Here’s another of Eugene Frandzen’s “Lives of the Aces in Pictures” from the pages of Flying Aces Magazine. The series ran for almost four years with a different Ace featured each month. This week we have his illustrated biography from the November 1934 issue featuring Der Adler von Lille—The Eagle of Lille—Oberleutnant Max Immelmann!

Max Immelman was the first German World War I flying Ace. He was a pioneer in fighter aviation and the first aviator to win the Pour le Mérite awarded by Kaiser Wilhelm II—Prussia’s higest order of merit. His name has become synonymous with with a common flying tactic—the Immelmann turn—in which the plane performs a simultaneous loop and roll thus allowing him to dive back at a pursuing plane!

Credited with seventeen (although some would dispute this and say fifteen) kills to his name, Immelmann met his fate on the 18th of June 1916 when he was shot down by British pilot George McCubbin.

• Download “Lives of the Aces in Pictures – Part 29: Oberleutnant Max Immelmann (November 1934, Flying Aces)