The Two-Headed Eagle

It was not until we were above Niedendorf at the head of the valley that we had enough altitude to turn east over Sesana and fly across the karst ridge above Trieste. It was just getting light as we flew over the steep scarp-edge at Villa Opicina and saw the city spread out below us, with the still dark expanse of the Adriatic beyond. It was now just light enough to make out the white turrets of the Schloss Miramare on its headland above the sea. I hoped that this would not be an ill omen for what was already a hazardous enough enterprise: Miramare had been the residence of the unfortunate Archduke Ferdinand Max, who had ended his days in front of a Mexican firing squad. Legend had it that the castle had since brought misfortune and a violent end to all who had anything to do with the place.

When we were a couple of kilometres out to sea I noticed that we were slowly overtaking Potocznik’s aeroplane: also that his engine was giving out fitful puffs and coughs of bluish smoke and leaving a strong smell of burning oil in its wake. Before long they were starting to lose height. I watched as Maybauer in the observer’s seat conferred with Potocznik, then turned to me and shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head in an exagger­ated pantomime. They were turning back to land at Prosecco airfield—a broken piston-ring, we learnt later. I wondered for a moment what we should do. But no, our orders were specific on the point: if one aeroplane fell out the other must press on regardless. We were on our own now.

Though only about twenty kilometres in all, the crossing of the Gulf of Trieste was likely to be the most hazardous part of our flight until we reached the outer defence lines of Venice. We had chosen to fly over the sea, in order to dodge the flak batteries on the Isonzo; but even so it was a dangerous business. The gulf was now little more than a salt-water no man’s land, thickly sown with minefields and fought over day and night by seaplanes and motor-boats. If we ditched in the sea and managed to avoid drowning, then in all probability it would be at the cost of being fished out and taken prisoner by an Italian MAS boat.

As it turned out, our crossing was surprisingly uneventful. The k.u.k. Kriegsmarine’s flying-boats were already at work harassing the Italian batteries at Sdobba, so I suppose that must have diverted their attention. An Italian seaplane tried to climb up after us as we made landfall at Porto Buso, west of Grado, but we were too high up for him and a providential patch of low cloud allowed us to give him the slip while he was still climb­ing round in circles. After that there was not a great deal to remark upon, flying along at 120 kilometres per hour three thousand metres above the monotonous green and brown coastal marshes of the Veneto. Winter was setting in early, and I constantly readjusted my scarf to try and block out the nagging chill that kept creeping down the collar of my flying jacket. I would have huddled down behind Toth and out of the wind, but I was the officer and the job of officers was to navigate.

Not that there was a great deal of navigating to do. In fact all the help that we required in that line was provided by the gleaming railway tracks ru

The plan was that we would turn sharp south just short of the town of Mestre and then drop down to attack the bridge at low level from the landward side. But it was not until we emerged from a patch of thin, low cloud west of San Dona that I realised that—as usual—my wayward pilot had other ideas. As we sliced through the last thi

It looked as if he had decided not to try attacking the bridge from the landward side. In fact as the domes and towers of the city appeared before us across the flat expanse of lagoon it became obvious that we were going to try an entirely different line of approach—and at extremely low level.

We skimmed across the water at a height of barely ten metres. I kept watch astern as clouds of waterfowl rose into the air, screaming in alarm as we roared over them. There were few defences here apart from the odd anti­aircraft pontoon moored among the reedbeds, so poorly camouflaged that it was an easy matter to fly around them. A few desultory streams of tracer curved up at us, to no effect whatever. But I saw signal rockets arching into the sky in our wake. Venice was being warned of our approach and would doubtless give us a warm welcome.

It is a noble perspective, that approach to Venice from the sea, one of the finest in the entire world I think: the Canale di San Marco with the island of San Giorgio Maggiore to port and the Riva delli Schiavoni to starboard and the Mado