Presenting UDET EAGLE of Germany

Presenting UDET – EAGLE of Germany

Your introduction to the amazing story of Udet's war-time conquest.

Compiled by David B. Rogers

Transcribed for The Aerodromeby Alan B. Pechman

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I wish that you could have sat with me in Ernst Udet's apartment at 14 Hohenzollernstrasse, Berlin, on one of my many visits and learned to know the man as have I.

A small chap with lazy blue eyes and a happy-go-lucky grin, he was, and still is, a veritable giant in the air, a master of aerial tactics. War robbed the man of his youth. He was only 18 when he got his first victory. Today he is 33 and looks it.

Benjamin's coat was a pale pink alongside the color that is jammed into Udet's short career. The first to descend safely with a parachute when his plane was shot out from under him, he landed smack in the middle of a heavy barrage. He fought the highest battle of the war. Seven Spads tackled him once but his superior flying tactics won him a victory. As far as is known, he is the only man to have rammed another plane in midair and lived to tell it. His best card for a single day was four planes, on another day he got three.

It is small wonder after those experiences, that Udet lives today for but one thing: to shake hands with death in his hazardous occupation of stunt flying daredevil. Experts say he is the best stunt flier in Europe.

He'll kill himself at it some day. I suggested as much to him after watching one of his performances at Tempelhof Field in Berlin. He just laughed.

“Why not?” he asked. “I can't think of a better way out. Can you?” One of his favorite stunts is to scatter pieces of white bunting over a flying field, then swoop down in a series of breathtaking dives, picking the bunting from the ground with a small spear attached to the under part of a wing. Looping both backwards and forwards with a dead engine, and at less than 150 feet up, is another favorite stunt.

In between his regular stunt engagements, Udet does all sorts of odd flying jobs for the movies. One of his most spectacular pictures is called “The White Hell of Pitz Palu.” It has been showing in this country.

“You'll have to make it clear that I'm giving you this stuff under protest,” said Udet firmly when he had finally consented to give me his story . “All of us in the war, German, French, English, American, Canadian, or any other nationality, had jobs to do and we did them. None of us liked it.”

As I left Udet he was firm on one point.

“If you make me out a braggart,” he threatened, “I promise to fly over your house and drop ten tons of T.N.T.”

I have no desire to see Udet's red stunt plane come zooming over me with a load of T.N.T. I know that he would not miss. Neither have I any desire to give more than Udet's straight-forward story as he gave it to me from his combat reports and war log.

How I Shot Down 62 Planes

From the War Log of Ernst Udet

View Large Image “Bring them down burning! Get the plane you are after and make it burn.” Those are the words and the code of my former commander, Baron Freiherr von Richthofen, the Red Knight of Germany, the super birdman of all times, who brought down eighty Allied planes, most of them flamers. Throughout the war, Richthofen lived for only one thing— relentless conflict. Only once in all the times I flew with him did I see an enemy plane escape his deadly guns.

It was because of Richthofen's prejudice for flamers that I rather hated to report my 22nd victory. Mine had been a clear-cut win, and all that; still, my man did not come down in flames. As to the fight, you may judge for yourself.

My opponent was an Australian, Lieut. C. R. Maasdorp of Squadron 47 R.F.C., and the date was sometime in March, 1918. The action took place in the morning above a road leading from Albert to Raume. Maasdorp was flying a Sopwith Camel and I had my Fokker DR-1 (149-17). The fight started at an altitude of 1600 feet.

Both of us apparently decided to attack at the same time, but I managed to get slightly the better position and went at a him from a downward curve which forced him gradually lower. At 600 feet, we both a leveled out and went at each other full speed ahead, with both of our guns spitting bullets. Each of us held to our course. I knew one of us was going to get it. Down below I could see Courcelette and Thiepval.

Several shots tore through the wings of my machine and I could hear others singing through the air around me.

Shooting head-on at a plane is tricky business. The thing is to get the other man to waver to one side or the other and then you can get him. Maasdorp must have known that. I could tell that he was an experienced flier. He kept right on coming.

Flying is largely a matter of nerve. The man who can stick it out the longest wins. This scrap was really a duel of nerves. In the end I won; Maasdorp shifted his course ever so slightly. In the same instant I got him. His Camel turned completely over and with her engines still roaring in defiance, dove squarely into the middle of a big shell crater.

I descended several minutes later and went up to inspect the crash. I found that one of my bullets had gone cleanly through his head, killing him instantly. That's why his machine somersaulted so suddenly. There was a dead man at the controls. View Large Image

Richthofen took the report of the victory as he took everything else, calmly and coolly; but there was not even the barest flicker of appreciation which might have been won had the Australian gone to a flaming death.

