Early Life and Service
Festner was born in Holzkirchen, Kingdom of Bavaria on 30 June 1894. He originally served with, and was wounded with, the infantry before switching to aviation. He was a mechanic with Flieger Abtleilung Nr. 1 in October 1914. Posted to FA 7b in February 1915 as a Gefreiter, Festner learned to fly unofficially, and then underwent training with FEA 2b and FEA 5b.
He served briefly with two seater units FA 18 and FA 5b, arriving at FA 18 on 10 September 1916 and FA 5b five days later. His next posting was to Jasta 11 on 10 November 1916.
Under the command of Manfred von Richthofen, Festner quickly claimed 2 victories in February 1917 before claiming another 10 during 'Bloody April'.
Read more about this topic: Sebastian Festner
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or service:
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man,—and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages,—it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A man’s real faith is never contained in his creed, nor is his creed an article of his faith. The last is never adopted. This it is that permits him to smile ever, and to live even as bravely as he does. And yet he clings anxiously to his creed, as to a straw, thinking that that does him good service because his sheet anchor does not drag.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)