P., December 9, 1914
Bad weather. No important work. Now, we ought to be in the East, where there is something doing.
Yesterday I was in R. and got my Fokker, which had arrived in the meantime. It is a small monoplane, with a French rotary engine in front; it is about half as large as a Taube. This is the last modern machine which I have learned to fly; now I can fly all the types we make in Germany. The Fokker was my big Christmas present. I now have two machines: the large biplane for long flights and the small Fokker for range finding. This ’plane flies wonderfully and is very easy to handle. Now my two children are resting together in a tent, the little one in a hollow, with its tail under the plane of the big one.
P., January 21, 1915
Since Christmas we have made the following flights: December 24th, an hour and a half; December 25th, one hour; December 30th, one hour; January 6th, one hour; January 12th, four hours; January 18th, two hours. It was poor weather, so we could not do more than this. There isn’t much use in flying now, anyhow, as long as we do not want to advance. We are facing each other here for months, and each side knows the other’s position exactly. Changes of position, flanking movements, and bringing up of strong reserves, as in open warfare, is a thing of the past when we stick to the trenches, so there is nothing to report. There would be some sense in flying to find the range, but as we do not want to advance at present our artillery does very little firing. It is sufficient at this stage that an airplane takes a peep over the line once in a while, to see if everything is still as they left it.
P., January 27, 1915
This morning our Captain gave K. and me the Iron Cross of the First Class.