CANTO II

LAUNCHED INTO SPACE

I. THE FIRST VICTORY

The apprentice pilot, then, left the ground for the first time at the

Pau school on February 17, 1915, in a three-cylinder Blériot. But these

were only short leaps, though sufficiently audacious ones. His monitor

accused him of breakneck recklessness: "Too much confidence, madness,

fantastical humor." That same evening he wrote describing his

impressions to his father: "Before departure, a bit worried; in the air,

wildly amusing. When the machine slid or oscillated I was not at all

troubled, it even seemed funny.... Well, it diverted me immensely, but

it was lucky that _Maman_ was not there.... I don't think I have

achieved a reputation for prudence. I hope everything will go well; I

shall soon know...."

During February he made many experimental flights, and finally, on March

10, 1915, went up 600 meters. This won him next day a diploma from the

Aëro Club, and the day following he wrote to his sister Odette this hymn

of joy--not long, but unique in his correspondence: "Uninterrupted

descent, volplaning for 800 meters. Superb view (sunset)...."

"Superb view (sunset)": in the hundred and fifty or two hundred letters

addressed to his family, I believe this is the only landscape. Slightly

later, but infrequently, the new aviator gave a few details of

observation, the accuracy of which lent them some picturesqueness; but

in this letter he yielded to the intoxication of the air, he enjoyed

flying as if it were his right. He experienced that sensation of

lightness and freedom which accompanies the separation from earth, the

pleasure of cleaving the wind, of controlling his machine, of seeing,

breathing, thinking differently from the way he saw and thought and

breathed on the land, of being born, in fact, into a new and solitary

life in an enlarged world. As he ascended, men suddenly diminished in

size. The earth looked as if some giant hand had smoothed its surface,

diversified only by moving shadows, while the outlines of objects became

stronger, so that they seemed to be cut in relief.

The land was marked by geometrical lines, showing man's labor and its

regularity, an immense parti-colored checker-board traversed by the

lines of highroads and rivers, and containing islands which were forests

and towns and cities. Was it the chain of the Pyrenees covered with snow

which, breaking this uniformity, wrested a cry of admiration from the

aviator? What shades of gold and purple were shed over the scene by the

setting sun? His half-sentence is like a confession of love for the joy

of living, violently torn from him, and the only avowal this blunt

Roland would allow himself.

For the nature of his correspondence is somewhat surprising. Read

superficially, it must seem extremely monotonous; but when better

understood, it indicates the writer's sense of oppression, of

hallucination, of being bewitched. From that moment Guynemer had only

one object, and from its pursuit he never once desisted. Or, if he did

desist for a brief interval, it was only to see his parents, who were

part of his life, and whom he associated with his work. His

correspondence with them is full of his airplanes, his flights, and then

his enemy-chasing. His letters have no beginning and no ending, but

plunge at once into action. He himself was nothing but action. Only

that? the reader will ask. Action was his reason for existing, his

heart, his soul--action in which his whole being fastened on his prey.

A long and minutiose training goes to the making of a good pilot. But

the impatient Guynemer had patience for everything, and the self-willed

Stanislas student became the hardest working of apprentices. His

scientific knowledge furnished him with a method, and after his first

long flights his progress was very rapid. But he wanted to master all

the principles of aviation. As student mechanician he had seen airplanes

built. He intended to make himself veritably part of the machine which

should be intrusted to him. Each of his senses was to receive the

education which, little by little, would make it an instrument capable

of registering facts and effecting security. His eyes--those piercing

eyes which were to excel in raking the heavens and perceiving the first

trace of an enemy at incalculable distances--though they could only

register his motion in relation to the earth and not the air, could, at

all events, inform him of the slightest deviations from the horizontal

in the three dimensions: namely, straightness of direction, lateral and

longitudinal horizontality, and accurately appreciate angular

variations. When the motor slowed up or stopped, his ear would interpret

the sound made by the wind on the piano wires, the tension wires, the

struts and canvas; while his touch, still more sure, would know by the

degree of resistance of the controlling elements the speed action of the

machine, and his skillful hands would prepare the work of death. "In the

case of the bird," says the _Manual_, by M. Maurice Percheron, "its

feathers connect its organs of stability with the brain; while the

experienced aviator has his controlling elements which produce the

movement he wishes, and inform him of the disturbing motions of the

wind." But with Guynemer the movements he wanted were never brought

about as the result of reflex nervous action. At no time, even in the

greatest danger, did he ever cease to govern every maneuver of his

machine by his own thought. His rapidity of conception and decision was

astounding, but was never mere instinct. As pilot, as hunter, as

warrior, Guynemer invariably controlled his airplane and his gun with

his brain. This is why his apprenticeship was so important, and why he

himself attached so much importance to it--by instinct, in this case.

His nerves were always strained, but he worked out his results. Behind

every action was the power of his will, that power which had forced his

entrance into the army, and itself closed the doors behind him, a

prisoner of his own vocation.

He familiarized himself with all the levers of the engine and every part

of the controlling elements. When the obligatory exercises were

finished, and his comrades were resting and idling, he remounted the

airplane, as a child gets onto his rocking-horse, and took the levers

again into his hands. When he went up, he watched for the exact instant

for quitting the ground and sought the easiest line of ascension; during

flights, he was careful about his position, avoiding too much diving, or

nosing-up, maintaining a horizontal movement, making sure of his lateral

and longitudinal equilibrium, familiarizing himself with winds, and

adapting his motions to every sort of rocking. When he came down, and

the earth seemed to leap up at him, he noted the angle and swiftness of

the descent and found the right height at which to slow down. Although

his first efforts had been so clever that his monitors were convinced

for a long time that he had already been a pilot, yet it is not so much

his talent that we should admire as his determination. He was more

successful than others because he wore himself out during the whole of

his short life in trying to do better--to do better in order to serve

better. He worked more than any one else; when he was not satisfied with

himself he began all over again, and sought the cause of his errors.

There are many other pilots as gifted as Guynemer, but he possessed an

energy which was extraordinary, and in this respect excelled all the

rest.

And there were no limits to the exercise of this energy. He gave his own

body to complete so to speak, the airplane,--a centaur of the air. The

wind that whistled through his tension wires and canvas made his own

body vibrate like the piano wires. His body was so sensitive that it,

too, seemed to obey the rudder. Nothing that concerned his voyages was

either unknown or negligible to him. He verified all his

instruments--the map-holder, the compass, the altimeter, the tachometer,

the speedometer--with searching care. Before every flight he himself

made sure that his machine was in perfect condition. When it was brought

out of the hangar he looked it over as they look over race-horses, and

never forgot this task. How would it be when he should have his own

airplane?

At Pau he increased the number of his flights, and changed airplanes,

leaving the Blériot Gnome for the Morane. His altitudes at this time

varied from 500 to 600 meters. Going, on March 21, to the Avord school,

he went up on the 28th to a height of 1500 meters, and on April 1 to

2600. His flights became longer, and lasted one hour, then an hour and a

half. The spiral descent from a height of 500 meters, with the motor

switched off, triangular voyages, the test of altitude and that of

duration of flight, which were necessary for his military diploma, soon

became nothing more to him than sport. In May nearly every day he

piloted one passenger on an M.S.P. (Morane-Saunier-Parasol). During all

this period his record-book registers only one breakdown. Finally, on

May 25, he was sent to the general Aviation Reserves, and on the 31st

made two flights in a Nieuport with a passenger. This was the end of his

apprenticeship, and on June 8 Corporal Georges Guynemer was designated

as member of Escadrille M.S.3, which he joined next day at Vauciennes.

This M.S.3 was the future N.3, the "Ciogognes" or Storks Escadrille. It

was already commanded by Captain Brocard, under whose orders it was

destined to become illustrious. Védrines belonged to it.

_Sous-lieutenant de cavalerie_ Deullin joined it almost simultaneously

with Guynemer, whose friend he soon became. Later, little by little,

came Heurtaux, de la Tour, Dorme, Auger, Raymond, etc., all the famous

valiant knights of the escadrille, like the peers of France who followed

Roland over the Spanish roads. This aviation camp was at Vauciennes,

near Villers-Cotterets, in the Valois country with its beautiful

forests, its chateaux, its fertile meadows, and its delicate outlines

made shadowy by the humid vapor rising from ponds or woods. "Complete

calm," wrote Guynemer on June 9, "not one sound of any kind; one might

think oneself in the Midi, except that the inhabitants have seen the

beast at close range, and know how to appreciate us.... Védrines is very

friendly and has given me excellent advice. He has recommended me to his

'_mecanos_,' who are the real type of the clever Parisian, inventive,

lively and good humored...." Next day he gives some details of his

billet, and adds: "I have had a _mitrailleuse_ support mounted on my

machine, and now I am ready for the hunt.... Yesterday at five o'clock I

darted around above the house at 1700 or 2000 meters. Did you see me? I

forced my motor for five minutes in hopes that you would hear me." He

had recently parted from his family, and a happy chance had brought him

to fight over the very lines that protected his own home. The front of

the Sixth Army to which he was attached, extending from Ribécourt beyond

the forest of Laigue, passed in front of Railly and Tracy-le-Val,

hollowed itself before the enemy salient of Moulin-sous-Touvent,

straightened itself again near Autrèches and Nouvron-Vingré, covered

Soissons, whose very outskirts were menaced, was obliged to turn back on

the left bank of the Aisne where the enemy took, in January, 1915, the

bridge-head at Condé, and Vailly and Chavonne, and crossed the river

again at Soupir which belonged to us. Laon, La Fère, Coucy-le-Château,

Chauny, Noyon, Ham, and Péronne were the objects of his reconnoitering

flights.

War acts more poignantly, more directly upon a soldier whose own home is

immediately behind him. If the front were pierced in the sector which

had been intrusted to him, his own people would be exposed. So he

becomes their sentinel. Under such conditions, _la Patrie_ is no longer

merely the historic soil of the French people, the sacred ground every

parcel of which is responsible for all the rest, but also the beloved

home of infancy, the home of parents, and, for this collegian of

yesterday, the scene of charming walks and delightful vacations. He has

but just now left the paternal mansion; and, not yet accustomed to the

separation, he visits it by the roads of the air, the only ones which he

is now free to travel. He does not take advantage of his proximity to

Compiègne to go ring the familiar door-bell, because he is a soldier and

respects orders; but, on returning from his rounds, he does not hesitate

to turn aside a bit in order to pass over his home, indulging up there

in the sky in all sorts of acrobatic caprioles to attract attention and

prolong the interview. What lover was ever more ingenious and madder in

his rendezvous?

Throughout all his correspondence he recalls his air visits. "You must

have seen my head, for I never took my eyes off the house...." Or, after

an aërial somersault that filled all those down below with terror: "I am

wretched to know that my veering the other day frightened _maman_ so

much, but I did it so as to see the house without having to lean over

the side of the machine, which is unpleasant on account of the wind...."

Or sometimes he threw down a paper which was picked up in Count Foy's

park: "Everything is all right." He thought he was reassuring his

parents about his safety; but their state of mind can be conceived when

they beheld, exactly over their heads, an airplane engaged apparently in

performing a dance, while through their binoculars they could see the

tiny black speck of a head which looked over its side. He had indeed a

singular fashion of reassuring them!

Meanwhile, at Vauciennes the newcomer was being tested. At first he was

thought to look rather sickly and weak, to be somewhat reserved and

distant, and too well dressed, with a "young-ladyish" air. He was known

to be already an expert pilot, capable of making tail spins after barely

three months' experience. But still the men felt some uncertainty about

this youngster whom they dared not trifle with on account of his eyes,

"out of which fire and spirit flowed like a torrent."[15] Later on they

were to know him better.

[Footnote 15: Saint-Simon.]

A legend was current as to the large quantity of "wood broken" by

Guynemer in his early days with the escadrille. This is radically

untrue, and his notebook contradicts it. From the very first day the

_débutant_ fulfilled the promise of his apprentice days. After one or

two trial flights, he left for a scouting expedition on Sunday, June 13,

above the enemy lines, and there met three German airplanes. On the 14th

he described what he had seen in a letter to his father.--His

correspondence still included some description at that time, the earth

still held his attention; but it was soon to lose interest for

him.--"The appearance of Tracy and Quennevières," he wrote, "is simply

unbelievable: ruins, an inextricable entanglement of trenches almost

touching one another, the soil turned over by the shells, the holes of

which one sees by thousands. One wonders how there could be a single

living man there. Only a few trees of a wood are left standing, the

others beaten down by the "_marmites_,"[16] and everywhere may be seen

the yellow color of the literally plowed-up earth. It seems incredible

that all these details can be seen from a height of over 3000 meters. I

could see to a distance of 60 or 70 kilometers, and never lost sight of

Compiègne. Saint-Quentin, Péronne, etc., were as distinct as if I were

there...."