I'll never forget the day I received an invitation to dine with the Baron. I was with another squadron then, and the ambition of every aviator on the front was to fly with Freiherr von Richthofen. I had met him before in a formal sort of way, but we had never really become acquainted. I did not think myself fortunate enough to have fallen under his notice through my own paltry victories.

It was a long drive to his headquarters. I was so happy, I could hardly keep my car on the road. Finally we came to a tiny, dilapidated hut. Before the door was a shield bearing these words: Rittmeister Freiherr von Richthofen, Kommander des Jagdgeschwaders. Richthofen, himself, met me at the door. He welcomed me heartily and then we sat down to one of the finest meals I have ever eaten. After dinner we pushed back our chairs and started to smoke. It was then that he told me he needed another pilot to complete his unit's strength. He asked me if I would care to make the transfer. What a glorious invitation! What a magnificent opportunity! For months I had been burning with the desire to work with him. And now it had come to pass. I don't remember what I said to him. Most likely I made a fool of myself. In three days the transfer had gone through. At last I could fly the front with this man whom all Germany admired and marveled at.

I soon learned that his life in the field was confined to three activities—flying, eating and sleeping. “The only factors that count are calm nerves and a cool head,” he once said to me. Nerve control, in his opinion, was vastly more important than extraordinary flying ability. In this, I heartily agreed with him.

The only time I ever saw Richthofen the slightest bit ruffled was when he was unable to get good things to eat. His table was always the finest on the front. His theory was that nerve control depended in the first place on a satisfied stomach and, in the second place, on adequate sleep.

During the early days of our great offensive, the weather was wet and thick. The ceiling was for the most part limited to 400 meters. On that account aerial conflicts were restricted to low altitudes. They were short and fierce affairs, often fought out less than a hundred meters up. We had been carefully drilled in low altitude fighting by Richthofen. The trick was to force the enemy to crash. The English, who were opposite us at the time, fought gallantly. Occasionally they succeeded but most of the victories were ours.

I remember one day when six of us flew low along the front with Richthofen at our head. We were 300 meters up and going south when we spied three English two-seaters flying 50 meters above a roadway along which our troops were trying to move up. The planes were using both machine guns and bombs and our infantry was suffering heavily. We went at them. Two of them at once turned and fled. The third was so busy dropping bombs that he did not see us coming. He had dropped four devastating charges before we reached him. The next moment he was shot down burning by Richthofen. Hitting the ground, his Armstrong two-seater blew up with a mighty explosion, our soldiers scattering speedily in every direction.

As we circled the spot before moving on, the troops formed up again, and at a command from their officer, all started waving their arms thankfully at us.

No sooner had we started back for our base when five English machines roared out of the ceiling about 200 meters above us. At once we turned on them. Four of them quickly sped back into the clouds and escaped; but one, a Bristol two-seater, with remarkable courage stood his ground. He must have known that Richthofen was at our head and felt that he had a score to settle with him. On a fast, clean curve he flew straight for the Baron and started firing with his fixed guns at almost point-blank range. But he missed. Richthofen never wavered. In exactly four seconds the picture had changed. Within 200 meters of the point where a few minutes before he had brought down the other Englander, Richthofen sent him burning to the ground. That same afternoon, we went up again and Richthofen sent a third enemy craft to the earth in flames.

It was not long after that I was witness to one of the narrowest escapes Richthofen had previous to his final defeat by the Canadian, Brown. The two of us had been fighting it out with a group of English single-seaters above the Somme crater field. Richthofen was pursuing one of the enemy. He was flying close behind and apparently had his guns lined up. At any moment I expected to see the Englishman begin to smoke. Instead, Richthofen suddenly abandoned the chase and turning sharply, flew back toward our lines, going rapidly lower as he went.

It was immediately clear to me that something had gone radically wrong with his motor or else his guns were jammed. I looked down and saw that the ground below us was nothing but a mass of jagged craters. It seemed an impossible area in which to hope to make a safe landing. Yet Richthofen was still going down.

All at once he turned sharply into the wind, banked, dropped, straightened out and disappeared from view behind a low ridge. When I got over him, I found that he had made a perfect landing on a 20 meter long bit of level ground. It was the only landing possibility within an area of more than a square mile and so small at that, that only a miracle-man could have successfully negotiated it.

Richthofen immediately jumped out of his machine and tied a white handkerchief around his propeller. At the same time, waving to me, he pointed at it. I gathered from this that he had been forced to land on account of a damaged prop and furthermore, that he wanted to have repairs made without delay. I flew back to our base and ordered two mechanics to move up quickly with a new prop. In exactly two hours, Richthofen flew back scowling with his triplane.

