Jacques Ehrlich, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetJacques Ehrlich
French flying ace
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: 10th arrondissement of Paris, Île-de-France, France
About Jacques Ehrlich
- Sous Lieutenant Jacques Louis Ehrlich was a World War I flying ace who was one of the leading balloon busters of the war. He enlisted in the French army on 29 May 1913.
- Three and a half years later, in December 1916, he transferred to aviation.
- In May 1917, he was brevetted a pilot.
- Two months later, he was badly wounded while on a trench strafing mission.
- He returned to duty in November as a newly promoted sergeant.
- Beginning on 30 June 1918, he was one of a "wolf pack" of his squadron's pilots dedicated to the highly hazardous pursuit of destroying German observation balloons.
- From that first victory, through the next two and a half triumphant months, he shared in the destruction of 15 enemy balloons, and shot down three others solo.
- On 1 August and on 15 September, he was credited with three victories each; on 17 July, he had two.
- After the 15 September feat of downing three balloons in two minutes, he was recommended for both the Légion d'honneur and the Médaille militaire.
- Three days later, he was shot down and captured while scoring his last win.
- After scoring with three low-level gunnery runs, Ehrlich and his two wingmen ran into 11 Fokker D.VIIs; in the ensuing melee, it was uncertain whether Ehrlich fell to a Fokker or to ground fire.
- The day after that, he began his captivity as a newly commissioned sous lieutenant. His total of 18 balloons downed garnered him the sixth spot on the balloon busters list.
- He also shared a victory over an Albatros fighter.
- This made him the highest scoring Allied Jewish ace of World War I, one of five notable Jewish aces in France.
- His score was matched by a Jewish-born German ace, Wilhelm Frankl, who had converted to Catholicism to marry his Austrian bride.
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