Georges Guynemer

Why could he not forge them himself? In him, the mechanician and the gunsmith were impatient to serve the pilot and the

ing, or when he improved the arrangement of the instruments and tools in his airplane in accordance with his superior practica

ccustomed to danger, and who find in it an inspiration for courage, for commerce, and even for pleasure which does not belong to cities behind the lines. Sometimes people who were dining on the Place Stanislas left their tables to watch some fine battle in the air, after which they resumed their seats and their appetites, merely replacing Rhenish by Moselle wines. Nevertheless, the frequency of raids, and the destruction caused by bombs, began to make the existence of both native and visiting Nancyites decidedly unpleasant. The Storks Escadrille, which arrived in February,

one day constituted a novel exploit. Navarre had achieved a double victory on February 26, 1916, at Verdun, and Guynemer had the same success on the Som

her heading nor final formula. The King of Spain, in Ruy Blas, talks of the weather before he tells of

aring shell explosions. Forced down i

l. And Deullin brought down another in flames at the same time. About 9 o'clock Dorme and Auger had attacked and grilled a two-seated plane. These four Boches were in a quadrilateral, the sides of

n a two-seated Al

our lines for my day

enant von Hausen humanely and courteously as soon as he had landed. In all his mentions up to that time Guynem

which was to attack Vimy cliffs (April 9-10, 1917)-was about to undertake that vast offensive operation which, from Soissons to Auberive in Champagne, was to roll like an ocean wave over the slopes of the Chemin des Dames, the hills of Sapigneul and Brimont, and

ent upon the quality of the airplanes, and the factory output, and limited by the enemy's power in the air. But though they were unable to achieve the mastery of the air from the very first, they

bering more than 270, were divided into bombing, chasing, patrolling and field escadrilles, these last being intrusted with scouting, photographing, and artillery work, in constant touch with the infantry. Most of these novelties were servilely copied from French aviation. The Germans had borrowed the details of liaison service, as well as those for the regulation of artillery fire, from the French regulations. The commander of the a?ronautical section of the Fifth German Army (Verdun) said in a report that "a conscientious aviator was the only reliable informant in action." And his supreme chief, the Kronprinz, commenting upon this sentence, drew the following conclusions: "All this shows once more that through methodical use of Infantry Avia

er chasing escadrilles during the whole winter of 1916-1917, and by the following spring she possessed no less than forty. Before the war she had given her attention almost exclusively to heavy airplanes. French types were plagiarized: as the Morane had been altered into the Fokker, the Nieuport became an Albatros.

superiority in the air, even if other sectors must be left destitute or battle shirked. The flying men were never to be over-worked, so as to be fresh in an emergency. The subordination of aviation to the

conlike on his prey, like Guynemer, there are scores of Richtofens who, under careful protection from other airplanes, circle round and round trying to attract the enemy, and unexpectedly getting behind him by a spiral or a loop. It should be said here that the German controlling boards tak

p at once, refusing combat except on equal terms; and balloons must be lowered, or even pulled down to the ground. If, on the contrary, the German machines took the offensive, the order was that, at the hour determined upon, all available machines must rise together to a low altitude, and divide into two distinct fleet

f technical progress, but the Germans made up for the inferiority, as usual, by method and system. The French were unrivaled for technical improvements, and the training of their pilots. Their new machine, the Spad, was a first-rate instrument, superior in strength, speed, and ease of cont

e whole seems, perfect as the enormous machine seems to be, it would not work if there were not behind it a weak man made of poor flesh. A humble gunner, the anonymous defenders of a trench, a pilot who purges the air of the hostile presence, an observer wh

he wrote laconically to his family. There were indeed some five tumbling down: on May 25 he had surpassed all that had b

a wing as it fell and was smashed on

court.-With Captain Auger, forced another two-seater to

[22] in flames

court and Condé-sur-Suippes. Dispersed with

unted on a turret aft. It is thirty-nine feet across the wings, and twenty-four in length. One Benz six-cylinder engine of 200/225 H.P. Its spee

rmany and, if possible, the whole world, that the German airplanes and the German airmen were unrivaled. "As for the French aviators," he went on to say remarkably apropos, "they only engage our men when

ir fight when every chance is on his side. He flies above the German lines at altitudes between 6000 and 7000 meters, quite out of range of our anti-aircraft artillery. He cannot make any observations, for from that height he sees nothing clearly, not even troops on the march. He is exclusively a chasing flyer bent on destroying our own machines. He has been often successful, though he cannot be compared to our own Richtofen. He is very prudent; always flying, as I said

n one-seaters, but provided with so much more dangerous arms. Naturally he could not think of attacking them, "not feeling sure of victory," and "always avoiding a risky contest!" Yet he pounced upon his three opponents, who promptl

another machine flying after him. He again fired upwards, and the airplane fell in flames, like th

had it been able to get there? This is what the airmen down below were asking themselves. It was useless to chase it, for it would take any of them longer to rise than the Germ

omes Gu

Boche is

m, he fired. Only one shot from the machine-gun was heard, but the enemy airplane was already spinning down, its engin

and towards seven o'clock, above the Guignicourt market gardens (that i

Guynemer. For he rarely came home without bullet-holes in his wings or even in his clothes. The B

s. All the neighboring airplane sheds understood, also the cantonments, parks, depots, dugouts, field hospitals and railway stations; in a word, all the communities scatte

it was two, one above Corbeny, the other above Juvincourt. And people had hardly realized the wonderful fact before the third machine was seen falling in

parks and cantonments, while the setting sun lingered in the sky on this May evening, whoever handled a shovel, a pickaxe or a rifle, whoever laid down rails, unloaded trucks, piled up cases, or broke stones on the road, whoever dressed wounds, gave medicine or carried dead men, whoever worked, rested, ate or drank-who

d: "Guynemer

crowd streamed out and scattered in the darkening fields,

of the greatest