Once when we had been specially deluged with them, I picked out a fine splinter from a Japanese aviation bomb, affixed my visiting card to it and wrote:
“Kindest greetings to the enemy colleagues! Why do you shy at us with such hard objects? If you aren’t careful you will end by hurting us! It isn’t done.”
I took this letter on my next flight and dropped it in front of the Japanese seaplane station.
But this was only to announce my visit.
In the meantime one of our men had been preparing bombs for me. Simply marvellous specimens! Huge tin boxes of 4 lb. each, on which could be read in big letters: “Sietas, Plambeck & Co., best Java coffee.” They were filled with dynamite, horseshoe nails and scrap iron, a lead spar fixed to the bottom and a fuse at the top. It was exploded by a sharp iron point which hit the percussion-cap of a cartridge. All these things seemed pretty uncanny to me, and I handled them with the greatest caution—always happy when I had done with them. But they never caused much damage. Once I hit a torpedo boat, and even then it did not explode; on several occasions I just missed a convoy. And once I learned through Japanese reports that I had dropped a bomb into the midst of a Japanese marching column and sent thirty yellow ones to the nether regions!
I soon got over the first pleasant emotion of bombing. My time was fully occupied apart from it, and the results did not justify the time I lost.
I often met my enemy colleagues in the air. I did not hanker for these meetings, for I could do little with my slow, laboriously climbing Taube against the huge biplanes which carried a crew of three men. Above all, I dared not forget that my chief object was reconnoitring, and after that to bring back my machine to Kiao-Chow in good condition.
Once I was busily engaged on my observations, when my aeroplane began to pitch and toss. I thought this was due to bumps in the air, caused by the many steep and rugged mountains of this country which made flying extraordinarily difficult. Without even looking up, I went on taking observations, only grasping the control-lever with one hand in order to keep the aeroplane steady.
After my return I was informed, to my great surprise, that an enemy plane had flown so closely on top of me that they thought I should be shot down.