We learned then that one of the Englishmen had got in a hit which put the turning gear of the baron's machine gun out of commission in such a way that when Richthofen had attempted to use it, he had shot away a piece of his own propeller. The increased oscillation of his motor had indicated to his alert mind what had happened. He didn't know at what moment his propeller might crack up entirely, spelling an inevitable crash. In a flash, his eye had swept over the crater strewn field. He had landed on the one spot where a landing might be possible. With uncanny cool-headedness he had decided to risk the landing rather than take a chance on the propeller.

As soon as the new prop had been installed, he ordered a detachment of soldiers who had come up, to haul his machine back to the extreme edge of the area he had landed on. After that he ordered a group men to hold on to each wing until given the signal to let go. Then he started his motor and gave it every drop of gas it would take. With a nod from Richthofen, the soldiers released their hold. The triplane let out a roar and literally leaped perpendicularly into the air after a run of not more than five meters. I doubt if any aviator from that day to this had ever made a more brilliant landing or a more extraordinary take-off.

My first encounter with a Yank was enlightening but not very satisfactory. I managed to eke out a victory but the pilot neither went down in flames nor to his death. It was like this: I'd had a stiff time of it and was sleeping late. A little before noon I was suddenly awakened by the sound of shrapnel—a rotten way to get disturbed. I went to the window and saw Archies bursting high in the air between our front line and the aerodrome. I knew the Frenchies must becoming over. My job was to keep them in their own back yard. Without bothering to change from my pajamas, I ran over to where my machine was parked. The mechanics had it all ready to go. I pulled on a flying suit over my pajamas, donned a helmet, and hopped in. But when I looked up again, there was no sign of the Frenchmen.

I was pretty sore then because they had spoiled a perfectly good sleep, so I decided to go up and have a look around anyway. When I got up about 4000 meters, I began to feel cold. I thought I'd head for home. But at that moment a bunch of planes showed up through the clouds about a thousand meters below me.

I dropped 500 meters and then saw that about ten French machines were making life very miserable for five of our chaps. Off to one side, I recognized Lowenhardt, fighting it out with a French Nieuport. Lowenhardt was one of my best pals and as I hovered above the melee, I noticed another French machine barging into position on Lowenhardt's tail to shoot him down. Lowenhardt was apparently so intent on the other plane that he didn't realize what was about to happen in his rear.

It was obviously my move. I dove like a bullet and before that second plane knew I was anywhere in the vicinity, I was so close to him I could see him getting ready to empty his gun at Lowenhardt. But I beat him to it. My first burst put his motor out of commission and my second went squarely into his fuselage.

His plane immediately started earthward in a spin. I figured I had killed the pilot. But I hadn't; because the next moment his plane straightened out into a glide and veered abruptly off in the direction of the French lines.

I went after him again. I knew his engine was dead but with gliding control and a cool head, he might be able to get safely across the river that separated our lines at that point. I went at him again. I hated to shoot at a disabled machine and most likely the pilot was also wounded but I couldn't afford to lose him, so I let my gun off at him again and headed him back towards our lines.

He was losing altitude rapidly. I thought he was licked and was following him from behind at a leisurely pace when all of a sudden the cheeky beggar veered around again and had the pluck to try and ram me. Of course, he didn't have a chance, with only gliding speed.

When he missed, he shook his fist at me. I yelled out in French that he'd better concentrate on landing or he'd crash, because we were getting pretty well down by then, but I don't think he heard me. Anyway, he misjudged the distance and although he did his best to avoid trouble, a few moments later he cracked up on a rough piece of land five kilometers behind our lines. His machine turned completely over three times and then disappeared in a cloud of dust, a tumbled heap of wreckage.

By the time I had landed myself, a group of our infantrymen had reached the wrecked plane. I didn't see how he could possibly have survived but wanted to have a look at his plane. It was one of the new French Nieuports that were causing us a lot of worry about then. Imagine my surprise on reaching the scene to find the pilot still alive and conscious. The soldiers had pulled him out of the debris and he was stretched out on the ground with a broken left thigh and some severe cuts and bruises.

When he saw me, he sat up with a smile and we shook hands. I said: “Sorry, old man,” in French. He answered me in English. He said: “Howdy, old top. I'd smoke if I had a fag to use this match on.”

I gave him one and then I asked him how it happened that an Englishman was flying in a French plane. He said: “Guess again. I'm not English. I'm American. Straight from Akron, Ohio.”

He wanted to know how the battle had gone. When I told him that besides himself, we had brought down three other French planes, he said: “It was a swell morning for us.” After that he lost consciousness. Later on I learned that his name was W. B. Wanamaker.

Several years after the war I got a letter from him. He was back in Akron, Ohio, having some difficulty about his pension, I think. Anyway, he asked me if I would write him a letter setting forth the exact nature of his injuries and some of the details of the scrap. I did, but I haven't heard from him since. I hope he got all that was coming to him in the way of a pension because he was a sportsman through and through.

