the soldier something. But then, as always, came the worst moment in these little adventures. As soon as we were all on the plane, the whole pack rushed in front of the plane, screaming excitedly, horses and donkeys were left in the lurch, they too raced around us like their masters, like madmen. It was impossible to take off without putting people and animals and ourselves in grave danger. All shouting had no effect. Excitement and enthusiasm had brought them into a state that made them forget everything else. I had to get out of the cabin again and, with the help of the gendarme, drive the crowd as far back as possible. Then I rushed into the machine. But instantly the fellows were back, one received a blow from the aileron which luckily for us was made of hard metal, then we lifted ourselves off the ground, while behind us in the dust of the take-off the little people ran like lunatics over the steppe. A big sweep, they turned into little dots and disappeared, never to be seen again. Twenty minutes later we were hovering over the great city of Tabris, which at that time had no airfield. We searched the surroundings for a long time for a landing place, when we saw two smoky fires burning in the south, probably a sign for us, and, coming closer, recognized people and two cars with them. No doubt that was where we should come down. As soon as we touched down, the plane began to bang and jump, causing us fear and anxiety for our landing gear. A field full of large stones had been chosen for our landing! All things require a bit of luck, but we greeted those who were expecting us with few friendly words. The good people were not a little amazed by this, since they had cleared a narrow strip of stones fifty yards long and wide in the field, and could not understand why we had not sat down in this beautiful spot. The engine failure repeated itself the next day during the onward flight, also the spectacle of the forced landing, the work and toil of the previous day, but finally we landed, admittedly after dark, on the brightly lit airfield of the armed forces of the Shah of Persia. Thus were the emergency landings on the vast plateaus of the desert steppes, while the take-offs were usually uneventful. It was less comfortable in winter and near settlements, where ditches, flooded fields, and other obstacles made landing and taking off dangerous. Every one of us has probably experienced things that, after such a long time, one only thinks back on with horror. So it seems almost incomprehensible how calmly, even indifferently, one behaved in the most desperate situations, how naturally one counted on success, what a fool one actually became. For me, such memories always include the airfield and the area around Diarbekir. In the late autumn of 1925 I came to Constantinople with the task of escorting one of the new three-engine airplanes to Tehran, where no large passenger aircraft had yet been seen. It was an important propaganda flight because the French, our competitors in the bid for the aviation concessions in Persia, had a very large modern aircraft on the way to Tehran. It was a question of getting there before this one, and in any event achieving a shorter flight time. The route was to go via Ankara, and from there, after a stopover in Diarbekir, directly across the wild, partly unexplored landscapes of Kurdistan and Upper Armenia, peppered with impassable high mountains, to Persia. This route had never been flown, there were no maps that were in any way reliable, Kurdistan was in rebellion against the Turks, and Armenia was a depopulated, almost deserted region. This was the task that was set for us. And from the beginning it appeared the flight did not find favour with the gods. We flew out of Constantinople on a glorious morning. The sight of the city, the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara and the Asian side dotted with towns and villages is probably one of the most beautiful things a human eye can see. I know the picture very well. From the air it was more beautiful than ever. A feeling of happiness, a kind of intoxication, had come over us so that we began to sing loudly in the machine. But we were not out of sight of the city when an engine went on strike. We had to go back. Not until two days later were we able to reach Ankara. Here we wanted to take a Turkish pilot on board and, in addition to that, a high-ranking officer of the General Staff, who was Turkey's first military attaché to travel to the Shah in Tehran. It took many days for these two gentlemen to complete their preparations. The beautiful autumn weather had meanwhile given way to heavy downpours. That
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUzMjY3MA==