"CHINA" AT LAST

The afternoon of the 20th brought Bockholt the weather forecast he had wanted. "Clearing, gusty, northeast groundwinds, winds at higher altitudes from north to northeast above 22.4 m.p.h." A low pressure area was moving across Yambol from west to east. Cold air masses from the north were rushing into this low. This was the cold air and the tailwin? for which Bockholt had waited. The weather pattern was expected to continue for the next two days. That was just enough time for "L 59" to get across the Mediterranean area. Eckener and Bockholt studied the report and nodded in agreement: "L 59" would start early next morning!

The German evening radio news contained a short item about the fighting in France:

"In the area between the streets leading from Bapaume and Peronne to Cambrai, the British attacked with strong forces and gained ground. Our countermeasures are fully under way".

This news not likely to attract Bockholt's attention. Attacks were constantly being made on the western front; trencna lines were won and lost and always without decisive results. If Bockholt thought that this bulletin was like all this others, he was mistaken. The bland announcement hid the fact that this attack had been a startling British success. At 6:20 that morning, without the usual preliminary artillery barrage which might have warned the Germans, a roaring, clanking mass of steal, no less than 376 Mark iV tanks, had plunged into a weakly held sector of the Hindenburg Line, British infantry had followed closely behind, wiping out the antitank defenses encountered. Nests of resistance which the tanks could not quickly overcome were bypassed and left behind to be mopped up later. Airplanes flew low over the battlefield and attacked the German troops. The aim was to punch a hole into the German barbed wire and trench lines through which infantry and cavalry could follow and spread out into the enemy's rear. The attack, which for the first time tank officers had been permitted to organize, was the precursor of the modern blitzkrieg. The first chapter of modern, armored warfare had been written. The day of the individual gladiator was over; the age of the mechanized mass army had begun. All this Bockholt did not know. Had he known, it would probably have made no difference to him. A mission, which was bound to make history, awaited him. His "Paper Steamboat" lay ready. "Paper Steamboat" was the name the crew had given "L 59", It was an apt summary for the contradictory elements which the zeppelin combined - a huge structure which the overriding need to save weight had driven to a point of near fragility.

Radio London that night had a modest report about the first successes at Cambrai but it also had one of unusual length about the war in Africa. An unprecedented number of German soldiers had surrendered. Advancing British troops had found 262 German soldiers and 700 askaris waiting for them at a camp near Kitangari, south of the Mahenge Plateau. Many of the prisoners were reported to be perfectly fit for service. Numerous fully equipped askaris were deserting, the announcer continued, and the last of the German artillery pieces had been found abandoned. Portuguese troops were approaching Nevala, the last German base in the Protectorate. As usual, careful listeners in Berlin copied the report, translated it and arranged to have it distributed early next morning.

Among the babble of tongues and the beeping morse code messages which flowed through the ether that night was one which was not meant for the public. It was a message from the Director of Military Intelligence in London to the Commanding General of the Fast African Expeditionary Force. It was encoded, a jumble of symbols which was meaningless to the Germans.

At Yambol, "L 59" lay wainting in its hangar, a huge wooden shed, 787 feet long and 115 feet high. The ship's gasoline tanks and ballast containers were full. There were 7950 gallons of gasoline on board and 447 gallons of oil. After again finding himself with insufficient ballast on the 17th, Bockholt had taken on another 576 gallons of water ballast and the total now stood at 2425 gallons. Hung in the keel, were the bags and cases of cargo to be flown to East Africa. There were thirty machine enaresy 400,000 rounds of ammunition, 7800 pounds of medicine and 7300 pounds of miscellaneous other cargo, spare parts of all sorts, rifles, ammunition boxes, field glasses and sewing material. In all, the ship carried 111,496 pounds of fuel, ballast, crew and cargo.²² The gasoline, oil, water, food and ballast was distributed in the airship in such a way that its balance would not be disturbed as these supplies were being used up during the flight, the cargo was concentrated around the ship's center of gravity. Somewhere in the keel, too, hung a parachute. Most airships did not carry parachutes for their crews. They were not considered to be of great value in escaping a crashing airship and they were too heavy. This parachute was for Grussendorf. He had volunteered to jump down to any troops that "L 59" might locate when it arrived in Africa to make sure that they were in fact Germans.