So far as I know, that is the only time I bucked up against an American aviator. If they were all like him I'm just as glad I didn't. I might not be here now to tell the tale. View Large Image

I had plenty of narrow squeaks in the war but what I call "my greatest misfortune and my greatest good luck” was the one that held the greatest thrill for me. The adventure had to do with parachutes in the early days of the war and where those early parachutes were concerned, there were bound to be thrills.

We could hear the big guns growling all through the night and just before dawn it got worse. Word came back through the Intelligence department that the enemy were going to attack. It wasn't long after that before I got orders to go up. There was a Frenchman flying low over our lines and adding to the general feeling of uneasiness. Headquarters wanted him brought down.

I climbed to 2000 meters and then started toward the front line. Just then the enemy's bombardment broke out with even greater ferocity. Shells were falling so fast that the air and the ground seemed to merge into a dense, brown pall through which fountains of earth leaped up toward the sky with steadily increasing frequency. The effect was something like looking down on a pot of boiling brown porridge. Even up where I was, the air smelled pungent and felt hot and unpleasant on my face and hands.

Pretty soon I sighted the Frenchman. He was coasting along about 800 meters above the barrage. He was flying in a northerly direction. I dove for him at once. I don't think he saw me. At any rate he never changed his course. I got within 80 meters of him and then began to shoot. I felt certain some of the bullets had taken effect.

All at once he wheeled sharply to the right and flew back right in the face of my fire. As the machine passed beneath mine I looked down and saw that the observer was no longer at his guns. I figured from that, that I had either killed or wounded him and that he had fallen to the bottom of the cockpit. It occurred to me that this being so, I could launch a further attack from the unprotected flank without the slightest danger of getting hit myself.

It was one of the worst blunders I have ever made. No sooner did I start at him again than the observer suddenly reappeared. He had either lain low purposely to fool me, or else he had been tinkering with something beneath the bulkhead. At any rate, before I could alter my course, his guns started spitting fire and I felt my machine give a sickening lurch as a whole burst of bullets went home somewhere in the middle of its vitals.

My plane tottered uncertainly on its head for a moment and then started down in a horrible, breath-taking dive. I pulled frantically at the controls, hoping against hope that I could level her into a gliding position. But everything was jammed. Apparently the Frenchman had shot away my connecting cables. My position was decidedly unpleasant. There I was, face to face with death. But I didn't give up hope yet. There was still my parachute. Most of our planes were equipped with them at that time. We carried them in the form of cushions. It was a remote chance because the earth was only 400 meters down by that time, but it was better than dying without a struggle.

I grabbed the parachute from the seat and stood up to jump, but the terrific rush of air tossed me back into the cockpit. My spine struck against the control board with such force that for a moment I couldn't move. When I tried to get up I found that the parachute was caught on something.

Within less than 300 meters of the ground I broke it loose and, summoning my last remaining vestige of strength, I jumped. I hit against the fuselage in two or three places, before breaking clear. Then the air began to sound like thunder in my ears and I knew that nothing stood between me and destruction except the parachute, and there was little chance of it doing me much good so late.

You'll probably think I'm spoofing, but the thing that cropped up in my mind in that deadly minute was that the squadron tailor had just finished a new suit of clothes for me and it seemed certain that I wouldn't be able to wear them. Absurd wasn't it?

The next thought I got was that in this, my last flight on earth, I had forgotten to bring along my Pour Le Mérite [Germany's most coveted military decoration which Udet had won in connection with earlier exploits together with the Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd Class].

Still later, I wondered how those closest to me would receive the news of my end.

At that stage of my fall, millions of tiny violet points began to stab my eyes. I suppose it was because the rush of air had prevented me from breathing. I had a feeling that I was going to faint—and then very abruptly the violet points disappeared. I became aware of a gradual pull around my shoulders. At a height of 100 meters above the ground, the parachute had miraculously commenced to function.

From then until I hit the ground I guess I was in what you people would call a blue funk. The suspense of wondering whether my fall would be sufficiently broken was pretty terrible. And on top of that I suddenly realized that I was tumbling squarely in the middle of the French bombardment, about 200 meters behind our own lines.

All at once the ground rose up and hit me. I felt my legs give way to my knees and then everything went black. But I was only stunned momentarily. When I opened my eyes a few seconds later I immediately wanted to close them again because all I could see in every direction around me were pillars of rising and falling earth and the din was deafening.

It looked very much as though I had fallen literally out of the frying pan into the fire. However, I soon pulled myself together enough to realize that the best thing I could do was to find some sort of cover, and find it quick, if I still expected to escape with my life.

