The sight which met our eyes was perfectly horrible. The box was full of mouldy lumber. The covering of the planes had rotted. The wing ribs and the different wooden parts, which had been carefully packed, lay in a disorderly heap and were covered with a coat of mildew. It was a sad spectacle. We now opened the case in which were the propellers, where we found the same conditions. The five propellers had simply ceased to exist, and had shrunk to such an extent that they could no longer be of any use. It was a hard nut to crack!
But, without losing courage, my splendid rigger, Stüben, the chief mechanic, tackled the job, and the same afternoon I sat with Stüben, my two stokers, Frinks and Scholl, and eight Chinese from the dockyards, hard at work on the wings.
Thereafter I took the least damaged propeller to the wharf, and was helped out of my quandary, thanks to the excellent patternmaker K. who, with the Chinese, constructed a new propeller. This was a real masterpiece, for it was hewn out of seven thick oak planks which had been glued together with ordinary carpenter’s glue. The Chinese used their axes, and fashioned a perfect propeller, copying a model which K. had set up for them. Though done by hand, their work showed the utmost care and precision.
It is this propeller I used for all my flights during the siege of Kiao-Chow.
But we had not remained idle in our sheds. We worked day and night with the utmost energy, and already, on the ninth day after my accident, my little Taube stood ready to run out on the aviation field at sunrise. It is not difficult, though, to understand that my expectations of a successful flight were not very high. My planes had been reconstructed from a mass of musty material, and we had to rig them the best we could, as we had no flat spaces. I have described the erection of the propeller, which, by the way, made about a hundred revolutions less than it should have. Besides this, the conditions for flying on this particular aerodrome were so unfavourable that the choice lay between a clean start and an irremediable fall.
But I had no business to think of that. We were in the midst of war. I was the only aviator and had to carry on. And I had luck!
In order to lighten my machine I had scrapped every bit which I could do without. Therefore in the beginning my bird rose unwillingly to do my bidding, but soon I had regained full control over it. Hereafter I flew proudly, and dropped a message in front of the Governor’s house: “Aircraft again in perfect order!”
I then began my long reconnoitring flights. I traversed the whole Protectorate, and flew hundreds of kilometres beyond it over the distant country, watching the ways of approach, and spying out the wild rocks of the coast, in order to see whether the enemy was near—or landing. These were the most beautiful expeditions of my life.
The air was so clear and transparent, the sky of such a pure azure, and the sun shone divinely and lovingly on the beautiful earth, on the cliffs and mountains, and the deep sea which hemmed the coast. My soul was athirst for beauty, and revelled in the marvellous sights of Nature for hours on end.
But I was not wholly without care. Already on my second flight I was able to ascertain that the glued grooves had split, and that by a miracle alone the propeller had not been torn asunder. It had, therefore, to be disconnected and freshly sized. This little performance had to be repeated after every flight. As soon as I returned, the propeller was taken off, I drove with my car to the wharves, there it got a fresh coat of mastic, was screwed under a press, and in the evening I fetched it, fixed it on the machine, and started afresh the next day.