CHAPTER I

Produced by Paul Hollander, Juliet Sutherland, Linton Dawe,

Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

FLYING FOR FRANCE

With the American Escadrille at Verdun

BY

JAMES R. McCONNELL

Sergeant-Pilot in the French Flying Corps

Illustrated from photographs through the kindness

of Mr. Paul Rockwell

To

MRS. ALICE S. WEEKS

Who having lost a splendid son in the French Army has given to a great

number of us other Americans in the war the tender sympathy and help

of a mother.

CONTENTS

Introduction

By F. C. P.

CHAPTER

I. Verdun

II. From Verdun to the Somme

III. Personal Letters from Sergeant McConnell

IV. How France Trains Pilot Aviators

V. Against Odds

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

James R. McConnell _Frontispiece_

Some of the Americans Who are Flying for France

Two Members of the American Escadrille, of the French Flying Service,

Who Were Killed Flying For France

"Whiskey." The Lion and Mascot of the American Flying Squadron in

France

Kiffin Rockwell, of Asheville, N.C., Who Was Killed in an Air Duel

Over Verdun

Sergeant Lufbery in one of the New Nieuports in Which He Convoyed the

Bombardment Fleet Which Attacked Oberndorf

INTRODUCTION

One day in January, 1915, I saw Jim McConnell in front of the Court

House at Carthage, North Carolina. "Well," he said, "I'm all fixed up

and am leaving on Wednesday." "Where for?" I asked. "I've got a job to

drive an ambulance in France," was his answer.

And then he went on to tell me, first, that as he saw it the greatest

event in history was going on right at hand and that he would be

missing the opportunity of a lifetime if he did not see it. "These

Sand Hills," he said "will be here forever, but the war won't; and so

I'm going." Then, as an afterthought, he added: "And I'll be of some

use, too, not just a sight-seer looking on; that wouldn't be fair."

So he went. He joined the American ambulance service in the Vosges,

was mentioned more than once in the orders of the day for conspicuous

bravery in saving wounded under fire, and received the much-coveted

Croix de Guerre.

Meanwhile, he wrote interesting letters home. And his point of view

changed, even as does the point of view of all Americans who visit

Europe. From the attitude of an adventurous spirit anxious to see the

excitement, his letters showed a new belief that any one who goes to

France and is not able and willing to do more than his share--to give

everything in him toward helping the wounded and suffering--has no

business there.

And as time went on, still a new note crept into his letters; the

first admiration for France was strengthened and almost replaced by a

new feeling--a profound conviction that France and the French people

were fighting the fight of liberty against enormous odds. The new

spirit of France--the spirit of the "Marseillaise," strengthened by a

grim determination and absolute certainty of being right--pervades

every line he writes. So he gave up the ambulance service and enlisted

in the French flying corps along with an ever-increasing number of

other Americans.

The spirit which pervades them is something above the spirit of

adventure that draws many to war; it is the spirit of a man who has

found an inspiring duty toward the advancement of liberty and humanity

and is glad and proud to contribute what he can.

His last letters bring out a new point--the assurance of victory of a

just cause. "Of late," he writes, "things are much brighter and one

can feel a certain elation in the air. Victory, before, was a sort of

academic certainty; now, it is felt."

F. C. P.

November 10, 1916.

FLYING FOR FRANCE

CHAPTER I

VERDUN

Beneath the canvas of a huge hangar mechanicians are at work on the

motor of an airplane. Outside, on the borders of an aviation field,

others loiter awaiting their aërial charge's return from the sky. Near

the hangar stands a hut-shaped tent. In front of it several

short-winged biplanes are lined up; inside it three or four young men

are lolling in wicker chairs.

They wear the uniform of French army aviators. These uniforms, and the

grim-looking machine guns mounted on the upper planes of the little

aircraft, are the only warlike note in a pleasantly peaceful scene.

The war seems very remote. It is hard to believe that the greatest of

all battles--Verdun--rages only twenty-five miles to the north, and

that the field and hangars and mechanicians and aviators and airplanes

are all playing a part therein.

Suddenly there is the distant hum of a motor. One of the pilots

emerges from the tent and gazes fixedly up into the blue sky. He

points, and one glimpses a black speck against the blue, high

overhead. The sound of the motor ceases, and the speck grows larger.