I pulled myself clear of the parachute and started to run through the shell fire over the uneven ground in an easterly direction. I hadn't gone fifty paces before I was thrown high into the air by the concussion of a shell which exploded close by. When I hit the ground, and started to get up, I was knocked down again by a huge chunk of mud and stone. A few moments later I started off again only to be knocked down a third time by a still larger missile. By this time I was bleeding in several places. I stuck to my race like a marathoner and eventually, after covering at least three kilometers, I came to a small protecting ridge where one of our own infantry regiments had taken cover from the bombardment. When I suddenly loomed over the top of the ridge out of the smoke and rolled down the other side into their midst, they thought I was a ghost. But when I told them who I was, and what had happened, they couldn't do enough for me.

I'll never forget how good the pot of coffee tasted that they brought me. You see, I hadn't had a bite to eat since the previous day. After the coffee, somebody gave me a cigarette. No cigarette will ever taste as sweet to me as that one did.

I was stranded with that regiment for three hours because gas shells started coming over soon after I arrived and it was out of the question to go on. Finally, however, I got back to the town of Y—, and from there I got a line through to squadron headquarters.

When I tried to tell them who was speaking, they told me that I was crazy because Udet's plane had crashed in the middle of a barrage and there wasn't the slightest doubt but that he had been killed. It took me several minutes and a whole vocabulary of profanity to convince them. I guess the harrowing experience I had passed through had altered my voice or something. They sent a lorry over for me and gave me a grand welcome back when I reached the drome.

My plane, of course, was a hopeless crock. But they soon dug a new one up for me. Men were scarce right then and the situation was mighty grave. I carried out a difficult reconnaissance flight just before dark that same day and the following day, as a sort of antidote to the bitter draught of getting shot down, I went up and fought it out with a Spad single-seater. After a short, sharp encounter I sent him to earth in flames. That was my 36th victory. View Large Image

A rather dubious distinction given to me is that I am the only living ace to have rammed an enemy plane in mid-air and lived to tell the tale. Whether I am the only one to have had the good fortune to pull such a stunt and get away it, I don't know. I do know, though, that I went through such an experience.

It was nearly dark on the evening of August 8, 1918, that I was coasting along at an altitude of 2500 feet in my red Fokker, D-7 (4253), in escort with several other planes when an Englishman swooped in from an angle, the guns in his Camel chattering a death dirge for me. I banked up on one wing, circled up and gained the top position, re- attacking at once. The Englishman pushed his nose down and went into a screaming dive with me on his tail. He continued his mad dive down to 1000 feet when he suddenly pulled the nose up and came back at me in an Immelmann. I held my course, thinking that he would swerve off to one side and that I would get him as we passed. He kept right on coming. Apparently he had figured things out the same way I had.

The situation immediately became a test of nerve. He wouldn't give in. Neither would I. We both started shooting as soon as our planes got within range of each other. But our shots all went wild. In a moment we were so close that we could shout to each other. I started to curse. I guess he did the same. We were a pair of stubborn, damn fools. The next moment the inevitable had happened.

With a terrific crash, we came together. I was tossed into the cockpit by the impact. There was a jar, a jolt, a bump, a rending, tearing noise. The next thing I knew my machine had broken clear and when I looked back the Camel was falling earthward in a series of drunken curves.

Having the top position and my speed being greater than his, I carried more potential destruction. My undercarriage struck the upper surface of his wings and crushed them.

But that Englishman had grit. He manipulated his controls and got his machine straightened out. Then he broke into another spin. I thought it was all up with him because by that time he was pretty well down. But less than a hundred feet up he got her straightened out again and held her under partial control until he hit the ground in a cloud of dust. His plane was completely wrecked in landing. I went through some bad moments on the way down, myself, wondering whether my undercarriage had been away or put out of commission when we struck each other. But everything held and I made the ground without mishap. That was my 47th victory.

As far as German records go I am credited with the highest battle and victory of the war. I'm not exploiting that in a bragging manner. It is merely a part of the official records and the battle itself was interesting to the extreme, providing, what was for me, the most dramatic incident of the entire war.

On July 1, 1918, accompanied by Lieut. Drekman, in Fokker D-7 (378), I was loafing around at a height of 18,000 feet between the towns of Pierrefonde and Mortefontaine when, just above Longpont, we sighted a French Breguet, a new machine designed especially for reconnaissance and camera work. There were two men in it and they were flying 700 feet above us.

Our Intelligence department had cautioned us to be on the watch for one of these new craft and to get it, if at all possible. We immediately started up after the one we had sighted, and before they saw us, had approached so close that we could see the special aperture for the photographic lens.

