The New York Times, July 28, 1918:
Gustav Kobbe, the music and art critic of the New York Herald, was killed instantly yesterday afternoon, when a naval hydroaeroplane, speeding over the water near Bay Shore, L.I., struck him when he stood up in a catboat as he prepared to dive to avoid being hit by the flier [...] Mr Kobbe, who was alone in the boat, evidently felt confident that the hydroaeroplane which was approaching did not place him in any danger. Kobbe made no effort to move out of the path of the flier, and the hydroaeroplane was within a few feet of him before he saw that a collision was imminent. It was so close that the critic, who was a man of 62 years, had no time to plunge into the water, and it was his attempt to avoid danger by this means which caused his death. For just as he reached an upright position the hydroaeroplane, whose speed he had miscalculated, was on the boat. Some part of the bottom of the aircraft, probably the planing boards, struck the top of the mast. It snapped off the mast and practically clove the man's skull in two parts. Not the slightest harm was done to the swift hydroaeroplane, and the jar was so slight that the naval pilot was not conscious that his machine had touched anything [...] [he] did not learn of the accident until his return to the station.