Introduced into combat in the last great German offensive of World War I, the CL IV supported German troops by attacking associated ground positions and it is equipped with both fixed and flexible machine guns, hand-dropped grenades and tiny bombs, the CL IV proved extraordinarily efficacious in this role, but it didn’t have the armor required for cover against ground fire.
The CL IV changed into a hunted target of associated pursuit squadrons, but it gave a good account of itself in dogfights. A flexible machine, the CL IV also performed as an interceptor against associated night bombing raids and served as a night bomber against troop concentrations and airports close to the front lines.
The museum purchased the Halberstadt CL IV on view in 1984. Badly deteriorated at the time, its restoration was a joint global co-operative venture by the Museum fur Verkehr und Technik in Berlin, Germany, the Smithsonian Establishment’s State Air and Space Museum and the nation’s Museum of the US Air Force. It is marked as the CL IV of the squadron leader of the Schlachtstaffel twenty-one, which is understood to have engaged components of the U.S. Armed forces’s 94th and 95th Aero Squadrons in mid-July 1918 in the Castle Thierry battle.