The Frenchmen must have had able films aboard because no sooner did they see us than they started back over their own lines. We followed. At first they gained but gradually we cut down the distance between us from 1000 feet to 400, and then we opened fire. Our first shots went wild but when we got a little closer, we tried again. At the third burst we saw a wisp of smoke curl up from the enemy's fuselage. In another moment, there was an explosion. The Breguet broke into flames and started to fall.

Two men suddenly leaped from the cockpit, hand-in-hand. A pathetic gesture, that. Without parachutes, they had decided to face death together.

We followed the burning plane down for a distance but since it was by that time a mass of flames, and we were far behind the French lines, we knew it was useless to go further and so returned to our own base. That was my 37th success. It was an exhausting experience at such a high altitude.

We often used to argue about the relative merits of getting through a scrap with a plane unscathed by bullets, or coming back with our wings full of holes. Gonterman, for instance, considered it very bad form to get hit at all. His idea was that getting shot showed a definite weakness in strategy. His procedure was to always fly toward the dead side of a machine gun and to attack from that quarter.

Richthofen didn't worry about getting hit so long as he made the other fellow burn. My own idea was that it didn't matter what happened to your own machine as long as you won. I had it figured out that in attacking a two-seater the odds are about even. It has two movable machine guns. I have two fixed machine guns. Say we both get each other in the sights. Well, if I keep cool, the advantage is mine because the other gunner has to take the recoil from the gun on his shoulder, which upsets his aim; while with me, the recoil is distributed evenly on the body of my plane allowing a greater measure of accuracy.

Perhaps I lived under, or was born under, a lucky star. At any rate, I was never seriously wounded. I've had bullets through the fleshy part of my arm twice and once a slug grazed my foot. In Flanders I had two planes shot out from under me, one of them being the Fokker from which I took the high dive with the parachute. The other machine is in the war museum at Berlin with more than 70 distinct bullet and shrapnel marks.

Some things really hurt as much as wounds though. One of these was the loss of my pet Albatros. The machine had served me faithfully and its loss was a distinct blow although it did prove its loyalty by getting me to earth in the end.

My own and another machine were loafing one day at an altitude of 4500 meters when three Sopwiths hove into view above us. We attacked. At that time we had not had much experience with Sopwiths. They turned out to be mighty powerful adversaries.

My inclination was to make a run for it because three to one constituted pretty heavy odds. But foolishly I remained. We circled about several times, maneuvering for position, and I had just had the good luck to get in a direct hit when one of the Englishmen flew in unexpectedly on my rear and let go with his guns at very close range. I felt bullets whizzing all around me and heard several tearing their way through my wings and fuselage.

Immediately I turned over on one wing, kept on turning until I was flying upside down and then dove. At 3000 meters I straightened out to take stock of the damage. Things looked bad, very bad. In fact my brave Albatros seemed to have completely gone to the devil. Both guns were out of commission. The windshield was shattered. The radiator was pierced. And, worst of all, shots had torn into both gas tanks.

If you think I wasn't worried, guess again. Richthofen used to say “Keep cool whatever happens. There's always a way out if you can think straight.”

Well, I knew that the first thing for me to do was to shut off the ignition. If I didn't, with gas pouring into my lap from two streams, I would soon burn. Most likely I was already smoking. I guess the Englanders figured I was done. At any rate they didn't try to follow me down.

Emergency landing places were very scarce on the Flanders front. I knew that in some way I would have to get back to our base. Gliding was the only way by which I could do it.

I started to glide. The old ship stood by me nobly. She seemed to begrudge every inch of lost altitude and pretty soon I saw that I might make it. But I hadn't reckoned on the wind. When I got near the drome I realized that there wasn't a hope of getting a head wind to land in. I'd have to go down with the wind behind me. Sometimes you can do that and sometimes you can't. This was one case where I did and I didn't.

I cleared the first bunch of huts but skimmed the roofs of the second lot and the next thing I knew I was on the ground with my brave Albatros turned over on top of me, a complete wreck.

Luckily, I was uninjured. Later on when I examined the machine, I found that in addition to the places mentioned. it had been struck by bullets in the rudder, tail, both wings and motor. How she ever held together until we got down, I don't know.

One of the narrowest shaves I ever had was when attacked by a Caudron while flying in the Alsace area.

I countered and, after getting in a few shots from the front, drove my machine into a steep bank in order to come back at my opponent from the rear. Instead I got a burst of fire in my own rear. One stray bullet took a glancing course and knocked the goggles clean off my head. All I got was a blue spot on my cheek and some glass splinters in my eyes. In the end, I forced the other fellow down. He was badly wounded. I took him prisoner and had him sent back to a hospital where he died several days later.

The English were a queer lot. Dead game sports but fearfully erratic. You could never tell what they were going to do next. They would break all the ordinary rules of flying; and oftener than not, get away with it.

