06 July 1917
Source ID: 55
“On a wonderful day (6 July 1917), I went on a fighter mission with my squadron. We had been flying around between Ypres and Armentières for quite a while without really getting into a fight. Then I saw a squadron over there and immediately thought: The brothers want to come over. They approached the front, saw us, turned back, and I thought I had scared off the enemy. So I had to resort to a ruse and flew away, but I kept watching the enemy squadron. It wasn’t long before I saw them flying towards our front again.
We had an unfavourable wind, i.e. a wind coming from the east. I let them fly quite a distance into the country first, then I cut off their path to the front. It was my dear friends again, the big Vickers. That’s an English aircraft type with a lattice fuselage; the observer sits in front.
We only caught up with our fast opponents slowly. We probably would never have caught them if we hadn’t had the greater altitude and been able to press down on them. After quite a while, I had the rearmost one so close in front of me that I could already think about how to attack it. Wolff was flying below me. I recognised from the rattling of the German machine gun that he had already engaged in combat. Then my opponent turned and took up the fight with me. But still at such a great distance that it couldn’t really be called a proper air battle. I hadn’t even released the safety catch yet; there was still time before I could engage in combat with my opponent. Then I saw that the observer, probably out of sheer excitement, was already firing. I let him shoot, because at a distance of three hundred metres and above, even the best marksman’s shooting skills are useless. You just can’t hit anything! Now he had turned completely towards me, and I hoped to be behind him in the next bend and be able to give him a taste of his own medicine. Then suddenly, a blow to my head! I had been hit! For a moment, my whole body was completely paralysed. My hands hung down, my legs dangled into the bodywork. The worst thing was that the blow to my head had damaged my optic nerve and I was completely blind. The aircraft crashed. For a moment, it flashed through my mind: so this is what it’s like when you crash and are about to die. I expected at any moment that the wings would not withstand the crash and break off.
I was sitting alone in the box. I had not lost consciousness for a moment. I soon regained control of my arms and legs so that I could take the controls. I turned off the gas and removed the ignition mechanically. But what good did it do me? You can’t fly with your eyes closed! I had my eyes wide open, I had thrown away my glasses, but I couldn’t even see the sun. I was completely blind. The seconds seemed like an eternity. I realised that I was still falling. The aircraft had probably caught itself from time to time, but kept falling again. I had probably been at an altitude of four thousand metres at the start and could now have fallen at least two to three thousand metres. Summoning all my energy, I kept saying to myself: ‘I must see!’ I don’t know if the energy helped me. In any case, suddenly I could distinguish black and white spots in front of me. More and more, my eyesight returned. I looked at the sun and could see it clearly without feeling the slightest pain or feeling blinded. It was as if I were looking through thick black glasses. But it was enough for me.
My first glance was at the altimeter. It still showed eight hundred metres. I had no idea where I was. I restarted the engine, brought it into a normal position and continued my glide. There were no shell holes beneath me. I recognised a large forest complex and was able to determine from this whether I was on the other side or on our side. To my great joy, I saw that I was already quite a bit on this side. If the Englishman had followed me, he could have shot me down without hesitation. But thank God I was protected by my comrades, who at first couldn’t explain my fall and crash.
At first, I wanted to land immediately because I didn’t know how long I could hold out before passing out. So I descended to fifty metres, but couldn’t find a spot among the many shell craters where I could land. So I opened the throttle again and flew eastward at low altitude for as long as I was still conscious. It went quite well at first. But after a few seconds, I noticed my strength ebbing and my vision slowly darkening. Now it was high time. I landed and was even able to touch down smoothly, taking out a few posts and telephone lines in the process, but I didn’t care much about that at that moment. I even had the strength to stand up in my plane and wanted to get out. But I fell out and no longer had the strength to get up, so I lay down immediately.
Several people who had observed the whole incident were immediately on the scene and recognised me by my red aircraft. The crews wrapped my head with their bandages. What happened next is only a vague memory. I hadn’t completely lost consciousness, but I was in a somewhat dazed state. I only remember that I had landed on a thistle and couldn’t find the strength to roll off it, which was extremely embarrassing in the long run.
I was lucky to have landed my plane next to a road. It wasn’t long before an ambulance arrived, into which I was immediately loaded and taken to a field hospital in Courtrai, a journey of several hours. The doctors were already prepared and began their work.
I had a pretty nasty hole in my head, a wound about ten centimetres long, which they were able to close up afterwards; but in one place, the bare white bone remained exposed, about the size of a coin. Once again, I had proven my Richthofen-like stubbornness. The skull wasn’t even broken. With a little imagination, you could see a small dent in the X-ray. A buzzing in my skull that I couldn’t get rid of for days was less pleasant. Back home, it was reported that I was in the military hospital with a serious head and leg injury, but that otherwise I was doing quite well.
I am curious to see who will be the first to go into the coffin, my brother or me. My brother feared it would be me, and I feared it would be my brother.”
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