Fokker E III Eindecker - VFW Ernst Udet - Germany March 1916

As the savage fighting on the Western Front revealed its insatiable appetite for consuming the lives of young men from all nationalities, a new war being waged in the skies above was about to take a similarly sinister turn. With their understanding of the absolute necessity to gain a control of the air and the wider implications this would have for the future of the entire conflict, the German High Command instructed its aircraft manufacturers to develop a new kind of aeroplane, one which was intended to hunt other aeroplanes and claim superiority of the skies.