At the outset, we didn't think so much of them. But it didn't take them long to prove their mettle. . The first fellow I bucked up against was a cinch. I ran him into a forced descent behind our lines almost immediately. When I followed him down to take him prisoner, he greeted me with outstretched hand. “Jolly decent of you to let me off so easy,” he said. “Topping sort of day. Have a cigarette. They are Cravans, good for the digestion and all that sort of thing. Funny damn war, isn't it? One minute you're up and the next minute you're down.” He was so absolutely cheerful about it all that I couldn't figure him out at all. We Germans are not built that way.

This reminds me of another brush with a Tommy.

It was during the Aisne show. Two of us went up after a couple of Spad single*seaters over Chemin de Dame. We each took one. The fellow I engaged had blue stripes across his tail and the wings and sides of his machine were painted so gaudily you could see the colors for hundreds of yards. It didn't take me long to find out that despite his crazy looking ship, he was a flier of wide experience. Furthermore, our styles of attack were almost identical.

We circled about nine or ten times and by that time we were close enough together so that I could see my adversary more closely. He was just as weird looking as his plane. He had on a black helmet and around his neck was twisted a bright red shawl, the ends of. which streamed out in the wind. He was clean shaven and seemed to be just as curious to get a look at me as I was to examine him.

Then, quite unexpectedly, he smiled and waved his hand toward me. I wasn't going to answer at first but all at once I too, began to feel friendly. I waved back. We kept on flying around and around and every once in a while we would wave at each other again. It was silly but pretty soon I began to have the feeling that instead of being an enemy, he was a comrade and that we were merely engaged in a practice flight.

Yet all the time, each of us was trying in every conceivable way for an opening. I know that as for myself, I would have shot at him in an instant had the occasion been offered; and I suppose he would have done the same with me.

But still there seemed to be that inexplicable bond of sympathy between us as long as neither of us was able to gain an advantage.

I don't know how long that absurd but rather pleasant situation would have lasted, had it not suddenly been cut short by three more of our planes arriving on the scene and pushing their way unceremoniously into the midst of our harmonious little duel. What eventually happened to my gay English friend, I don't know. When the other planes came up, he gave me a final wave and then beat a hasty retreat for his own lines. The last I saw of him he seemed to be pretty hard pressed with all three of our planes in close pursuit.

I ran into other instances also, of this peculiar English attitude. I used to get the impression that they weren't serious at all; that war was a sort of a joke with them; or maybe “adventure” is the better word. The German attitude was cool, calculating, and relentless. The English seemed to prefer dash and color to shrewdness. I suppose that is characteristic of the inherent difference in our natures.

I remember once we shot down a youngster with blue eyes and curly, blonde hair. He was uninjured and afterwards he told us that his total solo time was seven hours. We were amazed because no German aviator was allowed to go up alone until he had served a long period of the most thorough and exacting training.

We were fooling around the hangars one day in a position far behind our own lines when somebody yelled, “Here comes an Englander!” Nothing could have been more unexpected. What he was doing away back there all by himself I don't know. But there he was, flying straight toward our landing field, less than 200 meters above the ground. Talk about confusion. The ground crew scattered in every direction and, clad in my lounging uniform, I hopped into a ship with only my goggles. The engine was cold, but she started, and in a few moments I was in the air.

I went after the intruder immediately. The cheeky beggar, instead of turning about and fleeing, started shooting at me. I climbed over him and was getting ready to shoot from a range of 150 meters, when two of our machines took the air, and Tommy decided then that he'd better go back home. There ensued the oddest chase I've ever participated in. Surely it was worthy of the wildest movie.

The ceiling was very low at the time, less than 300 meters. At first Tommy tried to get above this but when I flew over him, he decided on another dodge. He shoved his single- seater into a sharp dive and didn't straighten her out until he was about ten meters above the ground. Then he started off at that crazy height, pell-mell in the direction of his own lines with my plane and the other two roaring along in pursuit.

It was like a pack of wolves chasing a deer. He never flew above 20 meters. When a village came suddenly into view, he hopped over it, barely missing a church spire enroute. I was ahead of the other two pursuit planes and close behind him but I couldn't get my guns sighted on him because of the danger of being catapulted into the earth by the wash from his propeller if I nosed down.

Every once in a while we would encounter a detachment of troops. I guess they thought we were insane. We careened along like that for more than a quarter of an hour. After a time, we came to a long, straight avenue, flanked by two rows of trees. He took the right side. I took the left. When the avenue curved, we kept right on going.

