More wild anecdotes from a WWI fighter pilot:
- Allied and German pilots often dropped notes to each other to find out about their missing comrades or to express “regret for the death of some gallant enemy pilot” or drop wreaths during the funerals of well-known aces.
- Once a French captain got his squadron lost in Germany and had to emergency land behind enemy lines. The Germans sent a thank you note to the French for all the nice new airplanes, but asked what to do about the captain.
- One time a German pilot accidentally dropped an expensive fur glove while flying over a French aerodrome. The next day he came back and dropped the other glove “with a note in which he begged the finder to accept it with his compliments, as he had no use for one glove.” The new owner dropped a thank you note back to the German pilot.
(From Edwin C. Parson’s I Flew With the Lafayette Escadrille)
So WWI pilots were really superstitious and the pilot whose account I’m reading had a favorite good luck charm: a stuffed black cat that was bought for him in Paris, which he strapped to the wing of his plane.
Apparently it helped him shoot down his very first enemy plane, but was unfortunately blown up when the Germans night-bombed the hangar where his plane was.
Naturally, he was heartbroken and absolutely refused to fly until he could go back to Paris and get another (bigger) stuffed black cat, which continued to bring him good luck and even once stopped a bullet from its trajectory straight toward his head.
Black cats are lucky, people. History says so.