[Footnote 16: Shells.]

Next day, the 14th, another reconnaissance, of which the itinerary was

Coucy, Laon, La Fère, Tergnier, Appily, Vic-sur-Aisne. Not a cannon shot

disturbed these first two expeditions. But danger lurked under this

apparent security, and on the 15th he was saluted by shells, dropping

quite near. It was his "baptism by fire," and only inspired this

sentence _à la Duguesclin_: "No impression, except satisfied curiosity."

The following days were passed in a perfect tempest, and he only

laughed. The new Roland, the bold and marvelous knight, is already

revealed in the letters to be given below. On the 16th he departed on

his rounds, carrying, as observer, Lieutenant de Lavalette. His airplane

was hit by a shell projectile in the right wing. On the 17th his machine

returned with eight wounds, two in the right wing, four in the body, and

in addition one strut and one longitudinal spar hit. On the 18th he

returned from a reconnaissance with Lieutenant Colcomb during which his

machine had been hit in the right wing, the rudder, and the body. But

his notebook only contains statements of facts, and we have to turn to

his correspondence for more details.

"Decidedly," he wrote on June 17 to his sister Odette, "the Boches have

quite a special affection for me, and the parts of my '_coucou_' serve

me for a calendar. Yesterday we flew over Chauny, Tergnier, Laon, Coucy,

Soissons. Up to Chauny my observer had counted 243 shells; Coucy shot

500 to 600; my observer estimated 1000 shots in all. All we heard was a

rolling sound, and then the shells burst everywhere, below us, above, in

front, behind, on the right and on the left, for we descended to take

some photographs of a place which they did not want us to see. We could

hear the shell-fragments whistling past; there was one that, after

piercing the wing, passed within the radius of the propeller without

touching it, and then to within fifty centimeters of my face; another

entered by the same hole but stayed there, and I will send it to you.

Fragments also struck the rudder, and one the body." (His journal

mentions more.) "My observer, who has been an observer from the

beginning, says that he never saw a cannonade like that one, and that he

was glad to get back again. At one moment a bomb-head of 105

millimeters, which we knew by its shape and the color of its explosion,

fell on us and just grazed us. In fact, we often see enormous shells

exploding. It is very curious. On our return we met Captain Gerard, and

my observer told him that I had astounding nerve; _zim, boum boum!_ He

said he knew it.... I will send you a photograph of my '_coucou_' with

its nine bruises: it is superb."

The next day, June 18, it was his mother who received his confidences.

The enemy had bombarded Villers-Cotterets with a long-distance gun which

had to be discovered. On this occasion he took Lieutenant Colcomb as

observer: "At Coucy, terribly accurate cannonade: _toc, toc_, two

projectiles in the right wing, one within a meter of me; we went on with

our observations in the same place. Suddenly a formidable crash: a shell

burst 8 to 10 meters under the machine. Result: three holes, one strut

and one spar spoiled. We went on for five minutes longer observing the

same spot, always encircled, naturally. Returning, the shooting was less

accurate. On landing, my observer congratulated me for not having moved

or zig-zagged, which would have bothered his observation. We had, in

fact, only made very slight and very slow changes of altitude, speed,

and direction. Compliments from him mean something, for nobody has

better nerve. In the evening Captain Gerard, in command of army

aviation, called me and said: 'You are a nervy pilot, all right; you

won't spoil our reputation by lack of pluck--quite the contrary. For a

beginner!--' and he asked me how long I had been a corporal. _Y a bon._

My '_coucou_' is superb, with its parts all dated in red. You can see

them all, for those underneath spread up over the sides. In the air I

showed each hole in the wing, as it was hit, to the passenger, and he

was enchanted, too. It's a thrilling sport. It is a bore, though, when

they burst over our heads, because I cannot see them, though I can hear.

The observer has to give me information in that case. Just now, _le roi

n'est pas mon cousin_...."

Lieutenant, now Captain, Colcomb, has completed this account. During the

entire period of his observation, the pilot, in fact, did not make any

maneuver or in any way shake the machine in order to dodge the firing.

He simply sent the airplane a bit higher and calmly lowered it again

over the spot to be photographed, as if he were master of the air. The

following dialogue occurred:

_The Observer_: "I have finished; we can go back."

_The Pilot_: "Lieutenant, do me the favor of photographing for me the

projectiles falling around us."

Children have always had a passion for pictures; and the pictures were

taken.

The chasers and bombardiers in the history of aviation have attracted

public attention to the detriment of their comrades, the observers,

whose admirable services will become better known in time. It is by them

that the battle field is exposed, and the preparations and ruses of the

enemy balked: they are the eyes of the commanders, and also the friends

of the troops. On April 29, 1916, Lieutenant Robbe flew over the

trenches of the Mort-Homme at 200 meters, and brought back a detailed

exposition of the entanglement of the lines. A year later, in nearly the

same place, Lieutenant Pierre Guilland, observer on board a biplane of

the Moroccan division, was forced down by three enemy airplanes just at

the moment when his division, whose progress he was following in order

to report it, started its attack on the Corbeaux Woods east of the

Mort-Homme, on August 20, 1917. He fell on the first advancing lines and

was picked up, unconscious and mortally wounded, by an artillery officer

who proceeded to carry out the aviator's mission. When the latter

reopened his eyes--for only a short while--he asked: "Where am

I?"--"North of Chattancourt, west of Cumières."--"Has the attack

succeeded?"--"Every object has been attained."--"Ah! that's good, that's

good." ... He made them repeat the news to him. He was dying, but his

division was victorious.

Near Frise, Lieutenant Sains, who had been obliged to land on July 1,

1916, was rescued by the French army on July 4, after having hidden

himself for three days in a shell-hole to avoid surrendering, his pilot,

Quartermaster de Kyspotter, having been killed.

During the battle of the Aisne in April, 1917, Lieutenant Godillot,

whose pilot had also been killed, slid along the plane, sat on the knees

of the dead pilot, and brought the machine back into the French lines.

And Captain Méry, Lieutenant Viguier, Lieutenant de Saint-Séverin, and

Fressagues, Floret, de Niort, and Major Challe, Lieutenant Boudereau,

Captain Roeckel, and Adjutant Fonck--who was to become famous as a

chaser--how many of these élite observers furthered the destruction

wrought by the artillery, and aided the progress of the infantry!

On October 24, 1916, as the fog cleared away, I saw the airplane of the

Guyot de Salins division fly over Fort Douaumont just at the moment when

Major Nicolai's marines entered there.[17] The airplane had descended so

low into the mist that it seemed as if magnetically drawn down by the

earth, and the observer, leaning over the edge, was clapping his hands

to applaud the triumph of his comrades. The latter saw his gesture, even

though they could not hear the applause, and cheered him--a spontaneous

exchange of soldierly confidence and affection between the sky and the

earth.

[Footnote 17: See _Les Captifs délivrés_.]

Almost exactly one year later, on October 23, 1917, I saw the airplane

of the same division hovering over the Fort of the Malmaison just as the

Giraud battalion of the 4th Zouaves Regiment took possession of it. At

dawn it came to observe and note the site of the commanding officer's

post, and to read the optical signals announcing our success. At each

visit it seemed like the moving star of old, now guiding the new

shepherds, the guardians of our dear human flocks--not over the stable

where a God was born, but over the ruins where victory was born.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE FIRST FLIGHT IN A BLÉRIOT]

Later on Captain Colcomb spoke of Guynemer as "the most sublime military

figure I have ever been permitted to behold, one of the finest and

most generous souls I have ever known." Guynemer was not satisfied to be

merely calm and systematically immovable, and to display sang-froid,

though to an extraordinary degree. He amused himself by counting the

holes in his wings, and pointing them out to the observer. He was

furious when the explosions occurred outside his range of vision,

because he was not resigned to missing anything. He seemed to juggle

with the shrapnel. And after landing, he rushed off to his escadrille

chief, Captain Brocard, took him by the arm, and never left him until he

had drawn him almost by force to his machine, compelling him to put his

fingers into the wounds, exulting meanwhile and fairly bounding with

joy. Captain, now Major Brocard, felt quite sure of him from that time,

and referred to him later in these words: "Very young: his extraordinary

self-confidence and natural qualities will very soon make him an

excellent pilot...."

His curiosity, indeed, was satisfied; and to whom would he confide all

the risks that he ran? His mother and his sisters, the hearts which were

the most troubled about him, and whose peace and happiness he had

carried off into the air. He never dreamed of the torment he caused

them, and which they knew how to conceal from him. Even the idea of such

a thing never occurred to him. As they loved him, they loved him just as

he was, in the raw. He was too young to dissimulate, too young to spare

them. He knew nothing either of lies or of pity. He never thought that

any one could suffer anguish about a son or a brother when this son and

brother was himself supremely happy in his vocation. He was naïvely

cruel.

But the rounds and reconnaissances were not to hold him long; and he

already scented other adventures. He had scented the odor of the beast,

and he had his airplane furnished with a support for a machine-gun. That

particular airplane, it is true, came to an untimely end in a ditch, but

was already condemned by its body-frame, which was rotten with bullet

holes. That was the only "wood" Guynemer "broke" during his early

flights.

But his next airplane was also armed, and in the young pilot could

already be plainly seen that taste for enemy-chasing which was to

bewitch and take possession of him. Though after this time he certainly

carried over the lines Lieutenant de Lavalette, Lieutenant Colcomb and

Captain Siméon, and always with equal calm, yet he aspired to other

flights, further away from earth. Lieutenant de Beauchamp--the future

Captain de Beauchamp, who was to die so soon after his audacious raids

on Essen and Munich--divined what was hidden in this thin boy who was in

such breathless haste to get on. He would not allow Corporal Guynemer to

address him as lieutenant, feeling so surely his equality, and to-morrow

perhaps his mastery. On July 6, 1915, he sent him a little guide for

aviators in a few lines: "Be cautious. Look well at what is happening

around you before acting. Invoke Saint Benoît every morning. But above

all, write in letters of fire in your memory: _In aviation, everything

not useful should be avoided._" Oh, of course! The "little girl" laughed

at the advice as he laughed at the tempest. He had an admiration for

Beauchamp, but when did a Roland ever listen to an Oliver? One day he

went up in a wind of over 25 meters, and even by nosing-up a bit he

could hardly make any progress. With the wind behind him he made over

200 kilometers. Then he landed. Védrines addressed a few warning remarks

to him, and he was thought to be calmed. But off he went again before

the frightened spectators. He would always do too much, and nothing

could restrain him.

The importance of the development of aviation in the war had been

foreseen neither by the Germans nor ourselves. If before the beginning

of the campaign the military chiefs had understood all the services

which would be rendered by aërial strategic scouting, the regulation of

artillery fire would not have still been in an experimental stage. No

one knew the help which was to be derived from aërial photography. The

air duel was regarded simply as a possible incident that might occur

during a patrol or a reconnaissance, and in view of which the observer

or mechanician armed himself with a gun or an automatic pistol.

Airplanes armed with machine-guns were very exceptional, and at the end

of 1914 there were only thirty. The Germans used them generally before

we did; but it was the French aviators, nevertheless, who forced the

Germans to fight in the air. I had the opportunity in October, 1914, to

see, from a hill on the Aisne, one of these first airplane combats,

which ended by the enemy falling on the outskirts of the village of

Muizon on the left bank of the Vesle. The French champion bore the fine

name of Franc, and piloted a Voisin. At that date it was not unusual to

pick up messages dropped within our lines by enemy pilots, substantially

to this effect: "Useless for us to fight each other; there are enough

risks without that...."

