Fritz Rumey Pour le Mérite, Golden Military Merit Cross was a German fighter pilot in the First World War, credited with 45 victories.
Education
Subsequently in August 1915 he applied for aviation duty and completed an observer"s course and served with Fliegerabteilung (Artillerie) 219. Later he was accepted for pilot training and when he completed his training, he was sent to France in early 1917, serving for a brief period with Jasta Boelcke, and then went to Jagdstaffel 5 on 10 June 1917.
Career
He served as a Vizefeldwebel, along with Josef Mai and Otto Könnecke, as one of the three NCO pilots who flew together and scored 40% of the squadron"s successes, and were known as "The Golden Triumvirate". His personal marking on the aircraft he used was a demon"s head Rumey"s first victim was a British observation balloon, flamed on July 6, 1917.
His third was over British ace Captain Gerald Crole (5 victories) of 43 Squadron, who was taken prisoner.
Rumey was wounded on 25 August 1917, and again on 24 September. By year"s end he was credited with five victories.
Rumey continued to accrue single victories throughout the first half of 1918. He killed ace Lieutenant James Dawe (8 victories) of Number.
24 Squadron on 7 June 1918, for his 23rd claim.
This same day he was commissioned as a leutnant. He brought down and killed Canadian ace Lieutenant Edward C. Eaton of Number.
65 Squadron on 26 June 1918.
About this time, he switched to a yellow Fokker Doctorate.VII. This made him one of only five pilots to have received both this award and the Golden Military Merit Cross. He went scoreless in August but in September, shot down 16 aircraft, a figure only surpassed by Franz Büchner.
There are conflicting accounts of Fritz Rumey"s death. One theory was that he was killed after a mid-air collision with the SE5a of Captain G. East. B. Lawson (Number 32 Squadron, who survived).
With the top wing of his Fokker Doctorate.VII smashed to pieces (his plane thus driven out of control), he bailed out.
The spin that his aeroplane was in, however, caused his parachute to open incorrectly when he threw it from the cockpit. Another suggests Lieutenant Frank Hale (7 victories) of 32 Squadron actually shot Rumey down, while Rumey"s squadron comrades believed that his full throttle diving pursuit of an Royal Air Force SE5a caused the fabric to peel off the upper wing of his aircraft. Whichever account is true, when he jumped from his damaged machine, his parachute failed entirely, sending the 27-year-old ace plummeting to the ground below (from 1,000 feet up according to Lawson"s account).
Rumey did not survive.