Our aggressors were three Spad one-seater machines. Their occupants thought themselves very superior to us because of the excellence of their apparatus. Wolff, my brother and I, were flying together. We were three against three. That was as it ought to be.
Immediately at the beginning of the encounter the aggressive became a defensive. Our superiority became clear. I tackled my opponent and could see how my brother and Wolff handled each his own enemy. The usual waltzing began. We were circling around one another. A favorable wind came to our aid. It drove us, fighting, away from the front in the direction of Germany.
My man was the first who fell down. I suppose I had smashed up his engine. At any rate, he made up his mind to land. I no longer gave pardon to him. Therefore, I attacked him a second time and the consequence was that his whole machine went to pieces. His planes dropped off like pieces of paper and the body of the machine fell like a stone, burning fiercely. It dropped into a morass. It was impossible to dig it out and I have never discovered the name of my opponent. He had disappeared. Only the end of the tail was visible and marked the place where he had dug his own grave.
Simultaneously with me, Wolff and my brother had attacked their opponents and had forced them to land not far from my victim.
We were very happy and flew home and hoped that the anti-Richthofen Squadron would often return to the fray.[35]
We Are Visited By My Father
MY father had announced that he would visit his two sons on the twenty-ninth of April. My father is commander of a little town in the vicinity of Lille. Therefore he does not live very far away from us. I have occasionally seen him on my flights.
He intended to arrive by train at nine o'clock. At half past nine he came to our aerodrome. We just happened to have returned from an expedition. My brother was the first to climb out of his machine, and he greeted the old gentleman with the words: "Good day, Father. I have just shot down an Englishman." Immediately after, I also climbed out of my machine and greeted him "Good day, Father, I have just shot down an Englishman." The old gentleman felt very happy and he was delighted. That was obvious. He is not one of those fathers who are afraid for their sons. I think he would like best to get into a machine himself and help us shoot. We breakfasted with him and then we went flying again.
In the meantime, an aerial fight took place above our aerodrome. My father looked on and was greatly interested. We did not take a hand in the fight for we were standing on the ground and looked on ourselves.