It moves earthward in steep dives and circles, and as it swoops

closer, takes on the shape of an airplane. Now one can make out the

red, white, and blue circles under the wings which mark a French

war-plane, and the distinctive insignia of the pilot on its sides.

"_Ton patron arrive!_" one mechanician cries to another. "Your boss is

coming!"

The machine dips sharply over the top of a hangar, straightens out

again near the earth at a dizzy speed a few feet above it and, losing

momentum in a surprisingly short time, hits the ground with tail and

wheels. It bumps along a score of yards and then, its motor whirring

again, turns, rolls toward the hangar, and stops. A human form,

enveloped in a species of garment for all the world like a diver's

suit, and further adorned with goggles and a leather hood, rises

unsteadily in the cockpit, clambers awkwardly overboard and slides

down to terra firma.

A group of soldiers, enjoying a brief holiday from the trenches in a

cantonment near the field, straggle forward and gather timidly about

the airplane, listening open-mouthed for what its rider is about to

say.

"Hell!" mumbles that gentleman, as he starts divesting himself of his

flying garb.

"What's wrong now?" inquires one of the tenants of the tent.

"Everything, or else I've gone nutty," is the indignant reply,

delivered while disengaging a leg from its Teddy Bear trousering.

"Why, I emptied my whole roller on a Boche this morning, point blank

at not fifteen metres off. His machine gun quit firing and his

propeller wasn't turning and yet the darn fool just hung up there as

if he were tied to a cloud. Say, I was so sure I had him it made me

sore--felt like running into him and yelling, 'Now, you fall, you

bum!'"

The eyes of the _poilus_ register surprise. Not a word of this

dialogue, delivered in purest American, is intelligible to them. Why

is an aviator in a French uniform speaking a foreign tongue, they

mutually ask themselves. Finally one of them, a little chap in a

uniform long since bleached of its horizon-blue colour by the mud of

the firing line, whisperingly interrogates a mechanician as to the

identity of these strange air folk.

"But they are the Americans, my old one," the latter explains with

noticeable condescension.

Marvelling afresh, the infantrymen demand further details. They learn

that they are witnessing the return of the American Escadrille--composed

of Americans who have volunteered to fly for France for the duration

of the war--to their station near Bar-le-Duc, twenty-five miles south

of Verdun, from a flight over the battle front of the Meuse. They have

barely had time to digest this knowledge when other dots appear in the

sky, and one by one turn into airplanes as they wheel downward.

Finally all six of the machines that have been aloft are back on the

ground and the American Escadrille has one more sortie over the German

lines to its credit.

PERSONNEL OF THE ESCADRILLE

Like all worth-while institutions, the American Escadrille, of which I

have the honour of being a member, was of gradual growth. When the war

began, it is doubtful whether anybody anywhere envisaged the

possibility of an American entering the French aviation service. Yet,

by the fall of 1915, scarcely more than a year later, there were six

Americans serving as full-fledged pilots, and now, in the summer of

1916, the list numbers fifteen or more, with twice that number

training for their pilot's license in the military aviation schools.

The pioneer of them all was William Thaw, of Pittsburg, who is to-day

the only American holding a commission in the French flying corps.

Lieutenant Thaw, a flyer of considerable reputation in America before

the war, had enlisted in the Foreign Legion in August, 1914. With

considerable difficulty he had himself transferred, in the early part

of 1915, into aviation, and the autumn of that year found him piloting

a Caudron biplane, and doing excellent observation work. At the same

time, Sergeants Norman Prince, of Boston, and Elliot Cowdin, of New

York--who were the first to enter the aviation service coming directly

from the United States--were at the front on Voisin planes with a

cannon mounted in the bow.

Sergeant Bert Hall, who signs from the Lone Star State and had got

himself shifted from the Foreign Legion to aviation soon after Thaw,

was flying a Nieuport fighting machine, and, a little later,

instructing less-advanced students of the air in the Avord Training

School. His particular chum in the Foreign Legion, James Bach, who

also had become an aviator, had the distressing distinction soon after

he reached the front of becoming the first American to fall into the

hands of the enemy. Going to the assistance of a companion who had

broken down in landing a spy in the German lines, Bach smashed his

machine against a tree. Both he and his French comrade were captured,

and Bach was twice court-martialed by the Germans on suspicion of

being an American _franc-tireur_--the penalty for which is death! He

was acquitted but of course still languishes in a prison camp

"somewhere in Germany." The sixth of the original sextet was Adjutant

Didier Masson, who did exhibition flying in the States until--Carranza

having grown ambitious in Mexico--he turned his talents to spotting

_los Federales_ for General Obregon. When the real war broke out,

Masson answered the call of his French blood and was soon flying and

fighting for the land of his ancestors.