Meanwhile, strategic reconnaissance was perfected as the line of the

front became firmly established, and more and more importance was

accorded to the search for objectives. Remarkable results were attained

by air photography from December, 1914; and after January, 1915, the

regulation of artillery fire by wireless telegraphy was in general

practice. It was necessary to protect the airplanes attached to army

corps, and to clean up the air for their free circulation. This rôle

devolved upon the most rapid airplanes, which were then the

Morane-Saunier-Parasols, and in the spring of 1915 these formed the

first _escadrilles de chasse_, one for each army. Garros, already

popular before the war for having been the first air-pilot to cross the

Mediterranean, from Saint-Raphael to Bizerto, forced down a large

Aviatik above Dixmude in April, 1915. A few days later a motor breakdown

compelled him to land at Ingelminster, north of Courtrai, and he was

made prisoner.[18] The aviators, like the knights of ancient times,

sent one another challenges. Sergeant David--who was killed shortly

after--having been obliged to refuse to fight an enemy airplane because

his machine-gun jammed, dropped a challenge to the latter on the German

aërodrome, and waited at the place, on the day and hour fixed, at

Vauquois (noon, in June, 1915, above the German lines), but his

adversary never came to the rendezvous.

[Footnote 18: The romantic circumstances under which he escaped in

February, 1918, are well known.]

The Maurice Farman and Caudron airplanes were used for observation. The

Voisin machines, strong but slower, were more especially utilized for

bombardments, which began to be carried out by organized expeditions.

The famous raids on the Ludwigshafen factories and the Karlsruhe railway

station occurred in June, 1915. It was at the battle of Artois (May and

June, 1915) that aviation for the first time constituted a branch of the

army; and the work was chiefly done by the escadrilles belonging to the

army corps, which rendered very considerable services as scouts and in

aërial photography and destructive fire. But as an enemy chaser, the

airplane was still regarded with much distrust and incredulity. Some

said it was useless; was it not sufficient that the airplanes of the

army corps and those for bombardments could defend themselves? Others of

less extreme opinions thought it should be limited to the part of

protector. This opposition was overcome by the sudden development of the

German enemy-chasing airplanes after July, 1915, subsequent to our raids

on Ludwigshafen and Karlsruhe, which aroused furious anger in Germany.

In the beginning the belligerent nations had collected the most

heterogeneous group of all the airplane models then available. But the

methodical Germans, without delay, supplied their constructors with

definite types of machines in order to make their escadrilles

harmonious. At that time they used monoplanes for reconnaissances,

without any special arrangement for carrying arms, and incapable of

carrying heavy weights; and biplanes for observation, unarmed, and

possessing only a makeshift contrivance for launching bombs. The

machines of both these series were two-seated, with the passenger in

front. These were Albatros, Aviatiks, Eulers, Rumplers, and Gothas.

Early in 1915 appeared the Fokkers, which were one-seated, and new

two-seated machines, Aviatiks or Albatros, which were more rapid, with

the passenger at the rear, and furnished with a revolving turret for the

machine-gun. The German troops engaged in aërostation, aviation,

automobile and railway service were grouped as communication troops

(_Verkehrstruppen_), under the direction of the General Inspection of

Military Communications. It was not until the autumn of 1916 that the

aërostation, aviation, and aërial defense troops were made independent

and, under the title of _Luftstreitkräfte_ (aërial combatant forces),

took their position in the order of battle between the pioneers and the

communication troops. But early in the summer of 1915 the progress

realized in aviation resulted in its forming a separate branch of the

army, with campaign and enemy-chasing escadrilles.

Guynemer was now on the straight road toward aërial combat. Most of our

pilots were still chasing enemy airplanes with one passenger armed with

a simple musketoon. More circumspect than the others, Guynemer had his

airplane armed with a machine-gun. Meanwhile the staff was preparing to

reorganize the army escadrilles. The bold Pégoud had several times

fought with too enterprising Fokkers or Aviatiks; Captain Brocard had

forced down one of them in flames over Soissons; and the latest recruit

of the escadrille, this youngster of a Guynemer, was burning to have his

own Boche.

The first entries in his notebook of flights for July, 1915, record

expeditions without result, in company with Adjutant Hatin, Lieutenant

de Ruppiere, in the region of Noyon, Roye, Ham, and Coucy-le-Château. On

the 10th, the _chasseurs_ put to flight three Albatros, while a more

rapid Fokker attempted an attack, but turned back having tried a shot at

their machine-gun. On the 16th Guynemer and Hatin dropped bombs on the

Chauny railway station; during the bombardment an Aviatik attacked them,

they stood his fire, replying as well as they could with their

musketoon, and returned to camp uninjured. Adjutant Hatin was decorated

with the Military Medal. As Hatin was a _gourmet_, Guynemer went that

same evening to Le Bourget to fetch two bottles of Rhine wine to

celebrate this family fête. At Le Bourget he tried the new Nieuport

machine, which was the hope of the fighting airplanes. Finally, on July

19--memorable date--his journal records Guynemer's first victory:

"Started with Guerder after a Boche reported at Couvres and caught up

with him over Pierrefonds. Shot one belt, machine-gun jammed, then

unjammed. The Boche fled and landed in the direction of Laon. At Coucy

we turned back and saw an Aviatik going toward Soissons at about 3200

meters up. We followed him, and as soon as he was within our lines we

dived and placed ourselves about 50 meters under and behind him at the

left. At our first salvo, the Aviatik lurched, and we saw a part of the

machine crack. He replied with a rifle shot, one ball hitting a wing,

another grazing Guerder's hand and head. At our last shot the pilot sank

down on the body-frame, the observer raised his arms, and the Aviatik

fell straight downward in flames, between the trenches...."

This flight began at 3700 meters in the air, and lasted ten minutes, the

two combatants being separated by a distance of 50 and sometimes 20

meters. The statement of fact is characteristic of Guynemer. An

unforgettable sight had been imprinted on his eyes: the pilot sinking

down in his cock-pit, the arms of the observer beating the air, the

burning airplane sinking. Such were to be his future landscape sketches,

done in the sky. The wings of the bird of prey were unfurled definitely

in space.

The two fighting airmen had left Vauciennes at two o'clock in the

afternoon, and at quarter-past three they landed, conquerors, at

Carrière l'Evêque. From their opposing camps the infantry had followed

the fight with their eyes. The Germans, made furious by defeat,

cannonaded the landing-place. Georges, who was too thin for his clothes,

and whose leather pantaloons lined with sheepskin, which he wore over

his breeches, slipped and impeded his walking, sat down under the

exploding shells and calmly took them off. Then he placed the machine in

a position of greater safety, but broke the propeller on a pile of hay.

During this time a crowd had come running and now surrounded the

victors. Artillery officers escorted them off, sentinels saluted them, a

colonel offered them champagne. Guerder was taken first into the

commanding officer's post, and on being questioned about the maneuver

that won the victory excused himself with modesty:

"That was the pilot's affair."

Guynemer, who had stolen in, was willing to talk.

"Who is this?" asked the colonel.

"That's the pilot."

"You? How old are you?"

"Twenty."

"And the gunner?"

"Twenty-two."

"The deuce! There are nothing but children left to do the fighting."

So, passed along in this manner from staff to staff, they finally landed

at Compiègne, conducted by Captain Siméon. No happiness was complete for

Guynemer if his home was not associated with it.

"He will get the Military Medal," declared Captain Siméon, "because he

wanted his Boche and went after him."

Words of a true chief who knew his men. Always to go after what he

wanted was the basic characteristic of Guynemer. And now various details

concerning the combat came one by one to light. Guerder had been half

out of the machine to have the machine-gun ready to hand. When the gun

jammed, Georges yelled to his comrade how to release it. Guerder, who

had picked up his rifle, laid it down, executed the maneuver indicated

by Guynemer, and resumed his machine-gun fire. This episode lasted two

minutes during which Georges maintained the airplane under the Aviatik,

unwilling to change his position, as he saw that a recoil would expose

them to the Boche's gun.

Meanwhile Védrines came in search of the victor, and piloted the machine

back to head-quarters, with Guynemer on board seated on the body and

quivering with joy.

With this very first victory Guynemer sealed his friendship with the

infantry, whom his youthful audacity had comforted in their trenches. He

received the following letter, dated July 20, 1915:

Lieutenant-colonel Maillard, commanding the 238th Infantry, to

Corporal Pilot Guynemer and Mechanician Guerder of Escadrille M.S.

3, at Vauciennes.

The Lieutenant-colonel,

The Officers,

The whole Regiment,

Having witnessed the aërial attack you made upon a German Aviatik

over their trenches, spontaneously applauded your victory which

terminated in the vertical fall of your adversary. They offer you

their warmest congratulations, and share the joy you must have felt

in achieving so brilliant a success. Maillard.

On July 21 the Military Medal was given to the two victors, Guynemer's

being accompanied by the following mention: "Corporal Guynemer: a pilot

full of spirit and audacity, volunteering for the most dangerous

missions. After a hot pursuit, gave battle to a German airplane, which

ended in the burning and destruction of the latter." The decoration was

bestowed on August 4 at Vauciennes by General Dubois, then in command of

the Sixth Army, and in presence of his father, who had been sent for.

Then Guynemer paid for his newly won glory by a few days of fever.

II. FROM THE AISNE TO VERDUN

Guynemer's first victory occurred on July 19, 1915, and for his second

he had to wait nearly six months. This was not because he had not been

on the watch. He would have been glad to mount a Nieuport, but, after

all, he had had his Boche, and at that time the exploit was exceptional:

he had to be patient, and give his comrades a chance to do the same.

When finally he obtained the longed-for Nieuport, he flew sixteen hours

in five days, and naturally went to parade himself over Compiègne.

Without this dedication to his home, the machine would never be

consecrated.

When the overwork incident to such a life forced him to take a little

repose, he wandered back to his home like a soul in pain. It was in vain

that his parents and his two sisters--whom he called his "kids" as if he

were their elder--exhausted their ingenuity to amuse him. This home he

loved so much, which he left so recently, and returned to so happily,

bringing with him his young fame, no longer sufficed him. Though he was

so comfortable there, yet on clear days the house stifled him. On such

days he seemed like a school child caught in some fault: a little more

and he would have condemned himself. Then his sister Yvonne, who had

understood the situation, made a bargain with him.

"What is it you miss here at home?"

"Something you cannot give me. Or rather, yes, you can give it to me.

Promise me you will."

"Surely, if it will make you happy."

"I shall be the happiest of men."

"Then it's granted in advance."

"Very well, this is it: every morning you must examine the weather. If

it is bad, you will let me sleep."

"And if it is fine?"

"If it is fine, you will wake me up."

His sister was afraid to ask more, as she guessed how he would use a

fine day. As she was silent, he pretended to pout with that cajoling

manner he could assume, and which fascinated everybody.

"You won't do it? I could not stay home: _c'est plus fort que moi_."

"But, I promise."

And to keep him at home until he should be cured, more or less, the

young girl opened her window every morning and inspected the sky,

secretly hoping to find it thickly covered with clouds.

"Clouds, waiting over there, motionless, on the edge of the horizon,

what are you waiting for? Will you stand idle and let me awaken my

brother, who is resting?"

The clouds being indifferent, the sleeper had to be awakened. He dressed

hastily, with a smile at the transparent sky, and soon reached

Vauciennes by automobile, where he called for his machine, mounted,

ascended, flew, hunted the enemy, and returned to Compiègne for

luncheon.

"And you can leave us like that?" remonstrated his mother. "Why, this is

your holiday."

"Yes, the effort to leave is all the greater."

"Well?--"

"I like the effort, _Maman_."

His Antigone forced herself to keep her bargain with him. The sun never

shone above the forest in vain, but nevertheless she detested the sun.

What a strange Romeo this boy would have made! Without the least doubt

he would have charged Juliet to wake him to go to battle, and would

never have forgiven her for confounding the lark and the nightingale.

On his return to the aviation camp, in the absence of his own

longed-for victories, he took pleasure in describing those of others. He

knew nothing of rivalry or envy. He wrote his sister Odette the

following description of a combat waged by Captain Brocard, who

surprised a Boche from the rear, approached him to within fifteen meters

without being seen, and, just at the moment when the enemy pilot turned

round his head, sent him seven cartridges from his machine-gun: "Result:

one ball in the ear, and another through the middle of his chest. You

can imagine whether the fall of the machine was instantaneous or not.

