crumb.

McCudden pitches down.

He opens up with his Vickers machine gun.

But in the blink of an eye, Foss reverses, returning fire with his twin

spandongs.

McCutton hurtles past, then zoom climbs.

Foss maneuvers bravely in spite of the odds.

In a group combat like that, when it's one against four, the best place to be

is in the middle of everybody else.

Because they're circling around you trying to maneuver, but they have to be

careful. A, they don't shoot each other, or B, they don't crash into each other.

But McCutton is determined.

He again noses over.

No sooner do McCutton's guns spark to life than Foss pulls his nose to bear.

Hot German lead tears through McCudden's SE-5, shredding fabric and wooden wing

spars.

The boss appears invincible at the controls of the triplane.

The airplanes of that era were creatures of the air.

You felt every input that you gave to the controls. You had cable

connections to the ailerons, the rudder, the elevators.

Not at all like today where we have fly-by-wire jets where you move a

control stick an eighth of an inch and you get a knife-edge flight all of a

sudden.

Voss's mastery of his machine finally catches up to VP Cronin.

His SE-5 has taken severe damage.

He finally got too close to me and I resorted in desperation to the old

method of shaking a pursuing machine.

He puts his aircraft into something that looks like a spin, almost as if he's

either been incapacitated or the aircraft has been somehow disabled.

After a couple of revolutions, it appears that Voss actually buys it and

lets him fly away.

Voss has knocked three SE-5s out of a fight and landed hits on any British

pilot who's approached him.

But now, three more SE-5s of 56 Squadron join the fray. A startling array

of pilots now surround Werner Voss, all British aces.

The light and agile dry plane could easily climb above the combat and

escape, but Voss savors the thrill of the dark. The German

ace is destined for glory or death.

September 23rd, 1917.

In the midst of a wild melee, famed German ace Verfaust holds his own

against no less than six top British aces.

Faust savors the combat, superbly demonstrating the lethal effectiveness

of his prototype Fokker triplane.

His stick and throttle ability, his ability to fly in a disciplined way in a

fight, his ability to stay not calm, but to keep his wits about him in these very

stressful situations.

If he were flying with us today, he'd probably be one of the best.

British SE-5 pilot Richard Mayberry now zeroes in on Voss.

Diving on him from 6 o'clock.

Vos breaks right to shake him off.

But Mayberry is not thrown.

At this point in the battle, things get very complicated and very confused.

An albatross joins the battle, which of course helps Vos considerably, at least

numerically.

A German albatross D3 has stumbled into the action, turning easily onto

Mayberry's tail.

Mayberry zoom climbs to shake the albatross.

The German pilot gives chase.

But even worse, Foss latches on as well.

Flying nearby, James McCutton and Arthur Rhys-Davids move in behind the Germans.

And for a moment, the battle is transformed into a wild, twisting tail

chase.

The Germans are sandwiched between the British.

The Albatross pitches up, zooms, then drops in behind McCudden and Rhys

-Davids.

The German yanks the stick back.

The gut-churning Luke puts him squarely behind the British.

Unfortunately for Rhys-Davids, the Albatross manages to unload his guns

into his airplane.

But Grace Davids stays in the fight, the albatross still on his tail.

Now, at the head of the chase, Richard Mayberry will pitch up and loop back on

the tail of the red-nosed albatross.

Mayberry yanks the stick back, throwing his SE-5 into a dizzying acrobatic

maneuver.

He fires from point-blank range.

The wounded albatross plummets.

Phos is alone once again.

He zooms, distancing himself from the slower climbing SE-5s.

Phos looks down at the plane circling below.

He could easily disengage and live to fight another day, but the enticement of

the kill runs hot through his veins.

I think actually he got greedy, and he was looking at an opportunity to notch

number 49 and number 50, and furthermore to close the gap on his friend and rival

Manfred von Richthofen.

Voss dives back into the fray.

He fires his Spandau machine guns into the nearest SE-5.

Its engine pummeled, the British pilot dives out of the fight.

The dogfight rages above no man's land.

Foss handles the triplane superbly, pumping rounds into each of the

attacking SE-5s. But it isn't enough.

The thing that's unfortunate for Voss is that he never really put enough planes

out of commission to gain any sort of advantage.

All the bullets he put into all those planes, he never drew a drop of blood

from any of those opponents.

To the British, Voss seems involved.