I don't know how long the chase would have kept up if a captive balloon hadn't loomed up to prove the Englishman's undoing. In order to avoid hitting it, he had to veer slightly to one side. That was precisely the move I had been awaiting. It gave me a chance to get my sights in line directly behind him. I let go at him with both guns. He started to smoke almost immediately. I kept on firing. Gas poured out in a big white cloud. The next moment came the flames. Then an explosion. And that was the last of our bold Tommy.

I was really sorry to see him go. He made such a truly glorious run for it. But so it goes in time of war.

In that case the observation balloon had proved a “friend in need” but there was another occasion when a “blimp” very nearly brought about my destruction.

We had orders to puncture every gas bag we could. The Allied artillery was giving our infantry a lot of trouble with the aid of these balloons. One day when the ceiling was unusually low, I went after one that was riding jauntily just underneath a big, white cloud. My idea was, that by flying through the cloud I could get almost within range without being seen. I tried it but when I emerged from the cloud, five Sopwiths were waiting for me.

I dodged back into the cloud, flew around for a few minutes and then came out from the top of it. The Sopwiths had outguessed me. Two of them were waiting for me up there, and when I dove back and ventured out again at the bottom, the other three were ready for me. It was just like a game of hide-and-go-seek.

Finally I gave up all hope of getting the balloon and concentrated on getting away. I climbed back into the cloud and resolved to keep moving in what I thought was the direction of our lines.

to my compass, should have been the right direction, but was unable to spot a single familiar landmark. I flew for more than an hour over towns and villages that I could not After I had flown for several minutes, I became confused. We didn't know as much about flying through fog in those days as we do now, and our compasses were not so accurate. After a time, I began to realize that I had lost all sense of direction. I dropped down out of the clouds to have a look around. The country below was unfamiliar. I kept on going in what, according identify, and then I began to get worried. My gas was getting low. Obviously my compass was hopelessly upset. The sun was obliterated. There was no way for me to get my bearings. I decided that the best thing I could do was turn sharply about and fly back the way I had come. I did so but unknown country still flowed beneath me.

When I realized there were only a few liters of gas left in my tank, I resolved to take a chance on veering off at a right angle. It was pure guesswork, but with a forced landing inevitable before many more minutes would pass, it seemed worthwhile to take a chance. A moment later, I let out a whoop of joy. I saw a church spire looming up that looked familiar. When I got a little closer I realized that my hopes were well founded. It was Lens.

Five minutes later my motor began to sputter and I was just able to coast over the opposing front lines and reach a landing area occupied by a Bavarian battalion. I had come down more than 100 miles away from where I had set out. I had picked a mighty pleasant place to land, though. The Bavarians are my kinsmen and the battalion headquarters where I was put up entertained me royally. Their mess was well stocked with good Bavarian beer, and the next morning, when I pulled out, I was really sorry to leave.

Not long after that incident I again became confused in the fog and landed in what I thought was our territory.

No sooner did I hit the ground than I saw a crowd of uniformed men running toward me. I gave them a friendly wave but a moment later, when they got a little closer, I realized with a shock that they were English Tommies. They must have been just as surprised too, because I was already roaring down the takeoff before they started shooting. A couple of rifle bullets tore through my wings and the next second I did a hedgehop over their heads so close that I almost knocked some of them down.

My own guns were jammed from an encounter earlier that day, and I was unable to shoot back. Also, for some reason, my ship was very slow in making altitude. A hundred yards distant there was a group of soldiers' huts. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to clear them. My undercarriage struck a tin smoke stack on one of them, but I got over. By that time troops were running about down below in every direction and the next minute machine gun bullets began singing through the air uncomfortably close. My Fokker was hit several times, but not in a vital spot. A short stretch of woodland showed up ahead. I went for it, cleared the tree tops by a scant few feet, and glided down inside our own lines just as my motor went dead.

It was on September 3, 1918 that I got my last two victories and ended my wartime conquests. Late in the afternoon I was idling about in the vicinity of Metz when a formation of five De Havillands crossed into my sector. They were returning to their own lines after a raiding expedition behind our lines. Noticing that one of them was separated a bit from the others, I went after him. I got him with almost my first burst of machine gun fire.

The other four planes at once charged to the rescue. They thought I would make a run for it, but instead I drove directly for them, and picking the machine in the center of the formation, I shot him down in flames before any of them could do a thing.

After that the remaining three machines veered off in the direction of their own lines. I decided that I also had had enough of it. Those were my 61st and 62nd victories, and I hope that I never again throw my ship into a violent maneuver while my mind steels to the necessity of bringing another human down in flames.

This article, from Fawcett's Battle Stories, was published in 1931. While it is considered a pulp publication, the value of the information can't be overlooked for what it is: a historical document. In it, Udet gives details on events that have been referenced elsewhere, to be sure, but it is interesting to see them relayed in this format.

Alan B. Pechman

Houston

March 2004