As soon as he heard the familiar drone of aircraft engines, Eschwege started his Albatros’ engine and gave chase to two Henri Farmans and a Sopwith seaplane, shooting down one of the Farmans for his 10th victory. After that, no further attempts were made to firebomb the wheat fields.

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Eschwege was stricken with malaria early in September, but on September 12, three days after returning to duty, he shot down a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter–his 15th victory. After Eschwege’s 16th victory, on October 3, he became interested in observation balloons, enormous tethered hydrogen-filled sausages that spied on troop movements and directed artillery on the battlefield. So far the German ace had never shot down a balloon. He decided to try his hand at destroying the British gasbag that appeared every morning over Orljak, west of the Struma River.

Eschwege’s first balloon-busting attempt was early in the morning of October 28, 1917. He had loaded his machine-gun belts with incendiary bullets and began circling through the mountains north of Seres, approaching Orljak with the sun at his back. The German flier’s first attack forced the observer in the balloon’s gondola to take to his parachute. The balloon itself, however, failed to erupt in flames. It took four passes before Eschwege managed to ignite the hydrogen. Clearly, balloon-busting was not as easy as it might have seemed. Eschwege barely escaped pursuing Allied fighters on his way back home.

A second balloon-busting sortie on November 9 ended when Eschwege’s guns jammed. Six days later, however, he was more successful, sending a second Orljak-based balloon down in flames.

The Allies sent up another balloon at the same location on November 19. After shooting down a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, his 19th victory, Eschwege attacked the new gasbag. But this time the Allied crew managed to haul the balloon to the ground before the German could fire. Disappointed, the Aegean Eagle turned on four accompanying planes, but they fled from the lone Albatros.

Eschwege was up at dawn on November 21, 1917, eager for his 20th victory. He loaded the guns of his aircraft with incendiaries and headed for Orljak, about 30 miles to the west. Some accounts and illustrations have Eschwege flying a Halberstadt D.II–an obsolete type that nevertheless served effectively in Flieger Abteilungen over Salonika and the Dardanelles as late as January 1918. A photograph purported to show Eschwege’s crashed plane, however, includes a section of elevator and an interplane strut that suggest he was flying an Albatros D.III at the time.

A Bulgarian officer commanding an observation post in the mountains north of Seres had a good view through his binoculars of the Orljak balloon that morning. He noted that it was higher than ever–2,500 feet instead of the usual 500 to 1,000 feet–and that no planes were in the air to protect it. When Eschwege’s scout appeared, the Bulgarians at the post gathered to watch their champion score another strike against the hated English. As Eschwege attacked, puffs of smoke from the customary anti-aircraft defenses were strangely absent.

Eschwege’s aim was perfect that morning, and the top of the gasbag erupted in flame. But as the German pilot passed near the balloon an enormous cloud of smoke enveloped his plane (see sidebar). Observers saw the scout bank sharply and dive to the ground. British medics found Eschwege’s body in the wreckage.

The Aegean Eagle’s body was identified, and he was given a funeral with full military honors. Six RFC flying officers carried his coffin to the grave. A few days later a British plane dropped a message over the Drama airfield that read: ‘To the Bulgarian-German Flying Corps in Drama. The officers of the Royal Flying Corps regret to announce that Lt. von Eschwege was killed while attacking the captive balloon. His personal belongings will be dropped over the lines some time during the next few days.’ The British carried out their promise, enclosing a photograph of Eschwege’s funeral with his belongings.

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