There was nothing left of the pilot but one chin, one ear, one mouth, a

torso and material enough to reconstitute two arms. As to the "_coucou_"

(burned), nothing was left but the motor and a few bits of iron. The

passenger was emptied out during the fall...." It cannot be said that he

had much consideration for the nerves of young girls. He treated them as

if they were warriors who could understand everything relating to

battles. He wrote with the same freedom that Shakespeare's characters

use in speech.

Until the middle of September he piloted two-seated airplanes, carrying

one passenger, either as observer or combatant. At last he went up in

his one-seated Nieuport, reveling in the intoxication of being alone,

that intoxication well known to lovers of the mountains and the air. Is

it the sensation of liberty, the freedom from all the usual material

bonds, the feeling of coming into possession of these deserts of space

or ice where the traveler covers leagues without meeting anybody, the

forgetfulness of all that interferes with one's own personal object?

Such solitaries do not easily accommodate themselves to company which

seems to them to encroach upon their domain, and steal a part of their

enjoyment. Guynemer never enjoyed anything so much as these lonely

rounds in which he took possession of the whole sky, and woe to the

enemy who ventured into this immensity, which was now his park.

On September 29, and October 1, 1915, he was sent on special missions.

These special missions were generally confided to Védrines, who had

accomplished seven. The time is not yet ripe for a revelation of their

details, but they were particularly dangerous, for it was necessary to

land in occupied territory and return. Guynemer's first mission required

three hours' flying. He ascended in a storm, just as the countermand

arrived owing to the unfavorable weather. When he descended, volplaning,

at daybreak, with slackened, noiseless motor, and landed on our invaded

territory, his heart beat fast. Some peasants going to their work in the

fields saw him as he ascended again, and recognizing the tricolor,

showed much surprise, and then extended their hands to him. This mission

won for Sergeant Guynemer--he had been promoted sergeant shortly

before--his second mention: "Has proved his courage, energy and

sang-froid by accomplishing, as a volunteer, an important and difficult

special mission in stormy weather."--"This palm is worth while," he

wrote in a letter to his parents, "for the mission was hard." On his way

back an English aviator shot at him, but on recognizing him signaled

elaborate excuses.

Some rather exciting reconnaissances with Captain Siméon--one day over

Saint-Quentin they were attacked by a Fokker and, their machine-gun

refusing to work, they were subjected to two hundred shots from the

enemy at 100 meters, then at 50 meters, so that they were obliged to

dive into a cloud, with one tire gone--and a few bombardments of railway

stations and goods depots did not assuage his fever for the chase.

Nothing sufficed him but to explore and rake the heavens. On November 6,

3000 meters above Chaulnes, he waged an epic combat with an L.V.G.

(_Luft-Verkehr-Gesellschaft_), 150 H.P. Having succeeded in placing

himself three meters under his enemy, he almost laughed with the surety

he felt of forcing him down, when his machine-gun jammed. He immediately

banked, but he was so near the enemy that the machines interlocked.

Would he fall? A bit of his canvas was torn off, but the airplane held

its own. As he drew away he saw the enormous enemy machine-gun aimed at

him. A bullet grazed his head. He dived under the Boche, who retreated.

"All the same," Guynemer added gaily, "if I ever get into a terrible

financial fix and have to become a cab-driver, I shall have memories

which are far from ordinary: a tire exploding at 3400 meters, an

interlocking at 3000 meters. That rotten Boche only owed his life to a

spring being slightly out of order, as was shown by the autopsy on the

machine-gun. For my eighth combat, this was decidedly annoying...."

It was annoying, but what could be done? Nothing, in fact, but return to

one's apprenticeship. He was perfectly satisfied with his work as a

pilot, but it was necessary to avoid these too frequent jammings which

saved the enemy. At Stanislas College Guynemer was known as an excellent

shot. He began to practice again with his rifle, and with the

machine-gun; above all, he carefully examined every part of this

delicate weapon, taking it apart and putting it together, and increasing

his practice. He became a gunsmith. And there lies the secret of his

genius: he never gave up anything, nor ever acknowledged himself beaten.

If he failed, he began all over again, but after having sought the cause

of his failure in order to remedy it. When he was asked one day to

choose a device for himself, he adopted this, which completely expresses

his character: _Faire face_. He always faced everything, not only the

enemy, but every object which opposed his progress. His determination

compelled success. In the career of Guynemer nothing was left to chance,

and everything won by effort, pursuit, and implacable will.

On Sunday, December 5, 1915, as he was making his rounds in the

Compiègne region, he saw two airplanes more than 3000 meters above

Chauny. As the higher one flew over Bailly he sprang upon it and

attacked it: at 50 meters, fifteen shots from his machine-gun; at 20

meters, thirty shots. The German fell in a tail spin, north of Bailly

over against the Bois Carré. Guynemer was sure he had forced him down;

but the other airplane was still there. He tacked in order to chase and

attack him, but in vain, for his second adversary had fled. And when he

tried to discover the spot where the first must have fallen, he failed

to find it. This was really too much: was he going to lose his prey?

Suddenly he had an idea. He landed in a field near Compiègne. It was

Sunday, and just noon, and he knew that his parents would be coming home

from mass. He watched for them, and as soon as he perceived his father

rushed to him:

"Father, I have lost my Boche."

"You have lost your Boche?"

"Yes, an airplane that I have forced down. I must return to my

escadrille, but I don't want to lose him."

"What can I do?"

"Why, look for him and find him. He ought to be near Bailly, towards the

Bois Carré."

And he vanished, leaving to his father the task of finding the lost

airplane as a partridge is found in a field of lucerne. The military

authority kindly lent its aid, and in fact the body of the German pilot

was discovered on the edge of the Bois Carré, where it was buried.

This victory was ratified, but a few days later the authorities, failing

to find the necessary material proof, refused to give Guynemer credit

for it. Ah, the regulations refuse the hunter this game? Guynemer,

turning very red, declared: "It doesn't matter, I will get another." He

was always wanting another; and in fact he got one four days later, on

December 8. This is the report in his notebook: "Discovering the

strategic line Royne-Nesle. While descending, saw a German airplane

high, and far within its own lines. As it passed the lines at

Beuvraigne, I cut off its retreat and chased it. I caught up to it in

five minutes, and fired forty-seven shots from my Lewis from a point 20

meters behind and under it. The enemy airplane, an L.V.G. 165 H.P.

probably, dived, caught fire, turned over, and, carried along by the

west wind, fell on its back at Beuvraigne. The passenger fell out at

Bus, the pilot at Tilloloy...."

When the victor landed at Beuvraigne near his victim, the artillerymen

belonging to a nearby battery of 95 mm. guns (47th battery of the 31st

regiment of artillery), and who were already crowding around the enemy's

body, rushed upon and surrounded Guynemer. But the commander, Captain

Allain Launay, mustered his men, ordered a salute to Guynemer, made a

speech to his command, and said: "We shall now fire a volley in honor of

Sergeant Guynemer." The salvo demolished a small house where some Boches

had taken refuge. Through the binoculars they could be seen to scatter

when the first shell struck their shelter.

"They owe that to me, too!" cried the enthusiastic urchin.

Meanwhile Captain Allain Launay had patiently ripped the captain's

stripes from his cap, and when he had finished handed them to Guynemer:

"Promise me to wear them when you are appointed captain."

This victory was not questioned, and there was even some discussion

about making this youngster a Knight of the Legion of Honor. But even

when he had been promoted sergeant there had been some objection, owing

to his youth. "Nevertheless," Guynemer had observed angrily, "I am not

too young to be hit by the enemy's shells." This time another objection

arose: If he receives the "cross" for this victory, what can be given

him for succeeding ones? The proud little Roland rebelled, revolted,

rose up like a cock on its spurs. He did not see that everybody already

foresaw his destiny. He would have his "cross," he would have it, and he

would not wait long for it, either. He would know how to wring it out of

them.

Six days later, December 14, with his comrade, the sober and calm

Bucquet, he attacked two Fokkers, one of which was dashed to pieces in

its fall, while the other damaged his own machine. A letter to his

father described the combat in his own brief and direct manner, without

a superfluous word: "Combat with two Fokkers. The first, trapped, and

his passenger killed, dived upon me without having seen me. Result: 35

bullets at close quarters and '_couic_' [his finish]! The fall was seen

by four other airplanes (3 plus 1 makes 4, and perhaps that will win me

the 'cross'). Then combat with the second Fokker, a one-seated machine

shooting through the propeller, as rapid and easily handled as mine. We

fought at ten meters, both turning vertically to try to get behind.

"My spring was slack: compelled to shoot with one hand above my head, I

was handicapped; I was able to shoot twenty-one times in ten seconds.

Once we almost telescoped, and I jumped over him--his head must have

passed within fifty centimeters of my wheels. That disgusted him; he

went away and let me go. I came back with an intake pipe burst, one

rocker torn away: the splinters had made a number of holes in my

over-coat and two notches in the propeller. There were three more in one

wheel, in the body-frame (injuring a cable), and in the rudder."

All these accounts of the chase, cruel and clear, seem to breathe a

savage joy and the pride of triumph. The sight of a burning airplane, of

an enemy sinking down, intoxicated him. Even the remains of his enemies

were dear to him, like treasures won by his young strength. The

shoulder-straps and decorations worn by his adversary who fell at

Tilloloy were given over to him; and Achilles before the trophies of

Hector was not more arrogant. These combats in the sky, more than nine

thousand feet above the earth, in which the two antagonists are isolated

in a duel to the death, scarcely to be seen from the land, alone in

empty space, in which every second lost, every shot lost, may cause

defeat--and what a defeat! falling, burning, into the abyss beneath--in

which they fight sometimes so near together, with short, unsteady

thrusts, that they see each other like knights in the lists, while the

machines graze and clash together like shields, so that fragments of

them fall down like the feathers of birds of prey fighting beak to

beak--these combats which require the simultaneous handling of the

controlling elements and of the machine-gun, and in which speed is a

weapon, why should they not change these young men, these children, into

demi-gods? Hercules, Achilles, Roland, the Cid--where shall we find

outside of mythology or the epics any prototypes for the wild and

furious Guynemer?

On the day of his coming of age, December 24, 1915--earlier than his

ancestor under the Empire--he received the Cross of the Legion of Honor,

with this mention: "Pilot of great value, model of devotion and courage.

Has fulfilled in the past six months two special missions requiring the

finest spirit of sacrifice, and has waged thirteen aërial combats, two

of which ended in the enemy airplanes falling in flames." This mention

was already behindhand, having been based upon the report dated December

8. To the two victories therein mentioned should be added those of the

5th and the 14th of December. Decorated at the age of twenty-one, the

enlisted mechanician of Pau continued to progress at breakneck speed.

The red ribbon, the yellow ribbon and green War Medal with four palms,

are very becoming to a young man's black coat. Georges Guynemer never

despised these baubles, nor in any way concealed the pleasure they

afforded him. He knew how high one has to climb to pick them. And he

was eager for more and more, not because of vanity, but for what they

signified.

On the 3d and 5th of February, 1916, new combats took place, always in

the region of Roy and Chaulnes. On February 3 he met three enemies

within forty minutes, on the same round: "Attacked at 11.10 an L.V.G.,

which replied with its machine-gun. Fired 47 shots at 100 meters; the

enemy airplane dived swiftly down to its own lines, smoking. Lost to

view at 500 meters from the ground. At 11.40 attacked an L.V.G. (with

Parabellum) from behind, at 20 meters; it tacked and dived spirally,

pursued neck to neck at 1300 meters. It fell three kilometers from its

lines. I rose again and lost sight of it. (This airplane had wings of

the usual yellow color, its body was blue like the N., and its outlines

seemed similar to that of the _monococques_.) At 11.50 attacked an

L.V.G., which immediately dived into the clouds and disappeared. Landed

at Amiens." He cleared the sky of every Boche: one fallen and two put to

flight is not a bad record. He always attacked. With his accurate eyes

he tracked out the enemy in the mystery of space, and placing himself

higher, tried to surprise him. On the 5th, near Frise, he closed the

road to another L.V.G. which was returning to its lines, attacked it

from above in front, tacked over it, reached its rear, and overwhelmed

it like a thunder-clap. The Boche fell in flames between Assevillers and

Herbécourt. One more victory, and this one had the honor of appearing

in the official _communiqué_. Sometimes he got back with his machine and

his clothes riddled with bullet-holes. He carried fire and massacre up

into the sky. And all this was nothing as yet but the exercise of a

knight-errant in his infancy. This became evident later when he had

acquired complete mastery of his work.

