The cold wind burned my face as I gazed at the vast expanse of land below me. It felt as though I could see for hundreds of kilometers, over farms, houses and forests. I was aboard what the German army had called a “zeppelin,” an unbelievably large flying contraption. It carried me and the rest of my crew towards Paris, where we were to hand-unload munitions onto the city below.

After another minute of staring, I closed my window and found my way to the bottom deck where the rest of my crew stayed. It was unbelievably cold out, but my crew seemed unbothered. Several of them leaned against the railing, smoking cigarettes, sharing stories, and taking in the view. I made my way over to Dietrich, who stood between the large stacked crates of bombshells. He cupped his hands around his face, struggling to light his cigarette in the powerful winds. 

“Captain said it's only a paltry moment to Paris,” he uttered out of his cigarette-holding mouth. 

“Incredible, it’s hardly been one and a half hours since liftoff,” I said as I looked back at the green expanse. “It’s like you can still see Germany from here.” 

“These things are fast, you know,” Dietrich commented as he put his matchbox into his pocket. 

He shook his head and put his cigarette back in its box. We went over towards the front, where the rest of the crew stood and looked below. 

Below was an enormous mass of buildings and roads, previously obscured to us by the size of our ship. I felt a slight nausea and tightness in my stomach, but once my ears popped, I realized it was only our decreasing altitude. Dietrich opened his mouth, but a roar came from the back of the deck. 

“READY,” barked our divisional commander, clearly audible over the rushing wind. 

Like clockwork, the men on my deck walked over to the crates. Dietrich bumped my arm and pointed at one of the boxes. As I came over, he flipped the latches that secured it and lifted the crude wooden lid, revealing an interior full of shiny brass shells. The shells were gigantic, nearly as long as my arm and wide as a large beetroot. But at the same time, it felt silly. We had come hundreds of kilometers in a flying machine the size of a passenger vessel, and this was our only means of attack. 

I helped Dietrich as he struggled to heave one of the shells out of the box. After a struggle, we managed to sit the explosive on our shoulders, waiting for the “all clear.” Even with both of us lifting, the shell was still heavy as a young calf. It burned as it pressed into my shoulder, and I held my breath, praying for the commander to call out. 

As I tensed harder, “ALL CLEAR” roared from the stairs at the back of our deck, and I took a breath of relief. We rolled the weight off of our shoulders, and it plummeted to the city below. It shrunk quickly into the view below, and it was shortly replaced with a large flash. Neither me nor Dietrich knew what it hit. It could’ve been a house, school, store, or even the middle of the street. However, this is what the Kaiser wanted, to break the morale of the civilians with ruthless attacks. 

More flashes began to appear as our shells hit the ground, and the loud CRACK of each strike followed soon thereafter. As me and Dietrich grabbed another shell, a loud whistle shrieked through the air around us and we both instinctively crouched and covered our ears. Just as I began to stand back up, another whistle beckoned me down. The whistles kept howling around us, and I looked around at my fellow crew members. They seemed largely unfazed, lifting bombshells and hardly flinching when the whistles came. 

I looked up at the bottom of the ship from which our deck hung and saw a fist-size hole blown through the exterior. I quickly pieced together that we were being shelled by French artillery. I stumbled my way back to my feet, hands shaking, and stuck out a hand to Dietrich, who was still lying on the ground. He glanced up at me and reached out, but another whistle sent me back down. This time, a hole was blown through the deck, and pieces of steel beams began to fall from the hole above us. My ears popped again, and I crawled to look over the edge, only to find the city slowly coming into focus. 

I panicked and looked back up to find a fire rapidly spreading across the outside of the ship. It spread as though the exterior was made from dead leaves, and the frigid wind began to slowly become warm. The other men on my deck quickly realized, and panic ensued. A cacophony of screams, shouts, and whistling rounds filled the air as we began to drop faster and faster. The heat quickly became unbearable and turned my face back to the city to find that we were easily less than 50 meters away, and I closed my eyes waiting for the impact. I held my breath and waited, foolishly praying we would hit water. 

I opened my eyes and was suddenly jolted by the impact. It was shockingly light but still left my entire body aching. I pushed myself off of the mangled deck, astonished, but was crushed down under a mass of steel supports. My vision was completely obscured as the sound of a steel rain came down around me. All around me was black, and the sound of rustling and boots stomping were barely audible over the canvas and hollow tubes that covered me. Unintelligible shouting began and started closer to my position. With a panic, I began shoving the materials off of me. It was very heavy, but still very movable as the airship was built extremely light. 

I stuck my hand from the pile of waste and almost immediately, I was yanked from my sarcophagus. As the light seared into my eyes, I saw a French soldier in uniform, and he pulled me atop the rubble and hit me with the stock of his rifle. I raised my hands, and he dragged me against the wall, where some of my other crewmates stood, covered in soot. I gazed back at the rubble, and amidst the wreckage, saw a part of the flattened captain’s cabin, maybe now only a few inches thick. They had taken the brunt of the impact, and we were left in enemy territory, but alive. A line of French soldiers came walking in formation, and they escorted us down the cobblestone street.

I would be a prisoner of war, but I would not be killed.