The startled Germans couldn’t believe their eyes. Behind them, trailing a five-pronged anchor and an iron ball, was a Russian pilot in a Morane scout. Before they could get away, the Russian struck from above and behind, swinging the anchor on its steel cable. As he turned, it hooked into the left wing of their two-seater Albatros DVa. For a moment, the two planes were locked in combat, then the cable tore loose and the iron ball completely shattered the wing. The Albatros collapsed and fell. Staff-Captain Alexander A. Kazakov, using a weapon unique in the history of aerial fighting, had scored another victory on the Russian front. It was June 1915.

The anchor or “katze” was part of an experiment that had interested Kazakov during his days at the Sevastopol Flying School, founded by Grand Duke Alexander to train pilots for the Imperial Russian Air Service. To the katze, an old form of German battering ram, Kazakov added an iron ball weighing about 20 pounds, which acted like a sinker above a fishhook. Before his career ended, Kazakov had scored 32 victories. He held every known Russian decoration for gallantry, received the French Croix de Guerre, and served as a major in the British army, which awarded him the Distinguished Service Order.

The plane Kazakov used in his katze attack was a French-built Morane-Saulnier scout, a wire-braced, mid-wing monoplane that first saw military service in 1914, principally with the French and British. The Morane was originally powered by an 80-hp Le Rhone engine, but in 1916 it was fitted with a 110-hp Le Rhone, enabling a top speed of 102 mph.