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evening great buzzards, eagles and other birds of prey. I watched them turning, always in the same place. I carefully observed their movements, noting the places above which they turned, and studied the thermals which they used and which seemed very powerful. I was envious.
A year earlier I was in Upper Silesia, in a German camp at Grunau in the Riesengebirge. Excellent instructors gave me all the tricks of the trade I needed to allow me to climb to 4,900 metres.
Every day conditions got ever better than the best days in Grunau. But... I had no glider and there was no chance of getting one sent by plane from the United States. Moreover, the Chinese were not letting me fly with the war raging. One fine morning, it was April 20, my Chinese secretary translated for me a newspaper article announcing a forthcoming gliding demonstration by a Chinese pilot trained in Germany.
Two days later, a group of military pilots arrived in Chungking with two fine new planes of the "Rhônsperber" type. They were two high-performance gliders equipped with the best instruments; how had they got to Chungking, after the retreat from Shanghai and then to Hangkow (2,000 km away, with no railway link) will always remain a mystery to me. But there they were, before my eyes!
On the 24th, a Chinese pilot was towed to 2,000 metres and produced a wonderful demonstration of acrobatics. Unfortunately, for reasons that were unclear, while he was still at about 100 metres, the machine went into a dive and crashed to the ground. Nothing was left of it.
Some hours after the tragic accident, I took a telephone call from the Minister of War, asking if I would be willing to undertake a demonstration in the remaining glider. I accepted immediately without hesitation and fixed a rendezvous for the next day at 8:00 am. On April 25, 1940, I therefore found myself examining in detail the Rhônsperber, which had been placed at my disposal, as well as the Curtiss plane that was to tow me. I installed my altimeter and a special artificial horizon2 which I had brought from Europe in my baggage.
The glider was ready for take-off at 11:40. I gave instructions to