27 Facts About Carl Menckhoff

Carl Menckhoff was a German First World War fighter ace.

Carl Menckhoff was credited with 39 confirmed victories, the majority over opposing fighter aces.

Carl Menckhoff won the German Empire's most prestigious decoration, the Pour le Merite, and was given command of Jagdstaffel 72.

Carl Menckhoff returned to Germany, where he succeeded in business, but where he was arrested in 1938 for currency law violations.

Carl Menckhoff was born in Herford, Westphalia, in the Kingdom of Prussia on 14 April 1883.

Carl Menckhoff was one of a family of at least eight and possibly ten siblings.

Carl Menckhoff's father ran a successful linen weaving mill, the Herforder Leinen-Verein Wilhelm Menckhoff, in which Carl was apprenticed and was later employed after his own business failed.

Carl Menckhoff believed that this background helped his later application to join the Luftstreitkrafte.

Carl Menckhoff reported for military service as a "one-year volunteer" at age 20 in 1903, but was invalided out after six weeks observation in a military hospital with suspected appendicitis.

Carl Menckhoff served on the Western Front, seeing action against the French in the vicinity of Chalons-en-Champagne and on the River Suippe, and later against the British in the vicinity of Armentieres.

Carl Menckhoff was wounded several times and received the Iron Cross First Class and Second Class for gallantry, both by the end of 1914.

Carl Menckhoff was transferred to the Eastern Front in April 1916, to be stationed at an airfield near Ashmyany.

Carl Menckhoff trained as a single-seat combat pilot at Warsaw.

Carl Menckhoff scored his first victory on 5 April 1917, downing a Nieuport 23 fighter of No 29 Squadron RFC.

The victories began to mount rapidly after that, though Carl Menckhoff often returned from victorious flights shaken by his triumphs.

Carl Menckhoff led his squadron into combat from its airstrips at Leffincourt and Bergnicourt.

VIIs, Carl Menckhoff engaged elements of the United States Air Service.

Carl Menckhoff was still a captive when the armistice ended the war on 11 November 1918.

Carl Menckhoff was able to expand his company internationally, into France and to Switzerland.

Carl Menckhoff established a second residence in Switzerland, but in October 1938, when crossing the German-Swiss border at Basel, he was found to be carrying an illegal quantity of Swiss francs.

Carl Menckhoff was arrested by the Nazi customs authorities and held in custody for more than eight months.

Carl Menckhoff was forced to surrender many of his business shares and patents to them.

Carl Menckhoff settled in a villa in the grounds of Angenstein Castle, which was owned by his wife's family.

Carl Menckhoff died of complications following surgery on 11 January 1949.

In May 2007, the ace's youngest son, Karl Gerhard Carl Menckhoff, was living in Washington, DC.

Carl Menckhoff was unaware of his father's combat heroics until after the ace died.

The souvenir of the deceased Carl Menckhoff was accepted by Gerhard, with the proviso that he would pass it along to his own, Carl Menckhoff, the ace's grandson.