Who is the famous pilot at left.

Guess I'll "open the bidding", could it be Max Immelmann?
Cheers,
Lance

Kurt Wintgens without his spectacles?

No & no.

anthony fokker!

a very young Werner Voss.

Captn Tommy

That is Anthony Fokker. He was at the front with one of his newer machines and was convinced to take it up. The pilots dressed him up in a German uniform. Faced with the prospect of being shot down became a reality. And evidently he changed his mind about the flight.

It's an interesting story... a Dutchman saw a chance in Germany (the Dutch were involved as "neutral" in the conflict at hand) and took it. It brought Fokker an enormous exposure to what was needed and what was then possible...and the results were spectacular. After the war (actually just before it ended) he put his whole shop on a train and got it back to the Netherlands. Had he been able to continue there what he was doing, who knows what might have happened...

Harald

The story that Fokker smuggled train-loads of aircraft out of Germany, has reached epic proportions. While we know that this was true to some extent, we must try to understand what was happening. First, we know that Germany was out of the aircraft purchasing market after November 11, 1918. It is known that of 335 that were ordered, 289 Fokker E.V/D.VIII had been delivered by 8 Oct.1918. Pending contracts could not be paid for, so the post war German government was more than willing to let Fokker leave with his rolling stock of D.VII, D.VIII and C.I types (some of these having been accepted by the German government were among those spirited away). Herr Anthony Fokker was not a war criminal, so why would the allies pursue him? The allied commission was busy destroying aircraft in the field. New aircraft at air parks ready for disbursement went to the allied countries as war reparations (mostly Fokker D.VII and Roland D.VIb types). At least twenty incomplete Fokker D.VIII type airframes were destroyed at the Fokker factory in Schwerin. At the exodus a further twenty ( 29?) complete Fokker E.V/ D.VIII types went to Holland and were sold off by the Fokker company there. Recipients were the Dutch Luchtvaart Afdeling , Polish Air Service and The United States of America (purchased P165 and P169 ?).