THE SOLDIER TURNED PILOT
Rudolf von Eschwege was born in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe on February 25, 1895. He was soon orphaned, then went to military school after completing his secondary education at Freiburg.
When World War I began, Eschwege was a nineteen-year-old cadet of medium height and slender build with blue eyes. He began his combat career as an ensign with the Third Mounted Jaeger Regiment on the Western Front. Eschwege first fought in the Battle of Mulhouse on August 9th and 10th. Later that autumn, he was in action along the Yser River during the First Battle of Ypres.
After three months on the battlefield, Eschwege transferred to aviation… and he began his pilot training in February 1915. Eschwege was not a natural pilot, but he managed to qualify after crashing several times! Eventually in July 1915, he was assigned to Flieger-Abteilung Number 36, an aerial reconnaissance unit.
One year later, Eschwege was flying a Fokker Eindekker as a fighter escort to the unit’s two-seaters. He served in that capacity until the autumn of 1916. Eschwege was then commissioned an officer and transferred to the Macedonian Front… where an air force of Germans, Bulgarians, and Ottoman Turks battled vastly superior Anglo-French and Serbian foes.
Eschwege was assigned to another reconnaissance unit, Flieger-Abteilung Number 66. His brief was to patrol a front of nearly one hundred miles and guard the Bulgarian Tenth Aegean Division against enemy invaders. There were a total of three German reconnaissance units on the Macedonian Front, but Eschwege was the sole German fighter pilot! Opposing him were two Royal Naval Air Service Wings, (Numbers 2 and 3), two Royal Flying Corps squadrons (Numbers 17 and 24), as well as about 160 French and Serbian airplanes (the equivalent of another ten squadrons).
On October 25, 1916, Eschwege’s Fokker Eindekker “splashed” a Farman. He put in his first claim for an aerial victory, but it went unconfirmed due to the transfer of Bulgarian witnesses at a ground observation! Eschwege’s next two, on November 19th and December 27th, were his first credited victories. The Bulgarian infantry began referring to him as “The Eagle of the Aegean Sea”. Eschwege was nicknamed “Rudi” by his fellow comrades… and he was also called “The Richthofen of the Balkans”.
Eschwege began 1917 with a new unit: Flieger-Abteilung Number 30. On January 9th, he earned another victory, downing a Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.12 at his home airfield in Drama, Greece.
For his next win on February 18th, Eschwege took on British ace Captain Gilbert W. M. Green and his wingman, Lieutenant J. C. F. Owen. The latter was downed and captured when Green’s gun jammed. The following day, a British plane dropped a query about Owen’s well-being… to which the Germans promptly replied. This sense of chivalry was manifested in a different way after Eschwege’s next win on March 22nd, when he visited his latest victims (a wounded pilot and observer) in the field hospital, bearing them gifts of cigarettes, chocolate, and books.
Around the same time, Eschwege managed to upgrade to an Albatros D.III fighter. It was while flying this plane that he was wounded by the gunner on a British two-seater in May 1917. Disregarding his wounded right arm and his plane’s punctured fuel tank, Eschwege pressed on a successful attack… then returned home to make a dead-stick landing. In early September of that year, he fell ill from malaria.
DEATH
By the beginning of October 1917, Eschwege had run his score to sixteen wins. He then began to choose British observation balloons for his targets. Over the next two months, Eschwege managed to down two of them… plus a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter that tried to defend one of them.
On November 21st, in the vicinity of Orljak (now Strymoniko in Greece), Eschwege attacked a balloon that had risen to an unusually high altitude of 2,500 feet. As he laced it with machine gun fire, it exploded and knocked him out of the air! The balloon had been fitted with a dummy observer and five hundred pounds of high explosives; a booby trap that was detonated to kill Eschwege! Upon his death, Eschwege was being considered for Germany’s highest military honor, the Pour le Merite.
Rudolf von Eschwege’s coffin was carried to his grave by six British aviators, and he was buried with full military honors. Some days after the funeral, a British plane dropped a message on the German home airfield in Greece. It read:
“To the Bulgarian-German Flying Corps in Drama. The officers of the Royal Flying Corps regret to announce that Lt. von Eschwege was killed while attacking the captive balloon. His personal belongings will be dropped over the lines some time during the next few days.”
When the parcel was dropped, it contained a photo of the funeral along with Eschwege’s personal belongings. In turn, the Germans dropped a flag and a wreath for Eschwege’s grave. The Bulgarians later built a monument honoring “The Eagle of the Aegean Sea”.
Rudolf von Eschwege was only twenty-two years old…
HONORS AND AWARDS
– Knight’s Cross with Swords Second Class of the Order of the Zahringer Lion: June 20, 1915
– Bulgarian Order of Bravery, Fourth Class: April 4, 1917
– Bulgarian Order of Bravery, First Class
– Knight’s Cross of Military Order of St. Henry: July 8, 1917