In July 1914, the German Air Force in China was one man, Oberleutnant zur See Günter Pluschow, and his bird-like Rumpler Taube based in the German colony of Tsing-Tao.

The first time Pluschow flew his Taube, he smashed his propeller. With no spare parts, he made his own. In spite of the doped wing fabric wound around the blades, it still came apart. Pluschow was so busy keeping his Taube together that he paid little attention to the murder of the Austrian archduke in Sarajevo that summer. It wasn’t until September 5th that he knew he was in some kind of war.

China’s German Air Force had its first and only air battle on September 27th. Pluschow was attacked by a Farman “Longhorn” biplane—one of 10 Japanese planes used in the Tsing-Tao campaign. Amazingly, Pluschow forced the Farman down with 30 shots from his Luger pistol. Nonetheless, the Japanese and British captured the port on November 7th. A day earlier, Pluschow was ordered to fly his plane and important military documents out of Tsing-Tao into neutral territory.

He crashed in Hai-Dschou and had to burn his plane along with the documents. Pluschow then caught a Dutch ship to San Francisco, traveled across the U.S., boarded a ship to Gibraltar, was captured by the British, and sent to POW camp. He escaped to Holland, made it to Germany, and was almost arrested as a spy due to his ragged clothes! Once the story of his perilous journey home became known, Pluschow was hailed as a hero.