February, 1916--the month in which began the longest, the most stubborn

and cruel, and perhaps the most significant battle of the Great War. In

this month began Verdun, and the menacing German advance on the right of

the Meuse (February 21-26), to the wood of Haumont, the wood of the

Caures and Herbebois, then to Samogneux, the wood of the Fosses, the Le

Chaume wood and Ornes, and finally, on February 25, the attack on

Louvemont and Douaumont. The escadrilles, little by little, headed in

the same direction, and Guynemer was about to leave the Sixth Army. He

would dart no more above the paternal mansion, announcing his victories

by his caracoles in the air; nor watch over his own household during his

patrol of the region beyond Compiègne, over Noyon, Chauny, Coucy, and

Tracy-le-Val. The cord which still linked him with his infancy and youth

was now to be strained, and on March 11 the Storks Escadrille received

orders to depart next day, and to fly to the Verdun region.

The development of the German fighting airplanes had constantly

progressed during 1915. Now, early in 1916, they appeared at Verdun,

more homogeneous and better trained, and in possession of a series of

new machines: small, one-seated biplanes (Albatros, Halberstadt, new

Fokker, and Ago), with a fixed motor of 165-175 H.P. (Mercédès, and more

rarely Benz and Argus), and two stationary machine-guns firing through

the propeller. These chasing escadrilles (_Jagdstaffeln_) are

essentially fighting units. Each _Jagdstaffel_ comprises eighteen

airplanes, and sometimes twenty-two, four of which are reserves. These

airplanes do not generally travel alone, at least when they have to

leave their lines, but fly in groups (_Ketten_) of five each, one of

them serving as guide (_Kettenfuhrer_), and conducted by the most

experienced pilot, regardless of rank. German aviation tactics seek more

and more to avoid solitary combat and replace it by squadron fighting,

or to surprise an isolated enemy by a squadron, like an attack of

sparrow-hawks upon an eagle.

Ever since the establishment of our first autonomous group of fighting

airplanes, which figured in the Artois offensives in May, 1915, but

which did not take the offensive (having their cantonments in the

barriers and limiting themselves to keeping off the enemy and cruising

above our lines and often behind them), our fighting airplanes gradually

overcame prejudice. They were not, it is true, so promptly brought to

perfection as our army corps airplanes, which proved so useful in the

Champagne campaign of September, 1915; but it was admitted that the

aërial combat should not be regarded as a result of mere chance, but as

inevitable, and that it constituted, first, a protection, and

afterwards an effective obstruction to an enemy forbidden to make raids

in our aërial domain. The next German offensive--against Verdun--had

been foreseen. In consequence, the staff had organized a safety service

to avoid all surprise by the enemy, to meet attacks, and prepare the way

for the reinforcing troops. But the violence of the Verdun offensive

exceeded all expectations.

Our escadrilles had done their duty as scouts before the attack. After

it began, they were overwhelmed and numerically unable to perform all

the aërial missions required. The fighting enemy escadrilles, with their

new series of machines and their improvements, won for a few days the

complete mastery of the air. Our own airplanes were forced off the

battle-field, and driven from their landing-places by cannon. Meanwhile

the Verdun battle was changing its character. General Pétain, who took

command on February 26, restored the order which had been compromised by

the bending of the front, and established the new front against which

the Germans hurled their forces. It was also necessary for him to

reconquer the mastery of the air. He asked for and obtained a rapid

concentration of all the available escadrilles, and demanded of them

vigorous offensive tactics. To economize and coördinate strength, all

the fighting escadrilles at Verdun were grouped under the sole command

of Major de Rose. They operated by patrols, sometimes following very

distant itineraries, and attacking all the airplanes they met. In a

short time we regained our air supremacy, and our airplanes which were

engaged in regulating artillery fire and in taking aërial photographs

could work in safety. Their protection was assured by raids even into

the German lines.

The Storks Escadrille, then, flew in the direction of Verdun. In the

course of the voyage, Guynemer brought down his eighth airplane, which

fell vertically in flames. This was a good augury. Hardly had he arrived

on March 15 when he began to explore the battle-field with his

conqueror's eyes. The enemy at that time still thought himself master,

and dared to venture within the French lines. Guynemer chased, over

Revigny, a group of five airplanes, drove another out of Argonne, and

while returning met two others, almost face to face. He engaged the

first one, tacking under it and firing from a distance of ten meters.

But the adversary answered his fire, and Guynemer's machine was hit: the

right-hand rear longitudinal spar was cut, the cable injured, the right

forward strut also cut, and the wind-shield shattered. The airman

himself was wounded in the face by fragments of aluminum and iron, one

lodging in the jaw, from which it could never be extracted, one in the

right cheek, one in the left eyelid, miraculously leaving the eye

unhurt, while smaller fragments peppered him generally, causing

hemorrhages which clogged his mask and made it adhere to the flesh. In

addition, he had two bullets in his left arm. Though blinded by blood,

he did not lose his sang-froid, and hastily dived, while the second

airplane continued firing, and a third, furnished with a turret, which

had come to the rescue of its comrades, descended after him and fired

down upon his machine. Nevertheless, he had escaped by his maneuver, and

in spite of his injuries made a good landing at Brocourt. On the 14th he

was evacuated to Paris, to the Japanese ambulance in the Hotel Astoria,

and with despair in his soul was obliged to let his comrades fight their

battle of Verdun without his help.

III. "LA TERRE A VU JADIS ERRER DES PALADINS...."[19]

At Verdun our aërial as well as our land forces underwent sudden and

almost prodigious reverses. Within a few days the Storks Escadrille had

been decimated: its chief, Captain Brocard, had been wounded in the face

by a bullet and compelled to land; Lieutenant Perretti had been killed,

Lieutenant Deullin wounded, Guynemer wounded and nearly all its best

pilots put _hors de combat_. The lost air-mastery was only regained by

the tenacity of Major de Rose, Chief of Aviation of the Second Army, and

by a rapid reconcentration of forces.

[Footnote 19: "Once knightly heroes wandered over earth...."]

Major de Rose ordered enemy-chasing, and electrified and inspired his

escadrilles. The part he played during those terrible Verdun months can

never be sufficiently praised. Guynemer's comrades held the sky under

fire, as their brothers, the infantrymen, held the shifting ground

which protected the ancient citadel. Chaput brought down seven

airplanes, Nungesser six, and a drachen, Navarre four, Lenoir four,

Auger and Pelletier d'Oisy three, Puple, Chainat, and Lesort two. The

observation airplanes rivaled the fighting machines, often defending

themselves, and not infrequently forcing down their assailants in

flames. Twice Sergeant Fedoroff rid himself in this manner of

troublesome adversaries. But other pilots deserve to be mentioned,

pilots such as Stribick and Houtt, Captain Vuillemin, Lieutenant de

Laage, Sergeants de Ridder, Viallet and Buisse, and such observers as

Lieutenant Liebmann, who was killed, and Mutel, Naudeau, Campion,

Moulines, Dumas, Robbe, Travers, _sous-lieutenant_ Boillot, Captain

Verdurand--admirable squadron chief--and Major Roisin, expert in

bombardments. The lists of names are always too short, but these, at

least, should be loudly acclaimed.

Meanwhile the battle of Verdun shattered trees, knocked down walls,

annihilated villages, hollowed out the earth, dug up the plains,

distorted the hills, and renewed once more that chaos of the third day,

according to Genesis, on which the Creator separated the waters from the

earth. Almost the entire French army filed through this extraordinary

epic battle, and Guynemer, wounded and weeping with rage, was not there.

But there was another period in the Great War in which the grouping of

our fighting escadrilles and their employment in offensive movements

gave us triumphant superiority in the aërial struggle, and this was the

battle of the Somme, particularly during its first three months--a

splendid and heroic time when our airmen sprang up in the sky, spreading

panic and fear, like the knights-errant of _La Légende des siècles_.

Victor Hugo's verses seem to describe them and their vertiginous rounds

rather than the too slow horsemen of old:

La terre a vu jadis errer des paladins;

Ils flamboyaient ainsi que des éclairs soudains,

Puis s'évanouissaient, laissant sur les visages

La crainte, et la lueur de leurs brusques passages...

Les noms de quelques-uns jusqu'à nous sont venus....

Ils surgissaient du Sud ou du Septentrion,

Portant sur leur écu l'hydre ou l'alérion,

Couverts des noirs oiseaux du taillis héraldique,

Marchant seuls au sentier que le devoir indique,

Ajoutant au bruit sourd de leur pas solennel

La vague obscurité d'un voyage éternel,

Ayant franchi les flots, les monts, les bois horribles,

Ils venaient de si loin qu'ils en étaient terribles,

Et ces grands chevaliers mêlaient à leurs blasons

Toute l'immensité des sombres horizons....

These new knights-errant who wandered above the desolate plains of the

Somme, no longer on earth but in the sky, mounted on winged steeds, who

started up with a "heavy sound" from south or north, will be immortal

like those of the ancient epics. It will be said that it was Dorme or

Heurtaux, or Nungesser, Deullin, Sauvage, Tarascon, Chainat, or it was

Guynemer, who accomplished such and such an exploit. The Germans,

without knowing their names, recognized them, not by their armor and

their sword-thrust, but by their machines, their maneuvers and methods.

Almost invariably their enemies desperately avoided a fight with them,

retreating far within their own lines, where, even then, they were not

sure of safety. Those who accepted their gage of battle seldom returned.

The enemy aviation camps from Ham to Péronne watched anxiously for the

return of their champions who dared to fight over the French lines. None

of them cared to fly alone, and even in groups they appeared timid. In

patrols of four, five, and six, sometimes more, they flew beyond their

own lines with the utmost caution, fearful at the least alarm, and

anxiously examining the wide and empty sky where these mysterious

knights mounted guard and might at any moment let loose a storm. But in

the course of these prodigious first three months of the battle of the

Somme, our French chasing-patrols not infrequently flew to and fro for

two hours over German aviation camps, forcing down all those who

attempted to rise, and succeeding in spreading terror and consternation

in the enemy's lines.

The Franco-British offensive began on July 1, 1916, on the flat lands

lying along both banks of the Somme River. The general plan of these

operations had been agreed upon in the preceding December. The battle of

Verdun had not prevented its execution which, on the contrary, was

expected to relieve Verdun. The attack was made on a front of 40

kilometers between Gommécourt on the north and Vermandovillers on the

south of the river. From the beginning the French penetrated the enemy's

first lines, the 20th Corps took the village of Curlu and held the

Favière wood, while the 1st Colonial Corps and one division of the 35th

Corps passed the Fay ravine and took possession of Bacquincourt,

Dompierre and Bussus. On the third, this successful advance continued

into the second lines. Within just a few days General Fayolle's army had

taken 10,000 prisoners, 75 cannon, and several hundred machine-guns. But

the Germans, who were concentrated in the Péronne region, with strong

positions like Maurepas, Combles, and Cléry, and, further in the rear,

Bouchavesnes and Sailly-Saillisel on the right bank, and Estrées,

Belloy-en-Santerre, Barleux, Albaincourt and Pressoire on the left bank,

made such desperate resistance that the struggle was prolonged into

mid-winter. The German retreat in March, 1917, to the famous Hindenburg

line was the strategic result of this terrible battle, the tactics of

which were continuously successful and the connection between the

different arms brought to perfection, while the infantry made an

unsurpassed record for suffering and endurance and will power in such

combats as Maurepas (August 12), Cléry (September 3), Bouchavesnes

(September 12)--where, when evening came, the enemy was definitely

broken--and the taking of Berny-en-Santerre, of Deniécourt, of

Vermandovillers (September 13) on the left bank, and on the right bank

the entry into Combles (surrounded on September 26), the advance on

Sailly-Saillisel and the stubborn defense of this ruined village whose

château and central district had already been occupied on October 15,

and in which a few houses resisted until November 12. Then, there was

the fight for the Chaulnes wood, and La Maisonnette and Ablaincourt and

Pressoire; and everywhere it was the same as at Verdun: the woods were

razed to the ground, villages disappeared into the soil, and the earth

was so plowed and crushed and martyred that it was nothing but one

immense wound.

