GERMAN WAR ACE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22710, 24 October 1935, Page 12

GERMAN WAR ACE

WELCOME TO AN EX-ENEMY

ERNST UDET'S BERLIN FLAT (From Ol'k Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, October 16. "You are Captain Haig, the Australian? I am Ernst Udet —you have heard of me. Your squadron shot down my friend in the war, and behind the line 3 you gave him a good time. I will give you a good time." That was a greeting received by Captain Frank W. Haig, wartime squadron leader in the Australian Flying Corps, and now chief aviation officer of the Vacuum Oil Company. The greeting was given to Haig as he stepped from an air liner at the Tempelhof aerodrome, Berlin, recently, while he was on a world tour studying aviation. He told of the meeting with Germany's famous ace, when he returned to Sydney. " Udet is wealthy," said Haig, " and he took me to his luxurious Berlin flat that night, where a number of German flying officers were gathered to entertain me. The walls of this magnificent flat are decorated with bullet-riddled and blood-stained pieces of some of the 78 British aeroplanes which Udet shot down in the war. Yet no man could have been more hospitable to an ex-enemy. " Udet is one of the crack rifle shots of Germany. He has a miniature rifle range installed at one end of the flat. About 3 a.m. Udet said, ' Friend Ha ig, we will shoot.' Taking up a small rifle, he put five shots in the centre of the bull's-eye. Then, turning his back, and sighting over his shoulder with a small mirror, he shot another five with the same uncanny accuracy. He did it again with the rifle turned upside down. 'And now, friend Haig, whose side will you be on in the next war ?' Udet asked laughing." Captain Haig, who is also a crack rifle shot, was able to emulate Udet's feat of splitting a card in half. Next day, Udet, recognised as the crack acrobat of Germany, gave a display of aerobatics at Templehof. " I have never seen flying like it," said Captain Haig. "In a specially built machine he did an outside loop from 500 feet, flew upside down 50 feet above the ground, waving his arms to the crowd below, then half-looped to fly level again. Phew! "