WAR

In August 1917 Theobald was posted to Fl. Abt. 31 at Slonim in Russian
Poland 180 miles east-northeast of Warsaw where he flew a number of missions
over the Russian lines as an aerial photographer. The weather was good during
the summer and Russian fighter opposition was nil, so the German two-seater
crews had an easy time of it, with a sense of "joy-riding" that was absent from
the Western Front. The terrain behind the Russian lines with its
natural and manmade
features became as familiar as their own home towns.
One day at the end of August the CO., Hauptmann Bohnstedt, called
Theobald to his office and informed him that he was to fly a bombing mission
against the railroad marshaling yard at Shilitschi. Long columns of freight cars
were stacked up there and if the switches could be destroyed, vast quantities of
materiel would be bottled
up.
Theobald and his pilot climbed into their machine and took off at 8:00
a.m. The weather was clear and sunny and at 3500 metres the air was calm. Between
Theobald's feet on the floor of the rear cockpit of the D.F.W. C V sat
a large box camera with a 25-centimetre lens and six glass plates stored in slits
at the rear of the box. Touching his right knee were ten IV2 -kilogramme ( 16Vipound)
bombs, arranged horizontally in a rack. Preparatory to dropping these,
Theobald would arm them by pulling the pins in their noses. This would free
the screw-type fuse which was actuated by centrifugal force, the necessary
spinning motion of the bomb being imparted by fins in its tail which also helped
to stabilize the bomb in its fall. Behind him was the Parabellum machine gun,
mounted on a circular track that ran around his cockpit.
Coming in at 3500 metres, Theobald squinted at the target, armed his
bombs and dropped them all in a single salvo. He tapped his pilot on the
shoulder and the pilot began a wide circle that brought them back over the
target in a little less than two minutes. Theobald hoisted the camera and leaned
it on the cockpit side, holding the pistol grip and "trigger" in his right hand.
He leaned over and pointed the camera down. He found the target zone in his
view finder and when his "bombardier's instinct" told him the moment of impact
had arrived, he squeezed the trigger. Quickly, he inserted the plate cover and
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