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MvR flies to Berlin but has to land in Leipzig

Event ID: 209

Categories: 

Der rote Kampfflieger von Rittmeister Manfred Freiherrn von Richthofen, 1917, 351.000 - 400.000, Verlag Ullstein & Co, Berlin-Wien

04 May 1917

51.32282217413145, 12.41148195246967
in der Nähe von Leipzig
Leipzig

Source ID: 4

Der rote Kampfflieger von Rittmeister Manfred Freiherrn von Richthofen, 1917, 351.000 - 400.000, Verlag Ullstein & Co, Berlin-Wien p.  160 

“The next day I flew to Freiburg to shoot a capercaillie there. From Freiburg I took a plane that flew to Berlin. I filled up with petrol in Nuremberg. A thunderstorm came up. But I was in an urgent hurry to get to Berlin. All sorts of more or less interesting things were waiting for me there. So I flew on despite the thunderstorm. I was enjoying the clouds and the terrible weather. It poured down in buckets. A bit of hail now and then. The propeller looked great afterwards, smashed by the hailstones, like a saw. Unfortunately, I was enjoying the weather so much that I completely forgot to keep an eye on where I was. As I try to get my bearings again, I no longer have a clue where I am. What a nice surprise! Lost at home! Of course that had to happen to me. How they would be amused at home if they knew! But there was nothing I could do about it. I no longer knew where I was. I had been blown off my map by the strong wind and the low flying and now I had to use the sun and compass to find my way to Berlin. Towns, villages, rivers, forests chase along below me. I recognise nothing. I compare nature with my map, but in vain. Everything is different. I am actually out of the picture. I am unable to recognise the area. As it turned out later, it was also impossible, because I was flying about a hundred kilometres off the edge of my map. After flying for about two hours, my guide and I decided to make an emergency landing. This is always unpleasant without an airport. You don’t know what the surface of the earth is like. If a wheel hits a hole, the plane is ruined. At first we tried to make out the station sign on a railway station, but of course it was painted on so small that we couldn’t make out a single letter. So we had to land. Only with a heavy heart, but we have no other choice. We look for a meadow that looks nice from above and try our luck. Unfortunately, the meadow didn’t look so nice on closer inspection. I could also tell from the slightly bent undercarriage. So we had completely covered ourselves in glory. Firstly we got ‘wrenched’ and then we smashed the crate! We now had to continue our journey home on a very ordinary means of transport, the D-train. Slowly but surely we reached Berlin. We had made an emergency landing near Leipzig. If we hadn’t done the stupid thing, we would certainly have made it to Berlin, but how you do it, you do it wrong.”

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