Now, the air forces had had their part in the victory. Obliged, as they

were at Verdun, to resist the numerical superiority of the enemy, they

had thrown off the tyranny of atmospheric conditions and accepted and

fulfilled diverse missions in all kinds of weather. Verdun had hardened

them, as it had "burned the blood" of the infantry who had never known a

worse hell than that one. But as our operations now took the initiative,

the aviation corps was able to prepare its material more effectively, to

organize its aërodromes and concentrate its forces beforehand. Its

advantage was evident from the first day of the Somme offensive, not

only in mechanical power, but in a method which coördinated and

increased its efforts under a single command. Though this arm of the

service was in continuous evolution, more subject than any other to the

modifications of the war, and the most susceptible of all to progress

and improvement, it had nevertheless finished its trial stages and

acquired full development as connecting agent for all the other arms,

whom it supplied with information. Serving at first for strategic

reconnaissance, and then almost exclusively for regulating artillery

fire, the aërial forces now performed complex and efficient service for

every branch of the army. By means of aërial photography they furnished

exact knowledge of the ground and of the enemy's defenses, thus

preceding the execution of military operations. They regulated artillery

fire, followed the program laid down for the destruction of the enemy,

and supplied such information as was necessary to set the time for the

attack. They then accompanied the infantry in the attack, observed its

progress, located the conquered positions, revealed the situation of the

enemy's new lines, betrayed his defensive works, and announced his

reinforcements and his counter-attacks. They were the conducting wire

between the command, the artillery, and the troops, and everybody felt

them to be sure and faithful allies, for they were able to see and know,

to speak and warn. But the air forces, during all their useful missions,

were themselves in need of protection, and there must be no enemy

airplanes about if they were to make their observations in security. But

how to rid them of these enemies, and render the latter incapable of

harm? Here the air cavalry, the airplanes built for distant scouting and

combats, intervened. The safety of observation machines could only be

insured by long-distance protection, that is to say, by aërial patrols

taking the offensive, not by a solitary guard, too often disappointing,

and ineffective against a resolute adversary. Their safety near to the

army could be guaranteed only by carrying the aërial struggle over into

the enemy's lines and preventing all raids upon our own. The groups

belonging to our fighting escadrilles on both banks of the Somme

achieved this result.

The one-seated Nieuport, rapid, easily managed, with high ascensional

speed, and capable, by its solid construction and air-piercing power, of

diving from a height upon an enemy and falling upon him like a bird of

prey, was then the chasing airplane _par excellence_, and remained so

until the appearance of the terrible Spad, which made its _début_ in the

course of the Somme campaign, Guynemer and Corporal Sauvage piloting the

first two of these machines in early September, 1916. They were armed

with machine-guns, firing forward, and invariably connected with the

direction of the machine's motion. The Spad is an extraordinary

instrument of attack, but its defense lies only in its capacity for

rapid displacement and the swiftness of its evolutions. Its rear is

badly exposed: its field of visibility is very limited at the sides, and

objects can be seen only above and below,--below, minus the dead angle

of the motor and the cock-pit. The pilot can easily lose sight of the

airplanes in his own group or that of the enemy, so that if he is alone,

he is in danger of being surprised. On the other hand, one condition of

his own victory is to surprise the enemy, especially if he attacks a

two-seated machine whose range of fire is much broader, or if he does

not hesitate to choose his victim from among a group. The Spad pilot

makes use of the sun, of fog, of clouds. He flies high in order to hold

the advantage of being able to pounce down upon his enemy while the

enemy approaches prudently, timidly, suspecting no danger.

The battle of the Somme was the most favorable for solitary airplanes,

or airplanes coupled like hunting-dogs. Since then methods have changed,

and the future belongs to fighting escadrilles or groups of machines.

But at that time the one-seated airplane was king of the air. One of

them was enough to intimidate enemy airplanes engaged in regulating

artillery fire and in short-distance scouting, making them hesitate to

leave their lines, and to frighten barrier patrols of two or even four

two-seated airplanes, in spite of their shooting superiority, into

turning back and disbanding. The one-seated enemy machines never

ventured out except in groups, and even with the advantage of two

against one refused to fight. So the one-seated French machine was

obliged to fly alone, for if it was accompanied by patrols, the enemy

fled and there was no one to attack; whereas, when free to maneuver at

will, the solitary pilot could plan ruses, hide himself in the light or

in the clouds, take advantage of the enemy's blind sides, and carry out

sudden destructive attacks which are impossible for groups. Our airmen

never speak of the Somme without a smile of satisfaction: they have

retained heroic memories of that campaign. Afterwards, the Germans

drilled their one-seated or two-seated patrols, trained them in

resistance to isolated attacks, and taught them in turn how to attack

the solitary machine which had ventured out beyond its own lines. We

were obliged to alter our tactics and adopt group formation. But the

strongest types of our enemy-chasing pilots were revealed or developed

during the battle of the Somme.

Moreover, our aviators at that time were incomparable; and in citing the

most illustrious among them one risks injustice to their companions

whose opportunities were less fortunate and whose exploits were less

brilliant but not less useful. The cavalry, artillery, and infantry were

drawn upon for recruits for the aviation branch of the army, and it

appeared a difficult undertaking to fuse such different elements; but as

all shared the same life and the same dangers, had similar tastes, and a

passion for attaining the same result, and as their officers were

necessarily recruited from among themselves, and chosen for services

rendered, an atmosphere of _camaraderie_ and friendly rivalry was

created. A great novelist said that the origin of our friendships dates

"from those hours at the beginning of life when we dream of the future

in company with some comrade with the same ideals as our own, a chosen

brother."[20] What difference does it make, then, if they depart in

company for glory or for death? These young men gave themselves with the

same willingness to the same service, a service full of constant

danger. They were not gathered together by chance, but by their vocation

and by selection, and they spoke the same language. For them, friendship

easily became rivalry in courage and energy, and a school of mutual

esteem, in which each strove to outdo the other. Friendship kept them

alert, drove away inertia and weakness, and they became confident and

generous, so that each rejoiced in the success of the others. In the

mountains, on the sea, in every place where men feel most acutely their

own fragility, such friendship is not rare; but war brings it to

perfection.

[Footnote 20: Paul Bourget, _Une Idylle tragique_.]

The patrols of the Storks Escadrille, in the beginning of the Somme

campaign, consisted of a single airplane, or airplanes in couples.

Guynemer, whom everybody called "the kid," always took Heurtaux with him

when he carried a passenger; for Heurtaux, as blond as Guynemer was

brown, thin and slender, very delicate and young, seemed to give

Guynemer the rights of an elder. Heurtaux was the Oliver of this Roland.

In character and energy they were the same. Dorme used to take Deullin

with him, or de la Tour. Or the choice was made alternately. This was

the quartet of whom the enemy had cause to beware, and woe to the Boche

who met any one of them! There was at that time at Bapaume a group of

five one-seated German machines which never maneuvered singly. If they

perceived a pair of Nieuports, they immediately tacked about and fled in

haste. But if one of our chasers was cruising alone, the whole group

attacked him. Heurtaux, attacked in this way, had been compelled to dive

and land, and on his return had to submit to the jests of Guynemer, for

at that age friendship is roughish. "Go there yourself," advised

Heurtaux, "and you will see." Next day Guynemer went alone, but in his

turn was forced down. After these two trials, which might have ended in

disaster--but knights must amuse themselves--the five one-seated planes

at Bapaume were methodically but promptly beaten down.

Friendship demands equality between souls. If one has to protect the

other, if one is manifestly superior, it is no longer friendship. In the

Storks Escadrille friendship reigned in peace in the midst of war, so

surely did each take his turn in surpassing the others. Which one was,

finally, to be the greatest, not because of the number of his mentions,

nor his renown or public fame, but according to the testimony of his

comrades--the surest and most clearsighted of testimony--for no one can

deceive his peers? Would it be the cold and calm Dorme, who went to

battle as a fisher goes to his nets, who never spoke of his exploits,

and whose heart, under this modest, gentle, kind exterior, was filled

with hatred for the invader who occupied his own countryside, Briey, and

for six months had held in custody and ill-treated his parents? In the

Somme battle alone his official victories numbered seventeen, but the

enemy could recount many others, doubtless, for this silent,

well-balanced young man possessed quite improbable audacity. He would

fly more than fifteen or twenty kilometers above the German lines,

perfectly tranquil under the showers of shells which rose from the

earth. At such a distance within their lines the Boche airplanes thought

themselves safe when, suddenly, _du Sud ou du Septentrion_, appeared

this knightly hero. And he would return smilingly, as fresh as when he

had started out. It was only with difficulty that a very brief statement

could then be extracted from him. His machine would be inspected, and

not a trace of any fragment found; he might have been a tourist

returning from a promenade. In more than a hundred combats his airplane

received only three very small wounds. His cleverness in handling his

machine was incredible: his close veering, his twistings and turnings,

made it impossible for the adversary to shoot. He also knew how to quit

the combat in time, if his own maneuvers had not succeeded. He seemed

invulnerable. But later, much later, while he was fighting on the Aisne

in May, 1917, Dorme, who had penetrated far within the enemy's lines,

never came back.

[Illustration: IN THE AIR]

Was Heurtaux the greatest, whose method was as delicate as himself--a

virtuoso of the air, clever, supple and quickwitted, whose hand and eye

equaled his thought in rapidity? Was it Deullin, skilled in approach,

and prompt as the tempest? Or the long-enduring, robust, admirable

_sous-lieutenant_ Nungessor, or Sergeant Sauvage, or Adjutant Tarascon?

Was it Captain Ménard, or Sangloer, or de la Tour? But the reader knows

very well that it was Guynemer. Why was it Guynemer, according to the

testimony of all his rivals? History and the epic have coupled many

names of friends, like Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades,

Nisus and Euryalus, Roland and Oliver. In these friendships, one is

always surpassed by the other, but not in intelligence, nor courage nor

nobility of character. For generosity, or wisdom of council, one might

even prefer a Patroclus to an Achilles, an Oliver to a Roland. In what,

then, lies the superiority? That is the secret of temperament, the

secret of genius, the interior flame which burns the brightest, and

whose appearances cause astonishment and almost terror, as if some

mystery were divulged.

It is certain that Georges Guynemer was a mechanician and a gunsmith. He

knew his machine and his machine-gun, and how to make them do their

utmost. But there were others who knew the same. Dorme and Heurtaux were

perhaps more skillful in maneuvering than he. (It was interesting to

watch Guynemer when he was preparing to mount his Nieuport. First the

bird was brought out of the shed; then he minutely examined and fingered

it. This tall thin young man, with his amber-colored skin, his long oval

face and thin nose, his mouth with its corners falling slightly, a very

slight moustache, and crow-black hair tossed backward, would have

resembled a Moorish chief had he been more impassive. But his features

constantly showed his changing thoughts, and this play of expression

gave grace and freshness to his face. Sometimes it seemed strained and

hardened, and a vertical wrinkle appeared on his forehead above the

nose. His eyes--the unforgettable eyes of Guynemer--round like agates,

black and burning with a brilliance impossible to endure, for which

there is only one expression sufficiently strong, that of Saint-Simon

concerning some personage of the court of Louis XIV: "The glances of his

eyes were like blows"--pierced the sky like arrows, when his practiced

ear had heard the harsh hum of an enemy motor. In advance he condemned

the audacious adversary to death, seeming from a distance to draw him

into the abyss, like a sorcerer.)

After examining his machine he put on his fur-lined _combinaison_ over

his black coat, and his head-covering, the _passe-montagne_, fitting

tightly over his hair, and framing the oval of his face, and over this

his leather helmet. Plutarch spoke of the terrible expression of

Alexander when he went to battle. Guynemer's face, when he rose for a

flight, was appalling.

