6 January, 1916 Fldbl. Karl Arnt Lofthoven reporting.
Herr Boehm and I arrived via train and bus from Koln to Habshiem flugzeug. Met the crew, and got a good feeling about them. After a few bad weather days, we did some orientation flights. on the 4th, we did a loop south and then over to the front. yes, the front! Now here are some neat things: first, it seems that our intelligence dept. had a coup and intercepted an agent for something called the RAF Louvert section, who was carrying a whole selection of maps for the entire front. Seems the Brits have been busy. So finally I got to use a map, courtesy of the enemy. (someone actually started the rumor that the case also had maps predicting the lines all the way through 1918. where do people dream up this stuff?) Now, the map showed a long, thin lake that stretched south, but gave no name; I asked, but everyone was very secretive...hmm, what's that about? Turns out, that "lake" was the Rhein! The Mighty Rhein! Perhaps because of low rainfall(?), the Rhein actually disappears as it runs north from here. Mein Gott!
Well, the flight went fine, except that whenever I looked at the map, if my stick hand twitched, we either stalled or nose-dived, neither of which Made Herr Boehm up front very happy. The next day was a loop to the north, coming by Colmar. Normal flight, and I found the flugeug thanks to the map. Good thing too, since on the final approach, a rod blew in the engine, and I switched off for the landing. I had a brief hope that we would get a new C1 model, but they just gave us a reserve B2 to use. Maybe next time I'll keep the broken engine running.....