There were also 234 pounds of mail for the white troops in Africa who had been cut off from all personal communication with Germany for more than three years. Among the letters was one From Wilhelm Solf, the Secretary of State for Colonies, for Colonel Lettow - Vorbeck. Solf wrote that as far as he knew, the colonel's family was well. Whoever had made the inquiries for Solf had served him badly. One of Lettow's brothers, a captain in the 89th Infantry Regiment, had been killed in Belgium in August 1914; the other was gravely ill from war gas poisoning. In his biography, Lettow commented on the sad errors in this letter with great bitterness. It was the only time that he mentioned "L 59" in his writings.

Early Wednesday morning, the eighteen ratings of "L 59" fell in once again outside their barracks. It was foggy and still dark. The wind swept amb inde across the plains of the Tunja river and it was freezing cold. The men wore regulation furlined, leather flying suits, tightfitting leather helmets, suits and boots specially made for airship crews. The hoots were felt soled so that they would not strike sparks from the ship's metal parts and ignite any hydrogen gas which might be leaking from the gas cells. The black powder makers of old had worn similar shoes. Each man carried a pistol for personal defense. Beside them stood their sea bags, stuffed with their tropical uniforms, two woolen blankets and sixteen pounds of whatever personal equipment each man chose to bring with him. Forty-four pounds were allotted to each man for his baggage, the same amount that airlines permit passengers to carry free of charge to this day. The officers were permitted twice this amount. What they wore and what was in their bags would be all the comfort and civilization they were likely to see for quite a while. A quick roll call, the men picked up their bags and marched over to the hangar which darkly loomed up to the northwest.

At 5 A.M., the doors of the airship hangar were rolled open. Inside, the great flood lights had been turned on, giving the men a ghostly, greenish pallor.

The crew climbed into the ship and went to their take-off stations. The baggage was handed up and stowed. The engines were started for a final test. A deafning roar reverberated through the hall. Perched in the narrow engine compartments, each crew checked its special ward. Once warmed up, the Maybach motors were shut off again. Gas hissed through canvas hose pipes to top off the gas cells. The ground crew, 500 men, stood by and waited patiently. Most were young recruits of the Bulgarian army in greygreen Russian style great coats. Scattered among them were a few German airship handlers in their sailor's blues. The Bulgarian cecruits had at first caused concern. Classroom instruction had left them bored and disinterested. Once the practical work began, however, they had gone at it with a will and turned in a creditable performance.

On the navigator's table on the right hand side of the control cabin, First Mate Wald had spread out the motley collection of maps that had been scraped together for this enterprise: German General Staff maps of the Balkans, Italian maps of North Africa and provisional English maps of East Africa. They were to see "L 59" to its goal and Wald carefully checked once more that he had a complete set.

Behind him stood Grussendorf, testing the elevator controls. The elevator controls, like the rudder, were so evenly balanced that they could be operated by hand. Unlike the controls of an airplane, in which the operation of the elevator and the rudder is carried out through a common control element, the "Stick", the elevator and rudder on an airship were separated, each being controlled by a steering wheel that resembled the traditional ship's steering wheel, though of much lighter construction. At the front of the cabin, the rudderman was testing his controls also. He glanced at the compass before him. It was an ordinary liquid-filled compass but at least on this trip, it was not likely to freeze up as it had on other zeppelins when they had flown in low temperatures.

Each crewman was occupied with his task and there undoubtedly was also busy-work to help to reduce the tension of waiting for the take-off. At 7:03, the sun rose and with it the spirits of those on board.

Now Ensign Maas began the test which was cruicial to a safe take off - checking the ships balance. The zeppelin had to be in perfect trim for take off, neither nose nor tail heavy and its lift and weight so completely balanced that it would not rise away nor sink into the ground. The ground crew detached the sandbags, which anchored the ship to the ground, and seized the hand rails on the command and engine cars and the handling lines which hung from the ship. Maas signalled to the ground crew to release its hold of the control car so that he could see whether the nose of the ship would rise or fall. It held steady.

