Germany 1928

Pages For this Section

Geneva 1924

Paris and London 1926

Germany 1928

Geneva 1927

Geneva 1928

England 1936

I had spent a few days working in a chemical factory at Constance, staying at the beautiful hotel, the Insel, which is on a small promontry jutting into Lake Constance itself, or as they call it in Germany, the Bodensee. I was due to meet my chief in Berlin early on Monday morning, and had a reserved sleeper on the direct through-train on Sunday evening from Freidrichshafen, another old town on the north side of the Lake. The only connection was by the regular lake steamship service between Konstanz and Freidrichshafen and this, by a series of misfortunes I missed.

As I had had from Friday evening to get to Berlin by Monday morning, I conjured up all the bitter things that were going to reach me from my chief's tongue.

In desperation I approached the hall porter, telling him my plight. He never turned a hair, but pressed a bell on the wall beside him. He said, "Otto will take you - you will catch the train. Twenty marks please." Otto, late pilot in the Imperial Air Force of the 1914-18 War, with my bag in one hand and a leather flying helmet in the other, led me downstairs, through the kitchens out on to a three foot wide wooden jetty to a wooden boathouse, where there was housed a beautiful little four-seater Dornier flying-boat. I caught my train.

I cannot remember whether it was on this or another visit to Constance that I saw the twelve-engined Dornier take off and land on the Lake. I knew they were Rolls-Royce engines.