Jan J. Safarik: Air Aces Home Page; Czechoslovakia - Hungarian Border Conflicts

Comments:

On 13th May, Istvan Fejes made an emergency landing in his German Fokker D.VII fighter No. 3867 at Pinc (now Pincina, Slovakia) near Losonc (now Lucenec, Slovakia), and the pilot was captured after hiding for half a day, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. as a contemporary Hungarian newspaper article stated. According to Fejes' testimony, after his capture, he received orders to relocate to Salgotarjan on 12th May, where he arrived the same day with two other pilots. In this light, the report of 12th May about Laszlo Ujvari, Istvan Fejes, and Nandor Udvardy landed their Fokker D.VII fighters at 10.45 a.m. in Zagyvapalfalva-i.e., they moved a detachment of three aircraft to the makeshift airfield at the border of Salgotarjan - makes sense. On the next day's mission, Fejes' task was to determine whether Czechoslovak troops had received reinforcements or had left the town as a Hungarian attack was preparing on Losonc from two sides. Fejes stated in his account after his release that he had been attacking an armored train at Losonc when the synchronizing device of his machine guns failed and shot through the propeller, forcing him to land. There is a version of events in Czechoslovak historiography in which Fejes was shot down by a Czechoslovak reconnaissance plane, but this is disputed by Czech aviation historians, too. The "victorious" pilot was nadporucik Josef Pospisil, commander of the 2. polní letecká setnina (2nd field squadron), who allegedly forced Fejes to land. The source is a document written after the event, probably in conjunction with details of other events. In contrast, any official military document of nadporucik Pospisil does not mention the air victory, and he did not take off that day, either, like none of his squadron's aircraft. The fact that the landing site was outside of the operation area of this Czechoslovak unit is a further argument against this, as well as the victory of a two-seater Hansa-Brandenburg C.I against a superior Fokker D.VII with an ace of 16 confirmed victories in the pilot's seat is also highly improbable. (Source: Czirók, Zoltán: German Aircraft in Hungarian Service, Great War Aviation Centennial Series #92, Aeronaut Books, 2024. ISBN: 978-1-964637-08-2)

2. letecká setnina : 2^nd Field Air Flight First
Observer npor. VLadimír Braun.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Hungarian Border Conflicts - 1919