The pilot in whose colours Mikael Carlson's Pfalz D.Ⅷ appears, Leutnant Paul Baumer, hailed from Duisburg in Germany's Ruhr region. He earned his pilot's licence as a civilian before the First World War, when he joined up as an infantryman. Transferring to the Luftstreitkrafte, the air arm of the Imperial German Army, he began military pilot training during the summer of 1916. Baumer's first three aerial victories were against observation balloons, scored at the controls of Albatros D.Vs belonging to Jasta 5 in July 1917. Moving thereafter to Jasta 2, flying the Albatros, the Fokker Dr.i and the Fokker D.Ⅶ, he added 40 kills of Allied aircraft to his tally - none of his scores came during his brief period of operations on the Pfalz D.Ⅷ. When the war finished in November 1918, he was the Jasta Boelcke's most successful ace, being decorated with the Pour le Merite, otherwise known as the 'Blue Max'.
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