The Spring Offensive of 1918 

by Dave " The Rat" Bailey

--------------------

Silly Week 2009

 

The morning air, chilly as it was, hinted at warmer days ahead as Jasta 27 Commander Hermann Göring strode out of his quarters and surveyed the airfield. He had slept right through a minor raid that night and was surprised to see evidence of destruction. He called out to a young soldier and demanded to know what had happened. "Some French bombers hit our telephone station last night Sir!" was the reply. "Have it repaired immediately" Göring barked, "There were supposed to be some important orders coming today."

Click on images below to see larger images

  

During the course of the war the area had changed hands several times, and communications wires criss-crossed the ground. The only one which appeared to go on forever without a break was accordingly spliced onto the remains of the radio/telephone, once it was functional the operator tuned in to headquarters, and almost immediately there was a problem. They had patched in to a British communications system! "Excellent" said the Commander, "We can now listen in to their orders while we try to establish contact with headquarters!" The information gleaned this way was quite interesting. Apparently the British had managed to intercept German orders and they were abuzz with speculation about what was being called the Spring Offensive. The young soldier translating was new, nervous, and confused, but that didn't prevent the brash future Reichsmarschall from sending requests to his mechanics. Unfortunately the translation was seriously mangled with the result that 'spring', as in the season, was not changed to 'frühling', but to 'feder', as in boing boing boing…

Another mistake at the maintenance end resulted in a second article, the Offensive Spring. No pictures are known to survive but the item did serve for a few years post-war as an advertisement outside Madame Fifi's House of Pleasure.

This is the Revell 1/72nd Fokker DVII, with the decals for Göring's mount. (I couldn't resist having a joke at that pompous buffoon's expense) It goes together fairly well in my opinion, but I have very limited experience with WWI subjects or biplanes so others may think differently. I started by spraying the entire model with Tamiya Fine Primer, and it looked so good that I didn't bother with any other white paint on top of it. The decals don't seem to want to snuggle down much despite a liberal application of Micro Sol. The springs were scrounged from old ballpoint pens and the field-mod release system is black thread (the wife didn't have a colour match for hemp rope).

Dave " The Rat" Bailey

Photos and text © by Dave " The Rat" Bailey