Another hand signal and the crew let go of the ship briefly. It floated evenly.

"Airship ready for departure, Sir" Maas reported. Bockholt shook hands all around and boarded.

A whistle shrilled. "Airship forward march!"

Led by Boatswain Kruger, the ground crew began to move the ship out of the hall. Two interpreters imarched with them to relayed instructions from the German airship handlers among them to the Bulgarians, but for the most part, the Bulgartian recruits followed the rule: do what the Germans do. It was the best way to overcome the language barrier and make up for their lack of experience.

At a marching pace, the shin cleared the hall. A few hundred yards out on the field, the crew stopped and turned the nose of "L 59" into the north wind. The photographer, who had been waiting in the hangar, took the shot he had planned beforehand - a lengthwise view of "L 59", framed by the open hangar doors.

Maas once more checked the trim of the ship. Tne 86-ton airship floated a few feet above the ground without moving as if pinned there by a great, invisible needle.

At 8:20 a.m., the engines were started again. Bockholt listened for a while. The Maybachs ran smoothly. The handling lines were dropped; the ship lay steady in the hands of the groundcrew. The men tensed, there would be only one more order. It came at "Up ship!"

The ground crews let go of the handrails on the control car and the rear engine car, the men at the control car giving the ship a good shove upwards as they did so. With the ship perfectly balanced, this was enough to point its nose upwards. Water ballast splashed out of the hull. Slowly, the gray monster rose, Zupitza waived, as befitted his civilian status. Bockholt saluted in farewell.

At 300 feet above the ground, the engine telegraph honked: "Stern engines full power ahead!"

Chief Machinist Mate Busch in the rear engine car, nodded to his mechanics. They engaged the rear propellor clutch and the large propellor started to spin into a glittering disk.

At 450 feet, "L 59" released more water ballast. A substantial amount, 680 gallons, spewed into the air. Grussendorf turned his wheel to "up elevator". The engines shifted into full power. The ship climbed more rapidly and 15 minutes later reached its cruising altitude of 2,000 feet. Maas made the first entry in the log book. "Start of long distance mission pursuant to operations order of the Naval Command".

The ship was off to "China". Exactly where in Africa Bockholt proposed to land is not known. Probably he did not know himself. He may have concluded that all he could do was to leave the choice of landing place to circumstances as he found them in East Africa. His confidence that he would be able to find Lettow would have been badly shaken had he known that on the day before, at Newala, the men operating the last German radio station in Africa had smashed their equipment and had joined Lettow's soldiers who were rapidly marching southward towards the Ruwoma river.

The rudderman, stiff in the 25° F. cold, turned the ship south. The Tundja river below gave him his bearings for Adrianople (Edirne), "L 59"'s first way-station.

A northwest wind from astern pushed "L 59" along at a great rate; the ground speed was 77 m.p.h. The check points on the map ticked off quickly. The city of Adrianople was reached at 9:45 a.m. "L 59" turned southeast for Rodosto (Tekirdag) on the north shore of the Sea of Marmara. It reached it at 11:05 a.m. and began to cross the Sea of Marmara once more. To the east lay the domes and minarets of Constantinople, to the west the Gallipoli Straits. German planes cruised over the Straits, ready to intercept any Allied attempt to interfere with the flight. By 11:45, the shin had crossed the Sea of Marmara and was over Panderma. It dropped a coded message for the Naval Command, giving its position, and began to follow the railroad tracks which lead from Panderma (Bandirma) southwest by south through Belikesir and Soma to Smyrna (Izmir). This time, the Turkish soldiers left ship unmolested. Particular pains had been taken to advise the Turks of the flight and huge German and Turkish flags had been painted under "L 59's" bow.

