9th of August 1915
Early that Monday morning there was an enormous air activity above the Ypres sector. The Germans reacted to this with as many people on their side and so Oberleutnant zur See Alfred Ritscher and his Beobachter Leutnant Heinrich Maas flew in with the S53. Suddenly an unprecedented type appeared. Ritscher steered his Albatross into the right position so that Maas got the ‘new’ one in his sights. Somewhere above Polygone wood he took the Brit under fire. Oddly enough, the British double-decker remained intact, but lost altitude, flying in the wrong direction. Ritscher continued to follow the Brit and saw how, after an almost perfect landing somewhere around Eksternest it overtook. There was no movement from the tilted plane, from German infantrymen all the more. On their return to Moorsele, they were already aware of their exploits. Strangely enough, neither of the German pilots ever made a claim to this victory themselves. The Staff of the II.MLFA did make a telegraphic claim to this ‘Abschuss’.
The unit that relayed the news also reported that the aircraft was virtually intact. The British pilot, Captain Robert Pike, was hit in the head and probably killed instantly. He was buried in a nearby German cemetery. Captain Robert Maxwell Pike, Flight Commander N° 5 RFC Squadron, was a 29 year old Irishman, born at Kilwork, Tullow, County Carlow. His grave was never recovered, probably destroyed by the heavy shelling. His name is chiseled in the memorial to the missing British Air Force personnel in Arras.
The new biplane was collected from eksternest by the naval personnel and after being thoroughly examined, completely reassembled at Moorsele. The tail rudder did have to be refitted, because that was the part that had been destroyed when it went over. Strangely enough, the Germans were completely wrong about the identity of their loot. Ritscher wrote a report on 15 September about the rebuilt aircraft and wrongly described it as the smallest type of Voisin Double Decker (Aircraft Cy. London) with a 100 hp 9 cylinder GNOME engine. In fact, the aircraft was a de Havilland DH2, a push-pull double-decker which was still in the test phase at the time. Precisely to test the aircraft in the most realistic situations it was deployed on the Ypres front, where it then fell into enemy hands.
On 23 August that Flak unit had a tube thrown over the British lines with a report of the shooting and death of Pike. An explanation for this second message suggests that Captain Pike had been hit by the German anti-aircraft forces during the aerial battle. A battery set up on the racetrack in the Polygon Woods probably claimed the “Abschuss “and had the counter-claim ejected from the British.
Alfred Ritscher
Born 23 May 1879 in Bad Lauterberg died on the 30th of March 1963 in Hamburg. During the First World War, Ritscher made reconnaissance flights in support of Marine units in Flanders. After the war he worked as an independent businessman and in 1925 worked as a specialist in aerial navigation with Lufthansa. In 1934, Ritscher divorced his Jewish wife Susan née Loewenthal, in order not to endanger his career in the War Department.
Pike Robert
Robert Maxwell Pike was born at Kilnock House on 30 August 1886, the second son of Robert Lecky Pike and his wife, Catherine Henrietta Howard.
Sometime in 1914 Robert had taken up flying training, with the result of him been award his “Royal Aero Club Certificate” (pilot’s license) on 21st September 1914 at the Military School, Brooklands, Surrey, England., he acquired his license in a Bristol Biplane. His early sickness must have improved or overlooked as he enlisted for service in the Army at the start of WWI. He joined the newly formed Royal Flying Corps, commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and was sent to Joyce Green on home defense duties. On the night of the 19th of January 1915 he got his first taste of action, intercepting a Zeppelin during a raid, the engine of his Vickers FB5 failed in midflight, forcing him to land in the dark, he hit a dyke and overturned, both Pike and his Gunner Shaw were unhurt.
April of 1915 he was sent to France and was attached to Nº 5 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, which was in an observation roll for the Royal Artillery, as spotter. He rose quickly to the rank of acting Captain, in fact he jumped from 2nd Lieutenant to Temporary Captain on the 4th of May 1915, and this promotion was published in the London Gazette on the 18th of May 1915. He was given command of B Flight, by his own CO reports Pike excelled in his new post.
sources
rootsweb.com
Henshaw Trevor: The Sky their Battlefield, Grub Street, Londen, 1995
airwar19141918
wingsofwar.org