“Then came Chapman’s last fight. Before leaving, he had put two bags
of oranges in his machine to take to Balsley, who liked to suck them
to relieve his terrible thirst, after the day’s flying was over. There
was an aerial struggle against odds, far within the German lines, and
Chapman, to divert their fire from his comrades, engaged several enemy
airmen at once. He sent one tumbling to earth, and had forced the
others off when two more swooped down upon him.” The wings of his plane
suddenly buckled and the machine dropped like a stone.
Chapman had only started the list of deaths. He was to be followed
by perhaps the most beloved of all the section. Kiffin Rockwell had
started off with Lufbery one morning. Just before he reached the lines
he “spied a German machine under him flying at 11,000 feet.” Rockwell
had fought more combats, than the rest of the Escadrille put together,
says McConnell. “He had shot down many German machines that had fallen
in their lines, but this was the first time he had had an opportunity
of bringing down a Boche in our territory.”
Rockwell approached so close to the enemy plane that it seemed there
would be a collision. The German aeroplane carried two machine guns.
When Rockwell started his dive the enemy opened a rapid fire. “Rockwell
plunged through the stream of lead and only when very close to his
enemy did he begin shooting. For a moment it looked as if the German
was falling, but then the French machine turned rapidly nose down, the
wings of one side broke off and fluttered in the wake of the airplane,
which hurtled earthward in a rapid drop. It crashed into the ground
in a small field—a field of flowers—a few hundred yards back of the
trenches. It was not more than two and a half miles from the spot where
Rockwell, in the month of May, brought down his first enemy machine.
The Germans immediately opened up on the wreck with artillery fire. In
spite of the bursting shrapnel, gunners from a nearby battery rushed
out and recovered poor Rockwell’s broken body.”
“Lufbery engaged a German craft but before he could get to close range
two Fokkers swooped down from behind and filled his aeroplane full of
holes. Exhausting his ammunition, he landed at Fontaine, an aviation
field near the lines. There he learned of Rockwell’s death and was told
that two other French machines had been brought down within the hour.
He ordered his gasoline tank filled, procured a full band of cartridges
and soared up into the air to avenge his comrade. He sped up and down
the lines, and made a wide détour to Habsheim, where the Germans have
an aviation field, but all to no avail. Not a Boche was in the air.”
[Illustration: The Marines’ Watch on the Rhine
General Neville decorating the Colors of the 6th Regiment with the
Croix de Guerre at Coblenz, Germany.]
No greater blow could have befallen the Escadrille than Rockwell’s
death. “The bravest and best of us all is no more,” said the French
Captain. “Kiffin was the soul of the Escadrille,” writes Jim McConnell.
“He was loved and looked up to by not only every man in our flying
corps, but by every one who knew him. Kiffin was imbued with the spirit
of the cause for which he fought and gave his heart and soul to the
performance of his duty. He said: ‘I pay my part for Lafayette and
Rochambeau,’ and he gave the fullest measure. The old flame of chivalry
burned brightly in this boy’s fine and sensitive being. With his death
France lost one of her most valuable pilots. When he was over the lines
the Germans did not pass—and he was over them most of the time.”
“Rockwell had been given the Médaille Militaire and the Croix de
Guerre, on the ribbon of which he wore four palms, representing the
four magnificent citations he had received in the order of the army.”
Kiffin was given a funeral worthy of a general. “His brother, Paul, who
had fought in the Legion with him, and who had been rendered unfit for
service by a wound, was granted permission to attend the obsequies.
Pilots from all nearby camps flew over to render homage to Rockwell’s
remains. Every Frenchman in the aviation at Luxeuil marched behind the
bier. The British pilots, followed by a detachment of five hundred of
their men, were in line, and a battalion of French troops brought up
the rear. As the slow moving procession of blue and khaki-clad men
passed from the church to the graveyard, airplanes circled at a feeble
height above and showered down myriads of flowers.”
The fates seemed to be envious of the American section in France.
Rockwell had fallen September 23. On the 15th of October Norman Prince
died. “It was hard to realize that poor old Norman had gone, but I do
not think he minded going,” writes McConnell. “He wanted to do his part
before being killed, and he had more than done it.”