Smyrna was reached at three o'clock in the afternoon. To the west, the islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos, on which the Allies had built a chain of flying fields, formed a barrier which "L 59" had to avoid. Further south, progress was blocked by bases on Rhodes and Crete. So far, the Germans had detected no signs of Allied counter measures. A reconnaissance patrol had flown over the main British flying field at Mytelene on Lesbos that morning and had observed no unusual activity. Still, as long as any Allied aircraft were in the area, crossing the Aegean in daylight was too dangerous. The airship turned into the Manisa valley to the east of Smyrna to cruise there until dusk. Behind it, two German planes flew protective patrol while the rest of the squadron stood ready at Smyrna for immediate take-off.

When dusk fell, the airship emerged from the Manisa valley and followed the railroad from Smyrna south. The rails, glistening in the moonlight, showed the way and islands lying off the coast provided visual checkpoints. Despite the war, a few navigation lights still were lit. The towering mountain ranges to the east of the ship masked the low flying "L 59" from observation from seaward. At the mouth of the Menderes river, "L 59" turned toward the sea and began to cross the Lipsos Straits, circling west to avoid the island of Kos. It was 7:40. The wind had picked up and the sky was becoming cloudy. Once clear of Kos, the ship turned south toward Crete. Its eastern end, sere and craggv, passed below at 10:25. The camel had threaded the eve of the needle; the open sea had been safely gained. By now, the sky was solidly overcast.

At midnight a thunderstorm struck. Rain squalls soaked the ship. Foul black clouds released a continuous crescendo of thunder and chain flashes of lightening tore across the sky. Each lit the control cabin to daylight brightness.

Airships had standing orders to evade thunderstorms if at ali possible. The danger to the easily inflammable ships was too great. This foul weather front, however, was too broad to be evaded. The only thing left to do was to try to duck under it at a low altitude. As the ship was tossing helplessly in the storm, there came a cry from the look-out on top of the hull.²³ "Snip's on fire!"

The whole ship was bathed in a blue pulsating electric light, each projecting object wore an electric halo. The vast, eerie glow of static electricity, however, was a sight that mariners knew well though none had ever seen it on such a vast scale. It was St. Elmo's fire. It was harmless and the frightful alarm had been a mistake.

Ancient lore held that St. Elmo's fire foretold the ebbing of the storm and this proved true. It gradually abated. The officer of the watch noted in the log pook in the approved laconic Fashion: "Over Mediterranean, frequent thunderstorms with rain". "L 59" left the clouds behind and headed into the starlit sky.

Quietly, the ship slid south. At 5:15 in the morning of the 22nd, "L 59" reached the North African coast near Mersa Matruh and crossed into Egypt. An entry point far west from the Nile valley had been chosen to avoid the airfield at Alexandria and the numerous garrisons which the British had established in Egypt since 1914 after Egypt had broken its ties of suzerainty with Turkey.

From a height of 2100 feet the crew stared at the novel scene — the grey-blue sea, lined with long white breakers, the blotched yellow-brown land beyond, rocky, punctuated by a few scrub bushes which cast long shadows cast in the low morning sun.

Now the crew was truly on its own. The land below them was enemy territory; the terrain was hostile to all. There would be no one to help them, all ties with their familiar world had been broken. The twenty-two Germans were isolated in a universe of their own, floating in the sky, in their cramped cabins and the impersonal, comfortless vastness of the grey hull.

Prodded by the rudderman, "L 59" changed its course slightly to the east in the direction of the oasis Farafrah, 300 miles inland.

A small camp appeared below. The tents were conical European tents, not like the flat Arabian tents. A thin tracery of lines around the camp suggested a barbed wire entanglement. As luck would have it, "L 59" seemed to have stumbled upon a small military encampment and unwelcome observers. At the moment all was quiet. The ship was flying at 2300 Feet in a cloudless sxv with a following wind. The engines hummed steadily. They were kept throttled back at 1240 to 1280 r.o.m. to avoid overloading them. Following normal practice, each engine in rotation was shut down every eight hours to allow it to cool and permit routine maintenance. One of the machinists was now fussing over his charge, rotating valves to keep them from burning through, a common problem at the time, topping off the oil, pumping fuel from the gasoline drums in the keel into the gravity tanks above each engine, and doing all those maintenance jobs which his skills and the knowledge of "his" engine suggested.