The triplane was still circling round in the midst of six SEs who were all firing

at it as opportunity offered, and at one time I noted the triplane in the apex of

a cone of tracer bullets from at least five machines simultaneously, and each

machine had two guns.

The British are dumbstruck by the skill and tenacity of the German pilot of the

Parker Triplane.

But Werner Voss's luck is about to run out.

Voss is here.

British ace James McCudden is here.

They'll streak in, head on.

But Voss doesn't see another SE-5 coming in from the side.

The SE-5 on the side watches the merge.

Then opens fire.

Rounds slam into the triplane's cockpit and fuselage.

Foss stays aloft, but for the first time in the battle, he takes no evasive

action.

Then, Arthur Reese Davis dives on Foss from behind.

He empties his Vickers machine guns into the triplane.

Voss does little to avoid the deadly arc of bullets.

Given how much he straightened up and how the ferociousness of his maneuvering

had abated, that he was wounded and he was probably starting to have some

difficulty maintaining consciousness.

Reese Davids fires another burst into the triplane.

Then pulls up.

James McCudden is the only pilot to witness Voss's final moments.

When I next saw him, he was very low.

I saw him go into a fairly steep dive, and so I continued to watch.

And then saw the triplane hit the ground and disappear into a thousand fragments,

for it seemed to me that it literally went to powder.

After 10 minutes of ferocious combat, Werner Voss is dead at age 20.

The German ace shot holes through every plane that attacked him, but incredibly,

all returned to base.

As long as I live, I shall never forget my admiration for that German pilot.

His flying was wonderful, his courage magnificent.

And in my opinion, he is the bravest German airman who it has been my

privilege to see fight.

German pilots and planes were always on the cutting edge of tactics and

technology.

They were a formidable foe for the Americans who took to the skies above

France in 1918.

The United States Army Air Service was equipped and trained by the French.

Though some pilots had flown in the French Lafayette Escadrille early in the

war, most had no combat experience.

America's first dogfighters will be tested as never before.

September 14, 1918.

Mars La Tour, France.

American pilot Arthur Raymond Brooks.

in a formation of six SPAD 13s patrols over the Western Front.

Soon, they spot three formations of German Fokker D7s in the distance.

The Americans move in.

Instinctively, Brooks checks six and sees a formation of 12 enemy Fokkers.

i saw them as they neared us but had no time to warn the leader of our flight

other than by just nosing down gaining speed and then turning to the right over

his head and into the fokkers

brooks's abrupt maneuver separates

him from his flight four of the german planes continue on to attack the rest of

the spans but eight stay to fight the lone american

The sky explodes to a furious and deadly contest.

September 14, 1918.

American pilot Arthur Raymond Gross swings straight into the bite of his

life.

He's surrounded by eight German Fokker D7s.

I was scared, but in spite of much high tension and yelling at the top of my

voice, I calculated, by the nature of my training I suppose, that I would get as

many Fokkers as possible before the inevitable.

Brooks is up against a lethal adversary.

the Fokker D7.

It is 100% universally felt that the Fokker D7 was the best fighter

aircraft of World War I. It had a wing that was thick, which allowed it to

maneuver very quickly.

Brooks' SPAD 13, with a 220-horsepower Hispano-Suiza 8BC engine and a

top speed of 138 miles per hour, is sturdy but plagued with engine problems.

Both planes are armed with two forward firing machine guns.

The SPAD is faster and better in a dive, but the Fokker D7 is more agile in a

turning fight.

Brooks initiates violent evasive maneuvers, skidding, looping, and

diving, anything to prevent the circling Fockers from getting a clean shot.

In the heat of the fight, Brooks was probably alternating between panic and

the coolness of desperation.

His mind was fixed on a number of things at once.

Adrenaline surges as he fights to stay alive amid the chaos of swirling

airplanes.

Suddenly, one Fokker dives towards him in a head-on pass.

Desperate to save fuel and ammunition, Brooks heads directly at the Fokker,

intent on ramming the German.

It seems like a real dramatic last-ditch move. No telling what damage you're

going to inflict on your own airplane with something like that.

Just before impact, the German peels under and dives away.

Brooks reverses. To survive, he must keep moving.

Another Fokker bores in head-on.

Brooks speeds by.

I turned immediately on another, feeling that a vigorous offense was the best

defense.

Brooks is here.

A Falker is firing on him here. In this kind of dogfight, Brooks must take a

shot at every opportunity.

As the German dives on him, Brooks will skid out of the stream of bullets.