What did he do in the air? His flight journals and statements tell the

story. On each page, a hundred times in succession, and several times on

a page, his flight notebooks contain the short sentences which seem to

bound from the paper, like a dog showing its teeth: "I attack ... I

attack ... I attack...." At long intervals, as if ashamed, appears the

phrase: "I am attacked." On the Somme more than twenty victories were

credited to him, and to these should be added, as in the case of Dorme,

others taking place at too great distances to receive confirmation. In

the first month of the Somme battle, on September 13, 1916, the Storks

Escadrille, Captain Brocard, was mentioned before the army: "Has shown

unequaled energy and devotion to duty in the operations of Verdun and

the Somme, waging, from March 19 to August 19, 1916, 338 combats,

bringing down 36 airplanes, 3 drachen, and compelling 36 other badly

damaged airplanes to land." Captain Brocard dedicated this mention to

Lieutenant Guynemer, writing under it: "To Lieutenant Guynemer, my

oldest pilot, and most brilliant Stork. Souvenir of gratitude and

warmest friendship." And all the pilots of the escadrille, in turn, came

to sign it. His comrades had often seen what he did in the air.

When Guynemer came back and landed, what a spectacle! Although a victor,

his face was not appeased. It was never to be appeased. He never was

satisfied, never waged enough battles, never burned or destroyed enough

enemies. When he landed he was still under the influence of nervous

effort, and seemed as if electrified by the fluid still passing through

his frame. However, his machine bore traces of the struggle: four

bullets in the wing, the body, and the elevator. And he himself was

grazed by the missiles, his _combinaison_ scratched and the end of his

glove torn. By what miracle had he escaped?--He had passed through

encircling death as a man leaps through a hoop.

His method was one of the wildest temerity and impetuosity, and can be

recommended to nobody. The number and strength of the enemy, so far from

repelling, attracted him. He flew to vertiginous heights, and taking his

place in the sunshine, watched and waited. In an attack he did not make

use of the aërial acrobatic maneuvers with which, however, he was

perfectly familiar. He struck without delay,--what is known in fencing

as the cut direct. Without trying to maintain his machine within his

adversary's dead angles, he fell on him as a stone falls. He shot as

near to the enemy as he could, at the risk of being shot first himself,

and even of interlocking their machines, though in that respect the

sureness of his maneuvering sufficed to disengage him. If he failed to

take the enemy by surprise, he did not quit the combat as prudence

exacted; but returned to the charge, refusing to unhook his clutch from

the enemy airplane, and held him, and wanted him, and got him.

His passion for flying never diminished. On rainy days, when it was

unreasonable and useless to attempt to fly, he wandered around the sheds

where the winged horses took their repose. He could not resist it: he

entered, and mounted his own machine, settling himself in his cock-pit

and handling the controls, holding mysterious conferences with his

faithful steed.

In the air, he had a higher power of resistance than the most robust

men. This frail, sickly Guynemer, twice refused by the army because of

feebleness of constitution, never gave up. In proportion as the

requirements of aviation became more severe, as the higher altitudes

reached made it more exhausting, Guynemer seemed to prolong his flights

to the point where overwork and nervous depression compelled him to go

away and take a little rest--which made him suffer still more. And

suddenly, before he had taken the necessary repose, he threw it off like

ballast, and returning to camp, reappeared in the air, like the falcon

in the legend of Saint Julien the Hospitaller: "The bold bird rose

straight in the air like an arrow, and there could be seen two spots of

unequal size which turned and joined, and then disappeared in the

heights of heaven. The falcon soon descended, tearing some bird to

pieces, and returned to his perch on the gauntlet, with his wings

quivering."[21] Thus the victorious Guynemer came back, quivering, to

the aviation field. Truly, a god possessed him.

[Footnote 21: Flaubert.]

Apart from all that, he was just a boy, simple, gay, tender, and

charming.

IV. ON THE SOMME (JUNE, 1916, TO FEBRUARY, 1917)

Georges Guynemer, then, was wounded on March 15, 1916, at Verdun. On

April 26, he arrived again at the front, with his arm half-cured and the

wounds scarcely healed. He had escaped from the doctors and nurses.

Between times, he had been promoted _sous-lieutenant_. But he had to be

sent back, to his bandages and massage.

He returned to Compiègne. The bargain he had made with his sister Yvonne

was continued, and when the weather was clear he went to Vauciennes,

where his machine awaited him. The first time he met an airplane after

his fall and his wound, he experienced a quite natural but very painful

sensation. Would he hesitate? Was he no longer the stubborn Guynemer?

The Boche shot, but he did not reply. The Boche used up all his

machine-gun belt, and the combat was broken off. Was it to be believed?

What had happened?

Guynemer returned to his home. In the spring dawn comes very soon, and

he had left so early that it was still morning. Was his sister awake? He

waited, but waiting was not his forte. So he opened the door again, and

his childish face appeared in the strip of light that filtered through.

This time the sleeper saw him.

"Already back? Go back to bed. It is too early."

"Is it really so early?"

Her sisterly tenderness divined that he had something to tell her,

something important, and that it would be necessary to help him to tell

it. "Come in," she said.

He opened the blinds and sat down at the foot of the bed.

"What scouting have you done this morning?"

But he was following his own thoughts: "The men had warned me that under

those circumstances one receives a very disagreeable impression."

"Under what circumstances?"

"When one goes up again after having been wounded, and meets a Boche. As

long as you have not been wounded you think nothing can happen to you.

When I saw that Boche this morning I felt something quite new. Then...."

He stopped and laughed, as if he had played some schoolboy joke.

"Then, what did you do?"

"Well, I made up my mind to submit to his shots. Calmly."

"Without replying?"

"Surely: I ordered myself not to shoot. That is the way one masters

one's nerves, little sister. Mine are entirely mastered: I am now

absolutely in control. The Boche presented me with five hundred shots

while I maneuvered. They were necessary. I am perfectly satisfied."

She looked at him, sitting at the foot of the bed with his head resting

against the post. Her eyes were wet and she kept silent. The silence

continued.

Finally she said softly, "You have done well, Georges."

But he was asleep.

Later, referring to this meeting in which he offered himself to the

enemy's fire, he said gravely:

"That was the decisive moment of my life. If I had not set things right

then and there, I was done for...."

When he reappeared at his escadrille's head-quarters on May 18, quite

cheerful but with a set face and flaming eyes, no one dared discuss his

cure with him.

The Storks returned for a few days to the Oise region, and once more the

contented pilot of a Nieuport flew over the country from Péronne to

Roye. He had not lost the least particle of his determination; quite the

reverse. One day (May 22) he searched the air desperately for three

hours, and though he finally discovered a two-seated enemy machine over

Noyon, he was obliged to give over the combat for lack of gasoline in

his motor.

Meanwhile they were preparing the Somme battle; the escadrilles

familiarized themselves with their ground, and new machines were tried.

The enemy, who suspected our preparations, sent out long-distance

scouting airplanes. Near Amiens, above Villers-Bretonneux, Guynemer,

making his rounds with Sergeant Chainat, attacked one of these groups on

June 22, isolated one of the airplanes and, maneuvering with his

comrade, set it afire. That was, I believe, his ninth. This combat took

place at a height of 4200 meters. The advantage went more and more to

the pilot who mounted highest.

After July 1 there was a combat almost every day. Would Guynemer be put

out of action from the beginning, as at Verdun? Returning on the 6th,

after having put to flight an L.V.G., he surprised another Boche

airplane which was diving down on one of our artillery-regulating

machines. He immediately drew the enemy's attention to himself; but the

enemy (Guynemer pays him this homage in his flight notebook) was keen

and supple. His well-aimed shots passed through the propeller of the

Nieuport and cut two cables in the right cell. Guynemer was obliged to

land. He was forced down eight times during his flying career, once

under fantastic conditions. He passed through every form of danger

without ever losing the self-possession, the quickness of eye, and

rapidity of decision which his passion for conquest had developed.

What battles he fought in the air! On July 9 his journal notes a combat

of five against five; on the 10th a combat of three against seven, in

which Guynemer disengaged Deullin, who was followed by an Aviatik at a

distance of a hundred meters. On the 11th, at 10 o'clock, he attacked an

L.V.G. and cut its cable; the enemy dived but appeared to be in control

of the machine. A few moments later he and Deullin attacked an Aviatik

and an L.V.G., Guynemer damaging the Aviatik, and Deullin forcing down

the L.V.G.; and before returning to their base, the two comrades

attacked a group of seven machines and dispersed them. On the 16th

Guynemer forced down, with Heurtaux, an L.V.G., which fell with its

wheels in the air. After a short absence, during which he got a more

powerful machine for his own use, he began on the 25th a repetition of

his former program. On the 26th he waged five combats with enemy groups

consisting of from five to eleven airplanes. On the 27th he fought three

L.V.G.'s, and then groups of from three to ten machines. On the 28th he

successively attacked two airplanes within their own lines, then a

drachen which was obliged to land, then a group of four airplanes one of

which was forced down, and then a second group of four which were

dispersed, Guynemer pursuing one of the fugitives and bringing him down.

One blade of his own propeller was riddled with bullets, and he was

compelled to land. Such was his work for three days, taken at random

from the notebook.

Open his journal at any page, and it reads the same. On August 7

Guynemer got back with seven shell fragments in his machine: he had been

cannonaded from the ground while in chase of four enemy airplanes. On

the same day he started off again, piloting Heurtaux, who attacked the

German trenches north of Cléry and fired on some machine-guns. From its

place up in the air the airplane encouraged the infantry, and shared in

their assaults. The recital of events became, however, more and more

brief: the fighting pilot had not time enough to write details; nobody

had any time in the Storks Escadrille, constantly engaged as it was in

its triumphant flights. We must turn then to Guynemer's letters--strange

letters, indeed, which contain nothing, absolutely nothing about the

war, or the battle of the Somme, or about anything else except _his_ war

and _his_ battle. The earth-world no longer existed for him: the earth

was a place which received the dead and the vanquished. So this is the

way in which he wrote his two sisters, then sojourning in Switzerland

(Fritz meaning any enemy airplane):

Dear Kids,

Some sport: the 17, attacked a Fritz, three shots and gun jammed;

Fritz tumbled. The 18th, _idem_, but in two shots: two Fritzes in

five shots, record.

Day before yesterday, attacked Fritz at 4.30 at ten meters: killed

the passenger and perhaps the rest, prevented from seeing what

happened by a fight at half-past four: the Boche ran.

At 7.40 attacked an Aviatik, carried away by the impetus, passed it

at fifty centimeters; passenger "_couic_" (killed), the machine

fell and was got under control again at fifty meters above the

ground.

At 7.35, attacked an L.V.G.; at fifteen meters; just ready to

shoot, when a bullet in my fingers made me let go the trigger;

reservoir burst, good landing two kilometers from the trenches

between two shell-holes. Inventory of the "taxi": one bullet right

in the face of my Vickers; one perforative bullet in the motor; the

steel stone had gone clear through it as well as the oil reservoir,

the gasoline tank, the cartridge chest, my glove ... where it

stayed in the index finger: result, about as if my finger had been

slightly pinched in a door; not even skinned, only the top of the

nail slightly blackened. At the time I thought two fingers had been

shot. To continue the inventory: one bullet in the reservoir, in

the direction of my left lung, having passed through four

millimeters of copper and had the good sense to stop, but one

wonders why.

One bullet in the edge of the back of my seat, one in the rudder,

and a dozen in the wings. They knocked the "taxi" to pieces with a

hatchet at two o'clock in the morning, under shell-fire. On

landing, received 86 shots of 105, 130 and 150, for nothing. They

will pay the bill.

For a beginning, La Tour has his fourth mention.

A hug for each of you.

Georges.

P.S.--It could not be said now that I am not strong; I stop steel

bullets with the end of my finger.

Is this a letter? At first, it is a bulletin of victory: two airplanes

for five bullets, plus one passenger "_couic_." Then it becomes a

recital of the golden legend--the golden legend of aviation: he stops

the enemy's bullets with his fingers; Roland would write in that style

to the beautiful Aude: "Met three Saracens, Durandal cleft two, the

third tried to settle the affair with his bow, but the arrow broke on

the cord." Young Paul Bailly was right: "The exploits of Guynemer are

not a legend, like those of Roland; in telling them just as they

happened we find them more beautiful than any we could invent." That is

why it is better to let Guynemer himself relate them. He says only what

is necessary, but the right accent is there, the rapidity and the

"_couic_." The following letter is dated September 15, 1916.

_From the same to the same_

Some sport.

On the 16th, in a group of six, four of them squeezed at 25 meters.