At 6:30, the watch changed. The men stood watch as ona naval vessel - four hours on, four hours off under Maas or Wald as Officer of the Watch. The old watch left their stations and climbed into the hull. A dreary breakfast awaited them. The night had been freezing cold and the men looked forward to some hot coffee. They were disappointed; the boilers for heating food and water would not work. The men had to do with what was left in their thermos bottles. There was also food which had been packed in selfheating cans, "Kaloritkonserven", but when the crew opened the cans, they found that the food was old and much too salty, particularly the ham and sausages. The Food rations of the zeppelin crews was adequate though at home and even at the Fighting fronts, food already was in short supply. Each man got 6.6 pounds per day, canned vegetables with meat, sausage, tea or coffee, biscuits or chocolate, fresh or canned bread and butter or lard. There was about half a gallon of water for drinking and washing for each man per day. On "LZ 120", there had been 1.3 gallons for each man, but that ext had been a luxury cruise by comparison. In addition, there were iron rations of food and water, should the ship meet with an accident. The provisions which "L 59" carried could be made to last three months, if necessary, and they could be supplemented by hunting game. Four rifles had been put on board specially for this purpose, together with 4000 rounds of ammunition.

After breakfast, those who had taken their fill of the still strange African landscape that was slowly passing below them were free to retire to their hammocks, slung in the keel at carefully calculated intervals so as to maintain the delicate balance of the ship.

After his long flight on "LZ 120", Lehmann had made a number of suggestions as to how the crew could be made more comfortable on extended cruises, ranging from rattan chairs to sit on to a few pictures on the wall of a dayroom which should tie provided for the crew. There were no such amenities on "L 59", The crew took its breakfast in the keel among the cargo, gasoline drums and ballast containers. The large load carried by "L 59" permitted no frills and there was no compromise between the purpose of the mission and consideration For the men who were to carry it out.²⁴

Seventy-five miles south of the coast, the ship crossed - the steep escarpment which bounded the Qatara Depression, that impassable dried salt marsh which in 1943 shielded General Montg omery's flank as he made his stand at Fl Alamein. Soon afterwards the Sitra Oasis came in sight. A brakish bluegreen lake lay in its center and swarms of wild ducks fled from it in noisy agitation from the strange apparition that appeared in the sky. By now, the early morning sun had given way to an intensely bright, cloudless sky which blotted out the subtle variations of form and color which earlier had given the land beneath an exotic charm. The landscape was hard and monotonous and began to wear on the nerves of the men. The rudder and elevator helmsmen had no protection against the sun's shimmering reflections on the desert sands and suffered great eyestrain and headaches.

The sum was evaporating the rain which had soaked the shin during the night. The elevator nelmsman pushed the nose of "L 59" down to minus 2° to counteract the ship's slow rise as it shed its wet load.²⁵ To get the ship back into balance, the crew trudged 1650 pounds of cargo towards the rear of the ship, carrying the bundles along the series of narrow step plates, unprotected by any railing, which formed the cat walk running the length of the ship.

At about 12:30, Farafra Oasis came into sight. Life reappeared in the desert. Small square, irrigated fields and gardens patterned the ground and date palms and olive trees dotted the landscape. The ship crossed the village of Qasr Farafra, where some 600 people lived. In prankish high spirits, the crew threw "souvenirs" down to them, empty food cans and other garbage.

The relief which the variegated scene on the ground offered soon dissipated. As the ship left the oasis behind, the sun and the desert resumed their assault on the seared eyes and minds of the Germans. "L 59" began to pitch violently in hot air columns rising from the desert, like a ship breasting heavy seas. Fine sand began to collect in corners of the ship.²⁶ Several men became airsick, vomited and complained of violent headaches. Bockholt decided to shorten the watches to two hours and rearranged the crew assignments.