Then, when the Fokker passes underneath, Brooks will roll over the top of his

enemy and bring his guns to bear.

The German bores in.

Brooks pulls hard back on the stick.

The SPAD leaps skyward.

I had just enough time to dip enough to see his features before I fired

incendiaries. And he was aflame.

All he had to do was pull himself across without having to slow down or align

fuselage. He could rake his gun right across the plane.

It's a brilliant move.

Rooks' two .303 caliber Vickers make quick work of the fucker.

One down, but he's facing seven more.

Brooks spots a Fokker at 2 o'clock, starting a pass.

Out of his peripheral vision, he realized, and believe me, he realized

these things in a nanosecond, that the geometry to rake somebody else was right

there.

Brooks cranks to the right and peppers the Fokker with machine gun fire.

Two down.

But knocking the Hun aircraft down may play to Brooks' disadvantage.

It was being surrounded that saved me thus far.

The Germans could not shoot at me without being in their own way most of

the time, or bringing one of their own aircraft into the line of fire.

The Germans just saw two of their squadron mates go down.

They're angrier now.

In terms of flying more aggressively, I'm sure it's like we're going to finish

this SLB right now.

The six other fuckers drone in like angry hornets, determined to knock the

spam out of the sky.

September 14th, 1918.

American pilot Arthur Raymond Brooks has knocked out two German Fokker D7s.

But six remaining fighters close in.

Brooks must stay aggressive and constantly on the move, never remaining

a stationary target for long.

One of the things we typically do in an outnumbered situation, you want to

switch a lot. And I'll work on it and switch back to somebody else.

White tracer ribbons could cut through between my wings often.

So close that if I reached out my hand, the stream of bullets would have cut it

off.

Brooks pitches up to evade another attack.

But as he rolls over the top, his engine sputters. His prop... windmills slowly

he's run out of fuel in his main tank he switches to the

auxiliary tanks located in the center section of the top wing

i stared at the

blade and instinctively nose down just as an enemy burst swept in front of my

forehead shattering my windshield and clattering into my right gun rendering

it useless except for single shots

He's in what's called the autostratosphere of tension and anxiety

and fear.

In this environment, you don't have time to think. Too much is going on that's

very heavy, so you're reacting.

What happens is you fall back to your level of training in a situation like

this.

Brooks manages to restart the engine.

As he dives for airspeed, he gets lucky.

Two more Bosch planes in their tactical work happen to get in the way of my now

single line of fire.

Brooks opens up.

White hot incendiary bullets. A new kind of ammunition designed to set enemy

aircraft on fire and rip through the fuckers.

This was still too much attention to suit me. I figured the danger was

greater for me now than with the whole swarm.

Because there was less chance of the Germans getting in their own way.

Brooks decides to exploit the only advantage his SPAD 13 has over the

Fokker D7.

Diving speed.

His 220 horsepower SPAD can out-dive and out-run the Fokker D7.

He bobs and weaves as the Germans lob tracers at him.

He knows that if somebody's back behind him shooting, if he continues straight

and level, they're going to hit him.

So he's trying to skid the airplane and just make himself unpredictable to get

out of the plane with those bullets.

Finally, the Germans break off.

The grueling dogfight is over.

I don't know how I got back.

One incendiary bullet had burned itself out in the main spar of my upper wing.

Five bullets went through my fuselage within four inches of my back.

Holes were scattered all over my horse pad.

The aircraft had to be salvaged.

During the incredibly intense action, Brooks has fought off eight Fokker D-7s.

the most advanced fighter of the war, while downing Flora.

It's a stunning achievement, but under the victory rules of the day, Brooks is

only credited with two kills.

World War I ended less than a month after Brooks's epic battle.

The four years of war saw astonishing leaps in aviation.

It's been guesstimated that in those four years the extent of

engineering and technical and operational knowledge that was gained

was equal to what might have been 15 or 20 years of peacetime development.

By the end of the war, you had aircraft with 200 plus horsepower engines, you

had aluminum frames on the aircraft, whereas before everything was wood, you

had supercharged engines, and you had pilots using parachutes and oxygen.

Like it or not, war enhances technological growth out of necessity.

Modern day fighter pilots streak into battle, sheathed in electronics and

armed with incredible weapons that strike beyond the horizon.

But these modern warriors are indebted to the men who flew in open cockpits and

fought their foes face to face, inventing the dogfight.