Of the other members of the escadrille Sergeant Givas Lufbery,

American citizen and soldier, but dweller in the world at large, was

among the earliest to wear the French airman's wings. Exhibition work

with a French pilot in the Far East prepared him efficiently for the

task of patiently unloading explosives on to German military centres

from a slow-moving Voisin which was his first mount. Upon the heels

of Lufbery came two more graduates of the Foreign Legion--Kiffin

Rockwell, of Asheville, N.C., who had been wounded at Carency; Victor

Chapman, of New York, who after recovering from his wounds became an

airplane bomb-dropper and so caught the craving to become a pilot. At

about this time one Paul Pavelka, whose birthplace was Madison, Conn.,

and who from the age of fifteen had sailed the seven seas, managed to

slip out of the Foreign Legion into aviation and joined the other

Americans at Pau.

There seems to be a fascination to aviation, particularly when it is

coupled with fighting. Perhaps it's because the game is new, but more

probably because as a rule nobody knows anything about it. Whatever be

the reason, adventurous young Americans were attracted by it in

rapidly increasing numbers. Many of them, of course, never got

fascinated beyond the stage of talking about joining. Among the chaps

serving with the American ambulance field sections a good many

imaginations were stirred, and a few actually did enlist, when, toward

the end of the summer of 1915, the Ministry of War, finding that the

original American pilots had made good, grew more liberal in

considering applications.

Chouteau Johnson, of New York; Lawrence Rumsey, of Buffalo; Dudley

Hill, of Peekskill, N.Y.; and Clyde Balsley, of El Paso; one after

another doffed the ambulance driver's khaki for the horizon-blue of

the French flying corps. All of them had seen plenty of action,

collecting the wounded under fire, but they were all tired of being

non-combatant spectators. More or less the same feeling actuated me,

I suppose. I had come over from Carthage, N.C., in January, 1915, and

worked with an American ambulance section in the Bois-le-Prêtre. All

along I had been convinced that the United States ought to aid in the

struggle against Germany. With that conviction, it was plainly up to

me to do more than drive an ambulance. The more I saw the splendour of

the fight the French were fighting, the more I felt like an

_embusqué_--what the British call a "shirker." So I made up my mind to

go into aviation.

A special channel had been created for the reception of applications

from Americans, and my own was favourably replied to within a few

days. It took four days more to pass through all the various

departments, sign one's name to a few hundred papers, and undergo the

physical examinations. Then I was sent to the aviation depot at Dijon

and fitted out with a uniform and personal equipment. The next stop

was the school at Pau, where I was to be taught to fly. My elation at

arriving there was second only to my satisfaction at being a French

soldier. It was a vast improvement, I thought, in the American

Ambulance.

Talk about forming an all-American flying unit, or escadrille, was

rife while I was at Pau. What with the pilots already breveted, and

the élèves, or pupils in the training-schools, there were quite enough

of our compatriots to man the dozen airplanes in one escadrille. Every

day somebody "had it absolutely straight" that we were to become a

unit at the front, and every other day the report turned out to be

untrue. But at last, in the month of February, our dream came true. We

learned that a captain had actually been assigned to command an

American escadrille and that the Americans at the front had been

recalled and placed under his orders. Soon afterward we élèves got

another delightful thrill.

THREE TYPES OF FRENCH AIR SERVICE

Thaw, Prince, Cowdin, and the other veterans were training on the

Nieuport! That meant the American Escadrille was to fly the

Nieuport--the best type of _avion de chasse_--and hence would be a

fighting unit. It is necessary to explain parenthetically here that

French military aviation, generally speaking, is divided into three

groups--the _avions de chasse_ or airplanes of pursuit, which are used

to hunt down enemy aircraft or to fight them off; _avions de

bombardement_, big, unwieldy monsters for use in bombarding raids; and

_avions de réglage_, cumbersome creatures designed to regulate

artillery fire, take photographs, and do scout duty. The Nieuport is

the smallest, fastest-rising, fastest-moving biplane in the French

service. It can travel 110 miles an hour, and is a one-man apparatus

with a machine gun mounted on its roof and fired by the pilot with one

hand while with the other and his feet he operates his controls. The

French call their Nieuport pilots the "aces" of the air. No wonder we

were tickled to be included in that august brotherhood!

