Udet made many friends of his enemies between the wars, and this one sent him a gift fifteen years later, through the famous interwar aviator Roscoe Turner. It was one of the leaflets, "the last of his supply, and he forgot to throw it at me in 1918."
What a man he was. Certainly, the others fought too. But they had wives or children, a mother or a profession. This they could forget only on rare occasions. But he constantly lived beyond those boundaries that we only cross during great moments. His personal life was blotted out when he fought at the front. And he always fought when he was at the front. Food, drink, and sleep was all he was willing to concede to life. Only that which was necessary to keep that machine of flesh and blood going. He was the least complicated man I ever knew. Entirely Prussian and the greatest of soldiers.
It is the last time Udet will see his hero Manfred von Richthofen. On his return home, Udet's family doctor tells him he is finished with flying. "Your eardrum is gone and the inner ear infected."