The violent pitching of the ship made particularly great demands on the skills of the men handling the elevator controls. Even under normal conditions, the job of the elevator helmsman required far greater abilities than that of the rudderman. Tne wide, slow turns which an airship made generated only small centrifugal and aerodynamic forces which did not greatly disturb the balance of the ship. A rudderman therefore needed little skill beyond being able to keep the ship on course. In fact, the navy thought it could easily train the physician and the interpreter, which the original "China" plans had intended to add to the crew, to double in brass as rudder helmsmen.

On the other hand, for an airship to remain in balance, its center of gravity and the center of its lift had to coincide in one point so that the zeppelin would not start to turn about its center of gravity. Climbing or descending could affect the location of the center of lift (and also of the center of gravity if ballast was dumped at the same time as was likely in a climb). It also could change the dynamic lift generated by the ship's hull (see p.). Seasoned judgment was needed at such a time in handling the elevator to maintain the ship's equilibrium. "L 59" also had a special quirk for which the elevator helmsman had to watch. Once the nose of the ship was raised more than six degrees over the horizon, the great length of the ship blocked the airflow over the upper rudder surface and it no longer responded to the rudder controls. This characteristic was troublesome because Bockholt, to save ballast, tried to fly the ship nose up whenever he could to take advantage of the dynamic lift thus produced. ²⁷

For Grussendorf, this was a particularly difficult time. One of the elevator helmsmen, Muller, had been left behind. Grussendorf took his place, glahgahae Nolte who was regularly assigned to this duty. Bockholt reported later that the "other helmsman" was inexperienced but he did not say who the "other" helmsman was. He also ignored the fact that "L 59" had two "others" on board, Nolte and Bockholt's former clerk, Schedelman, whom he had ostensibly taken along to also serve as rudder helmsman. Neither Nolte nor Schedelman could master the badly pitching ship and Grussendorf, besides standing his regular watch, had to take over the elevator controls from them whenever the going became difficult.

As "L 59" struggled on across the desert, the crew was briefly diverted from its misery by a scene that had occured only once before, and then only in the imagination of a great humorist. The reader may recall the story "Tom Sawyer Abroad" which Mark Twain had written in 1894. In St. Louis, Tom and his friends by chance had been swept away in a powered balloon along with the balloon's inventor, a mad professor. The ballon was a truly wonderful machine. It had no trouble reaching a speed of 100 m.p-h.; it climbed or dove a mile in no time; it could hover stockstill over the ground or dash off to execute any maneuver demanded of it. Before the professor was accidentally lost overboard, he fortunately had taught Tom to operate the balloon. It was done mostly by pushing buttons.

Within a day, Tom and his friends found themselves flying high over the Sahara Desert. There they espied a camel caravan crossing the sea of yellow sand. Amazed, they steered their balloon down to 300 feet to have a closer look. The sight of the balloon panicked the camels and they fled in all directions. It took their frightened Arab keepers an hour to round them up again to continue their journey.

Most likely, none of the men on "L 59" had read Twain's fanciful tale but his fantasy now translated itself into reality. Ahead, on the track leading from the Farafra oasis to Dakhla to the south, moved a camel caravan. The camels reacted to the grey monster appearing in the sky much as they had in Mark Twain's story, to the great hilarity of the airship men. As they lost sight of the scattered caravan an hour later, the frightened and bewildered camel drivers were still trying to restore order among the more ancient ships of the desert.

At 3:30 p.m., a huge rock formation, Bab el Calliad, 1300 feet high, came into view and behind it Dakhla Oasis. It covered about 212 square miles; several villages, mosques and a Senussi cloister shone in the sun. About 17,000 souls lived there, growing olives, dates, nuts, grain and citrus fruits. Many of them now gathered to gaze at the alien thing that came droning from the north.

