What's a "Jasta"?
A fighter squadron nominally of sixteen aircraft. The German word for "fighter squadron" is "Jagdstaffel", which was and is frequently abbreviated to "Jasta".
Why would I want to know where the Jastas were?
Man, if you have to ask, you'll never know. More seriously, I needed the information for a game that I am designing. Others might want make comparisons of the
German effort against the British and French fronts, or analyze the mobility of the Jastas. Still others will just like interactive maps. You know who you are.
What is the map showing?
The border areas between France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany, along the line of the trenches.
Black line: international border (as of 1914)
Blue: rivers/ocean
Brown: trench lines, showing initial lines and furthest advance of the German Kaiserschlacht offensives beginning 21 March 1918
How can I tell which dot is which Jasta?
Move your cursor over the aerodrome name next to the Jasta name (below the map proper). This will highlight the corresponding dot on the map. You can also go
the other way and put your cursor over a dot to see the aerodrome name highlighted.
What do the [Brackets] around an aerodrome name mean?
My sources (see below) gave me the name of an aerodrome but I can't discover where it's located (or it's offmap). If you know,
email me. It would be most
useful if you could please send me coordinates relative to a well-known landmark, like: "X is 1.3 mi east and 3.4 mi north of Lille".
What do the (Parentheses) around an aerodrome name mean?
My sources (see below) put the Jasta at the given location but I can't find where it is. About the same as [brackets] from the user's
perspective, though if you look through the raw data you'll see that the problem is missing data from a different table than [brackets].
What does the -> before an aerodrome name mean?
My sources (see below) have no aerodrome listed for the Jasta at the given date. I've assumed that it is en route to it's next destination,
which is the one listed after the ->.
Why does it take so long to load?
You've got a slow internet connection. The whole page and all ancillary code is about 120Kbytes, so be patient. You'll only need to download everything once.
I pushed the "Show" button but nothing happened.
The map relies on client-side Javascript techniques using the W3's Document Object Model (DOM). In plain English, you'll need Netscape 6.x+ or IE 5.x+, both of
which I've tested. You'll have to turn Javascript on, of course (if you don't know what that means, you've almost certainly got it turned on).
Less common browsers might work if they support the DOM; I'm interested in hearing about your experience, though I make no guarantees that I'll try
to fix something if it doesn't work. Lynx users are right out.
It could also be that you put in too early a date -- the first Jastas weren't formed until August 1916, so dates before then won't be very interesting.
Why does it take so long to show the results?
Javascript isn't the peppiest language in the world. If I programmed this as a traditional application, it'd be lightning fast -- on the one platform
that I programmed it for, so Mac/Unix users would be out of luck.
Where did you get your information?
Most of it comes from the book The Jasta Pilots, by Norman Franks, Frank Bailey, and Rick Duiven, published by
Grub Street. The book contains a useful map (by "Pys" Svensen), a list of aerodromes,
and Jasta histories that gave most of the basic information. Still, there was much work to do to get the information into useful form; in
addition to the data entry issues was the detective work needed for missing data, misprints, etc. For example: Pusieux (#255) is listed twice, once just northeast
of Laon, and once east of St. Mihiel. I did considerable cross-checking with an online atlas, adding and/or correcting information where needed.
I also received some additional information on Jasta locations from many good folks at The Aerodrome forum. Tip o' the hat to Rick Duiven in particular.
Some of your information is wrong or missing.
No doubt. I'm happy to take corrections,
email me.
I have a comprehensive list of what information I'm missing.
Can I see your raw data?
Sure. My raw data within the archive is in XML format for portability and ease of programming access.
This makes it less convenient for human perusal though it's still possible, of course, as XML is just another text format. The
archive includes DTDs describing the data format, in case it's not obvious. I wrote some Perl scripts to convert the XML to the Javascript
format used by the map page. Those scripts are in the archive, too.