In four days, six combats at 25 meters: filled a few Boches with

holes, but they did not seem to tumble down, though some were hard

hit all the same; then five boxing rounds up between 5100 and 5300

(altitude). To-day five combats, four of them at less than 25

meters, and the fifth at 50 meters. In the first, gun jammed at 50

meters. In the second, at 5200, the Boche in his excitement lost

his wings, and descended on his aërodrome in a wingless coach; his

ears must be humming (16th). The third was a nose-to-nose combat

with a fighting Aviatik. Too much impetus: I failed to hammer him

hollow. In the fourth, same joke with an L.V.G. in a group of

three: I failed to hammer him, I lurched: _pan_, a bullet near my

head. In the fifth, I cleaned up the passenger (that is the third

this week), then knocked up the pilot very badly at 10

meters,--completely disabled, he landed evidently with great

difficulty, and he must be in hospital....

Three lines to describe a victory, the sixteenth. And what boarding of

the adversary, from above and from below! He springs upon the enemy, but

fails to go through him. Both speeds combined, he does not make much

less than 400 kilometers an hour when he dives on him. The meeting and

shooting hardly last one second, after which the combat continues, with

other maneuvers. Some savant should calculate the time allowed for sight

and thought in fighting such duels!

This was the period of the great series of combats on the Somme. The

Storks Escadrille, which was the first to arrive, waged battle

uninterruptedly for eight months. Other escadrilles came to the rescue.

Altogether they were divided into two groups, one under the command of

Major Féquant, the other under that of Captain Brocard, appointed chief

of battalion. It becomes impossible to enumerate all Guynemer's

victories, and we can merely emphasize the days on which he surpassed

himself. September 28 was a remarkable day, on which he brought down two

enemies and had a fall from a height of 3000 meters. Little Paul Bailly

would hardly have believed that; he would have said it was surely a

legend, the golden legend of aviation. Nevertheless, here is Guynemer's

statement, countersigned by the escadrille commandant:

"_Saturday, September 23._--Two combats near Eterpigny. At 11.20 forced

down a Boche in flames near Aches; at 11.21 forced a Boche to land,

damaged, near Carrépuy; at 11.25 forced down a Boche in flames near

Roye. At 11.30, was forced down myself by a French shell, and smashed my

machine near Fescamps...."

These combats occurred between Péronne and Montdidier. To his father he

wrote with more precision, but in his usual elliptical style.

"_September 22_: Asphyxiated a Fokker in 30 seconds, tumbled down

disabled.

"_September 23_: 11.20.--A Boche in flames within our lines.

"11.21.--A Boche disabled, passenger killed.

"11.25.--A Boche in flames 400 meters from the lines.

"11.25 and a half.--A 75 blew up my water reservoir, and all the linen

of the left upper plane, hence a superb tail spin. Succeeded in changing

it into a glide. Fell to ground at speed of 160 or 180 kilometers:

everything broken like matches, then the 'taxi' rebounded, turned around

at 45 degrees, and came back, head down, planting itself in the ground

40 meters away like a post; they could not budge it. Nothing was left

but the body, which was intact: the Spad is strong; with any other

machine I should now be thinner than this sheet of paper. I fell 100

meters from the battery that had demolished me; they had not aimed at

me, but they brought me down all the same, which they had no difficulty

in recognizing; the shell struck me hard some time before exploding. The

Boche fell close by Major Constantin's post. I picked up the pieces."

The group which he had attacked was composed of five airplanes, flying

in _échelon_, three above, two below. The two which flew lowest were

assaulted by one of our escadrilles, and the pilots, seeing a machine

fall in flames, thought at first it was their own victory. "It was my

first one, falling from the upper story," Guynemer explained drolly, in

his Stanislas-student manner. With his "_terrible oiseau_" he had waged

battle with the three pilots "of the upper story," and had forced them

down one after the other. "The first one," he said, "had a half-burned

card in his pocket which had certainly been given him that same morning,

judging by the date, which read in German: 'I think you are very

successful in aviation.' I have his photograph with his Gretchen. What

German heads! He wore the same decorations as that one who fell in the

Bus wood...." Is this not Achilles setting his foot on Hector and

taking possession of his trophies? Guynemer's heart was stone to his

enemies. He saw in them the wrongs done to France, the invasion of our

country, the destruction of our towns and villages, our desolation, and

our dead, so many of our dead whose deserted homes weep for them. His

was not to give pity, but to do justice. And in doing justice, when an

adversary whom he had forced down was wounded, he brought him help with

all his native generosity.

For him, thirty seconds had separated the Capitol from the Tarpeian

Rock. After his triple victory came his incredible fall, unheard of,

fantastic, from a height of 3000 meters, the Spad falling at the highest

speed down to earth, and rebounding and planting itself in the ground

like a picket. "I was completely stupefied for twenty-four hours, but

have escaped with merely immense fatigue (especially where I wear my

looping-the-loop straps, which saved my life), and a gash in my knee

presented to me by my magneto. During that 3000-meter tumble I was

planning the best way to hit the ground (I had the choice of sauces): I

found the way, but there were still 95 out of 100 chances for the wooden

cross. _Enfin_, all right!" And this postscript followed: "Sixth time I

have been brought down: record!"

Lieutenant V.F., of the Dragon Escadrille, colliding with a comrade's

airplane at a height of 3000 meters, had a similar fall onto the

Avocourt wood, and was similarly astounded to find himself whole. He

had continued maneuvering during the five or six minutes of the descent.

"Soon," he wrote, "the trees of the Hesse forest came in sight; in fact,

they seemed to approach at a dizzy rate of speed. I switched off so as

not to catch fire, and a few meters before reaching the trees I nosed up

my machine with all my strength so that it would fall flat. There was a

terrible shock! One tree higher than the rest broke my right wings, and

made me turn as if I were on a pivot. I closed my eyes. There was a

second shock, less violent than I could have hoped: the machine fell on

its nose like a stone, at the foot of the tree which had stopped me. I

unfastened my belt which, luckily, had not broken, and let myself slip

onto the ground, amazed not to be suffering intense agony. The only bad

effects were that my head was heavy, and blood was flowing through my

mask. I breathed, coughed, and shook my arms and legs, and was

dumbfounded to find that all my faculties functioned normally...."

Guynemer did not tell us so much; but, as a mathematician, he calculated

his chances. He too had switched off, and with the greatest sang-froid

superintended, so to speak, his fall. Its result was no less magical.

The infantrymen had observed this rainfall of airplanes. The French

plane reached the earth just before its pilot's last victim fell also,

in flames. The soldiers pitied the poor victor, who had not, as they

thought, survived his conquest! They rushed to his aid, expecting to

pick him up crushed to atoms. But Guynemer stood up without aid. He

seemed like a ghost; but he was standing, he was alive, and the excited

soldiers took possession of him and carried him off in triumph. A

division general approached, and immediately commanded a military salute

for the victor, saying to Guynemer:

"You will review the troops with me."

Guynemer did not know how to review troops, and would have liked to go.

He was suffering cruelly from his knee:

"I happen to be wounded, General."

"Wounded, you! It's impossible. When a man falls from the sky without

being broken, he is a magician, no doubt of that. You cannot be wounded.

However, lean upon me."

And holding him up, almost indeed carrying him, he walked with the young

_sous-lieutenant_ in front of the troops. From the neighboring trenches

rose the sound of singing, first half-suppressed, and then swelling into

a formidable roar: the _Marseillaise_. The song had sprung spontaneously

to the men's lips.

* * * * *

Cerebral commotion required Guynemer to rest for a few days. But on

October 5 he started off again. The month of October on the Somme was

marked by an improvement in German aviation, their numbers being

considerably reinforced and supplied with new tactics. Guynemer defied

the new tactics of numbers, and in one day, October 17, attacked a group

of three one-seated planes, and another group of five. A second time he

made a sortie, and attacked a two-seated plane which was aided by five

one-seated machines. On another occasion, November 9, he waged six

battles with one-seated and two-seated machines, all of which made their

escape, one after another, by diving. Still this was not enough, and he

set forth again and attacked a group of one Albatros and four one-seated

planes. "Hard fight," says the journal, "the enemy has the advantage."

He broke off this combat, but only to engage in another with an Albatros

which had surprised Lieutenant Deullin at 50 meters. On the following

day, November 10, he added two more items to his list (making his

nineteenth and twentieth): his first victim, at whom he had shot fifteen

times from a distance less than ten meters, fell in flames south of

Nesle; the other, a two-seated Albatros, 220 H.P. Mercédès, protected by

three one-seated machines, fell and was crushed to pieces in the

Morcourt ravine. This double stroke he repeated on the twenty-second of

the same month (making his twenty-second and twenty-third), and again on

January 23, 1917 (his twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh), and still again

the next day, the twenty-fourth (his twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth

victories). In addition, here is one of his letters with a statement of

the results of three chasing days. There are no longer headings or

endings to his letters; he makes a direct attack, as he does in the

air.

26-1-'17

_January_ 24, 1917.--Fell on a group of five Boches at 2300. I

brought them back, with drums beating, at 800 meters (one wire stay

cut, one escape pot broken). At the end of the boxing-round, 400

meters above Roye, I succeeded in getting behind a one-seated

machine of the group. My motor stopped; obliged to pump and let the

Boche go.

11.45.--Attacked a Fritz, let him go at 800 meters, my motor

spattered, but the Boche landed, head down, near Goyancourt. I only

count him as damaged.

At this instant, I see a Boche cannonaded at 2400, hence at 11.50 a

boxing round necessary with a little Rumpler armed with two

machine-guns. The pilot got a bullet in his lung; the passenger,

who fired at me, got one in his knee. The two reservoirs were hit,

and the whole machine took fire and tumbled down at Lignières,

within our lines. I landed alongside; in starting in again one

wheel was broken in the plowed frozen earth. In taking away the

"taxi" the park people completely demolished it for me. It was

rushed to Paris for repairs.

25.--I watch the others fly, and fume.

26.--Bucquet loaned me his "taxi." No view-finder; only a

wretchedly bad (oh, how bad!) sight-line.

At 12 o'clock.--Saw a Boche at 3800; took the lift.--Arrived at the

sun.--In turning, was caught in an eddy-wind, rotten tail

spin.--While coming down again I saw the Boche aiming at me 200

meters away; sent him ten shots: gun jammed; but the Boche seemed

excited and dived with his motor in full blast straight south. Off

we go! But I took care not to get too near so that he would not see

that my gun was out of action. The altimeter tumbled: 1600

Estrées-Saint-Denis came in sight. I maneuvered my Boche as well as

I could. Suddenly he righted himself and departed in the direction

of Rheims, banging away at me.

I tried bluffing; I rose 500 meters and let myself fall on him like

a pebble. When I began to think my bluff had not succeeded, he

seemed impressed and began to descend again. I placed myself at a

distance of 10 meters, but every time I showed my nose the

passenger aimed at me. The road to Compiègne: 1000 ... 800 meters.

When I showed my nose, the passenger, standing, stopped aiming and

made a sign that he gave himself up. All right! I saw under his

belly that four shells had struck the mark. 400 meters: the Boche

slowed up his "_moulin_" (motor). 200 meters, 20 meters. I let him

go and watched him land. At 100 meters I circled and found I was

over an aërodrome. But, having no more cartridges, I could not

prevent them from setting fire to their "taxi," a magnificent 200

H.P. Albatros. When I saw they had been surrounded, I landed and

showed the Boches my broken machine-gun. Sensation. They had fired

at me two hundred times: my bullets, before the breakdown, had gone

through their altimeter and their tachometer, which had caused

their excitement. The pilot said that an airplane had been forced

down two days before at Goyancourt: passenger killed, pilot wounded

in legs--had to have one amputated above the knee. I hope this

original confirmation will be accepted, which will make 30.

Thirty victories, twenty or twenty-one of which occurred on the Somme:

such is the schedule of these extraordinary flights. The last one

surpassed all the rest. He fought unarmed, with nothing but his machine,

like a knight who, with sword broken, manages his horse and brings his

adversary to bay. What a scene it was when the German pilot and

passenger, prisoners, became aware that Guynemer's machine-gun had been

out of action! Once more he had imposed his will upon others, and his

power of domination had fascinated his enemies.

In the beginning of February, 1917, the Storks Escadrille left the Somme

after six months' fighting, and flew into Lorraine.