The inhabitants of Farafra and Dakhla had seen machines fly in the skies before. In May 1915, the Turks and the Germans had stirred the Moslem Senussi sect, already at war with the Italians in Lybia, into rising against the British in Egypt. Four thousand Arab horsemen took the field, aided by Turkish artillerymen and machine gunners and varying number of irregulars. The British soon regained control of the situation and forced the Senussi to retreat into the desert, first to Siwa Oasis and later to Farafra and Dakhla. Without sufficient forces to re-occupy these places, the British at first contented themselves with keeping them under aerial surveillance until the Imperial Camel Corps and the Light Car Patrol could reoccupy Farafra and Dakhla in October of 1916. Although the arabs of the oasis had come to accept the strident gnats the foreigners sent, they knew of no precedent for that gray leviathan that now flew over them. A German aviator, landing at Dakhla sixteen years later, found the outlines of a zeppelin scratched over the doors of many huts in the oasis. "A mighty sign appeared in the heavens over the desert!" it was explained to him.

At 4:20, the crew in the command car was startled by a loud bang coming from the engine compartment installed in its tail. The mechanic on duty at this station quickly stopped the engine. As on the trip to Yambol, the propellor drive housing had broken. This was alarming. The engine drove the electric generator which powered the ship's radio sender. Mow "L 59" had no means of contacting Lettow - Vorbeck when it arrived in East Africa. Busch inspected the engine and decided that it could be repaired sufficiently to put it to limited use again. Repairs were begun at once.

"L 59" continued its southerly course, a steady 44 m.p.h., hour after patient hour. It began to darken. A pink cloud appeared in the east and as the ship drew closer, it dissolved into a swarm of flamingos in unbelievable numbers. The Nile had to be near. At 9:45 p.m., the ship reached the great river at Gabla Selim, on the westerly curve of the huge S which the Nile describes as it leaves the juncture of the Blue and White Nile at Khartoum and flows north through the Nubian desert on its way to Egypt. A narrow green belt marked the river shores. White houses were scattered about and Dhows plied the river. Bockholt would have preferred to remain hidden in the desert throughout the trip and not be seen over the Nile valley but he needed a visual check point to verify the course of his ship which had been navigated by celestial observation and dead reckoning since it left Turkey.

The air near the river was hazy and humid. A thunderstorm boiled to the east. The air, instead of cooling at sunset, rapidly grew warmer. It had been 53.6°F. at noon, reached 68°F. by 10 p.m. even though the ship was flying at 3,300 feet altitude and within the hour rose another 4°. By 3 a.m., it was to reach 77°. The engines were beginning to run hot. "In the future, we will have to fly further to the west" thought Bockholt and changed his course a little in that direction to escape the heat of the river plain. Meanwhile, the dead vistas of the Dongola region slid beneath them - gravel desert with hummocks and hills of basalt, granite or limestone, a rare tree tucked away in the wadis, sucking up by some mysterious process life-giving water that had long disappeared from view.

The morale of the crew was high. They had evaded the enemy in Europe, mastered a fierce storm over the Mediterranean and they were learning how to live in their peculiar universe in the sky. The African landscape, by its strange and alien appearance, gave witness that their unprecedented adventure was succeeding. The news reports picked up on the ship's radio that evening were good. German troops had scored some successes along the Piave river in Italy and it looked as if they might break through that front and perhaps repeat the disastrous defeat which they and the Austrians had inflicted on the Italians at Caporetto. A splendid sunset seemed to put a seal of approval on their efforts.

Bockholt looked at his maps with satisfaction. He had covered 1900 miles already, the trip was half completed. Two more days' would see him past the bare bluffs of Mt. Elgon, northeast of Lake Victoria, past fabled, snow-capped Kililmanjaro in German East Africa to the mouth of the Rovuma river. Once he had steered his ship to that clearly identifiable landmark, he would turn back a short distance to the Makonde Plateau. There had been no news about Africa since they had left Yambol. He had requested that for six days after his departure, the radio station at Nauen inform him at midnight what the news from Africa was. Perhaps Nauen would have some news tonight.

Towards midnight, Signal Mate Kettner tuned his radio set in the control car to Nauen. The receiver was not affected by the breakdown of the front engine; it operated on batteries. Nauen was sending its nightly instructions to the submarines at sea. Kettner waited for the call sign of "L 59".