Before the American Escadrille became an established fact, Thaw and

Cowdin, who had mastered the Nieuport, managed to be sent to the

Verdun front. While there Cowdin was credited with having brought down

a German machine and was proposed for the _Médaille Militaire_, the

highest decoration that can be awarded a non-commissioned officer or

private.

After completing his training, receiving his military pilot's brevet,

and being perfected on the type of plane he is to use at the front, an

aviator is ordered to the reserve headquarters near Paris to await his

call. Kiffin Rockwell and Victor Chapman had been there for months,

and I had just arrived, when on the 16th of April orders came for the

Americans to join their escadrille at Luxeuil, in the Vosges.

The rush was breathless! Never were flying clothes and fur coats drawn

from the quartermaster, belongings packed, and red tape in the various

administrative bureaux unfurled, with such headlong haste. In a few

hours we were aboard the train, panting, but happy. Our party

consisted of Sergeant Prince, and Rockwell, Chapman, and myself, who

were only corporals at that time. We were joined at Luxeuil by

Lieutenant Thaw and Sergeants Hall and Cowdin.

For the veterans our arrival at the front was devoid of excitement;

for the three neophytes--Rockwell, Chapman, and myself--it was the

beginning of a new existence, the entry into an unknown world. Of

course Rockwell and Chapman had seen plenty of warfare on the ground,

but warfare in the air was as novel to them as to me. For us all it

contained unlimited possibilities for initiative and service to

France, and for them it must have meant, too, the restoration of

personality lost during those months in the trenches with the Foreign

Legion. Rockwell summed it up characteristically.

"Well, we're off for the races," he remarked.

PILOT LIFE AT THE FRONT

There is a considerable change in the life of a pilot when he arrives

on the front. During the training period he is subject to rules and

regulations as stringent as those of the barracks. But once assigned

to duty over the firing line he receives the treatment accorded an

officer, no matter what his grade. Save when he is flying or on guard,

his time is his own. There are no roll calls or other military

frills, and in place of the bunk he slept upon as an élève, he finds a

regular bed in a room to himself, and the services of an orderly. Even

men of higher rank who although connected with his escadrille are not

pilots, treat him with respect. His two mechanicians are under his

orders. Being volunteers, we Americans are shown more than the

ordinary consideration by the ever-generous French Government, which

sees to it that we have the best of everything.

On our arrival at Luxeuil we were met by Captain Thénault, the French

commander of the American Escadrille--officially known as No. 124, by

the way--and motored to the aviation field in one of the staff cars

assigned to us. I enjoyed that ride. Lolling back against the soft

leather cushions, I recalled how in my apprenticeship days at Pau I

had had to walk six miles for my laundry.

The equipment awaiting us at the field was even more impressive than

our automobile. Everything was brand new, from the fifteen Fiat trucks

to the office, magazine, and rest tents. And the men attached to the

escadrille! At first sight they seemed to outnumber the Nicaraguan

army--mechanicians, chauffeurs, armourers, motorcyclists,

telephonists, wireless operators, Red Cross stretcher bearers, clerks!

Afterward I learned they totalled seventy-odd, and that all of them

were glad to be connected with the American Escadrille.

In their hangars stood our trim little Nieuports. I looked mine over

with a new feeling of importance and gave orders to my mechanicians

for the mere satisfaction of being able to. To find oneself the sole

proprietor of a fighting airplane is quite a treat, let me tell you.

One gets accustomed to it, though, after one has used up two or three

of them--at the French Government's expense.

Rooms were assigned to us in a villa adjoining the famous hot baths of

Luxeuil, where Cæsar's cohorts were wont to besport themselves. We

messed with our officers, Captain Thénault and Lieutenant de Laage de

Mieux, at the best hotel in town. An automobile was always on hand to

carry us to the field. I began to wonder whether I was a summer

resorter instead of a soldier.

