Life in the East was very monotonous for the Europeans. Very little socially, no music, no theatre—things one misses. One’s only consolation is that one lives better than at home, and sport makes up for a great deal. I took up polo with enthusiasm, and as soon as I had accustomed myself to the unusual pitching and tossing to which my horse subjected me I was very successful.
In mid-July my longing was stilled by the arrival of the steamer which brought the aeroplanes. As soon as the huge crates stood in the quay, my men were already engaged in freeing from their dark prisons my poor birds born for sunshine and air. As they were too heavy, the unpacking had to be done on the spot. The Chinese crowd stood around us and gaped. When we had got everything out of the crates, a triumphal procession was formed, bearing the two aeroplanes, then three vehicles with the planes and another two with the component parts. The horses started, and we proudly passed through the streets of Kiao-Chow, and entered in triumph the aerodrome of the Iltis Place.
Now there was an end to peace. Day and night we worked at the erection of the machine, and two days later, in the early dawn, with no one awake, my aeroplane stood ready on the aerodrome, and, opening up the engine full, I shot into the clear sea-air.
I shall never forget my first flight at Kiao-Chow. The aerodrome was extraordinarily small, only 600 metres long and 200 metres wide, full of obstacles surrounded by hills and rocks. I was only to learn later how very difficult starting and landing were made hereby. My friend Clobuczar, an Austrian ex-aviator—who now served on the Kaiserin Elisabeth—once said to me: “Do you call this an aerodrome? It is at best a children’s playground. I have never seen anyone who could fly in such a confined place.” I felt the same way about it. And in Germany I should have only used it for an emergency landing.
But nothing could be done. It was the one place in the whole Protectorate; all the rest was composed of wild mountains cleft by deep ravines. But on that glorious, sunny morning I only thought of my flight, and frightened the placid inhabitants of Kiao-Chow out of their beauty-sleep with the humming of my propeller. But, when it came to landing, I certainly felt a little queer, for the field was decidedly small, and I slowly circled round, getting gradually lower—thus putting off the critical moment. However, I could not stay up in the air for ever, so I pulled myself together, shut off the engine, and stood on the field a moment later after a secure landing. Now I knew where I was. And the rest of the morning was spent in my aeroplane.
After that more work was in store for me. The second machine, also a Rumpler-Taube, which was to be flown by my colleague, Leutnant Müllerskowski, of the battalion of Marines, had to be erected and got into working order. After two days, on the 31st of July 1914, it was ready in the afternoon. Müllerskowski entered his aeroplane and, after receiving my parting instructions based on my previous experience of the flying-field, he took off.
But fortune did not smile on him.
His machine was only a few seconds in the air, and had just reached an altitude of 50 metres—the critical spot where the aerodrome and solid earth end in a steep cliff with a sheer drop into the sea—when it suddenly turned over on the wing, and we could watch it nosing down with appalling rapidity towards the rocks.
We hastened as fast as we could to the spot. Matters looked bad. The machine was completely wrecked, and between the fragments we found Müllerskowski. We brought him, seriously injured, to the hospital, where he had to lie until shortly before the end of the siege. Of the aeroplane nothing remained.