Wintgens specifically requested the chance "to fly in the field the smallest and fastest Fokker type with the Garros-installation, which enabled a built-in machine gun to fire through the (arc of the rotating) propeller.

[citation needed] Wintgens holds a unique pioneering role in the history of aerial combat, being the first fighter pilot to down an enemy aircraft using a synchronized gun.

On 1 July 1915, Leutnant Wintgens was flying the last-produced example of the five Fokker M.5K/MG production prototype Eindecker aircraft, with German military serial number E.5/15,[6] and at 18:00 that evening he engaged a Morane-Saulnier Type L "Parasol" two-seater.

Despite their injuries, the French aircrew landed their Morane Parasol safely, in friendly territory, although their own engine had been hit by dozens of shots from E.5/15's machine gun fire, with the combat taking place in the Lorraine sector.

[8] A fortnight after his initial success, Wintgens was posted to Feld Flieger Abteilung 48, based at Mulhouse, within the much-disputed Alsace border region of northeast France, that had been annexed by the Reich in 1871.

Chapman was killed in the crash, the first American fighter aviator flying in World War I to lose his life in an aerial engagement.

[citation needed] Shortly afterwards, on 1 July 1916, Wintgens became the fourth airman to receive the 'Blue Max', after he had completed the required (at the time) eight victories over enemy aircraft.

[12] As he entered September, Wintgens remained the third-ranking Eindecker ace, behind Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann, with some 14 victories in the Fokker monoplane.

Two days later, Wintgens was laid to rest in the same French graveyard that already contained the body of his fellow Fokker Eindecker pioneering pilot, Otto Parschau.