Among the pilots who had welcomed us with open arms, we discovered the

famous Captain Happe, commander of the Luxeuil bombardment group. The

doughty bomb-dispenser, upon whose head the Germans have set a price,

was in his quarters. After we had been introduced, he pointed to eight

little boxes arranged on a table.

"They contain _Croix de Guerre_ for the families of the men I lost on

my last trip," he explained, and he added: "It's a good thing you're

here to go along with us for protection. There are lots of Boches in

this sector."

I thought of the luxury we were enjoying: our comfortable beds, baths,

and motor cars, and then I recalled the ancient custom of giving a man

selected for the sacrifice a royal time of it before the appointed

day.

To acquaint us with the few places where a safe landing was possible

we were motored through the Vosges Mountains and on into Alsace. It

was a delightful opportunity to see that glorious countryside, and we

appreciated it the more because we knew its charm would be lost when

we surveyed it from the sky. From the air the ground presents no

scenic effects. The ravishing beauty of the Val d'Ajol, the steep

mountain sides bristling with a solid mass of giant pines, the myriads

of glittering cascades tumbling downward through fairylike avenues of

verdure, the roaring, tossing torrent at the foot of the slope--all

this loveliness, seen from an airplane at 12,000 feet, fades into flat

splotches of green traced with a tiny ribbon of silver.

The American Escadrille was sent to Luxeuil primarily to acquire the

team work necessary to a flying unit. Then, too, the new pilots

needed a taste of anti-aircraft artillery to familiarize them with the

business of aviation over a battlefield. They shot well in that

sector, too. Thaw's machine was hit at an altitude of 13,000 feet.

THE ESCADRILLE'S FIRST SORTIE

The memory of the first sortie we made as an escadrille will always

remain fresh in my mind because it was also my first trip over the

lines. We were to leave at six in the morning. Captain Thénault

pointed out on his aërial map the route we were to follow. Never

having flown over this region before, I was afraid of losing myself.

Therefore, as it is easier to keep other airplanes in sight when one

is above them, I began climbing as rapidly as possible, meaning to

trail along in the wake of my companions. Unless one has had practice

in flying in formation, however, it is hard to keep in contact. The

diminutive _avions de chasse_ are the merest pinpoints against the

great sweep of landscape below and the limitless heavens above. The

air was misty and clouds were gathering. Ahead there seemed a barrier

of them. Although as I looked down the ground showed plainly, in the

distance everything was hazy. Forging up above the mist, at 7,000

feet, I lost the others altogether. Even when they are not closely

joined, the clouds, seen from immediately above, appear as a solid

bank of white. The spaces between are indistinguishable. It is like

being in an Arctic ice field.

To the south I made out the Alps. Their glittering peaks projected up

through the white sea about me like majestic icebergs. Not a single

plane was visible anywhere, and I was growing very uncertain about my

position. My splendid isolation had become oppressive, when, one by

one, the others began bobbing up above the cloud level, and I had

company again.

We were over Belfort and headed for the trench lines. The cloud banks

dropped behind, and below us we saw the smiling plain of Alsace

stretching eastward to the Rhine. It was distinctly pleasurable,

flying over this conquered land. Following the course of the canal

that runs to the Rhine, I sighted, from a height of 13,000 feet over

Dannemarie, a series of brown, woodworm-like tracings on the

ground--the trenches!

SHRAPNEL THAT COULDN'T BE HEARD

My attention was drawn elsewhere almost immediately, however. Two

balls of black smoke had suddenly appeared close to one of the

machines ahead of me, and with the same disconcerting abruptness

similar balls began to dot the sky above, below, and on all sides of

us. We were being shot at with shrapnel. It was interesting to watch

the flash of the bursting shells, and the attendant smoke

puffs--black, white, or yellow, depending on the kind of shrapnel

used. The roar of the motor drowned the noise of the explosions.

Strangely enough, my feelings about it were wholly impersonal.

We turned north after crossing the lines. Mulhouse seemed just below

us, and I noted with a keen sense of satisfaction our invasion of real

German territory. The Rhine, too, looked delightfully accessible. As

we continued northward I distinguished the twin lakes of Gérardmer

sparkling in their emerald setting. Where the lines crossed the

Hartmannsweilerkopf there were little spurts of brown smoke as shells

burst in the trenches. One could scarcely pick out the old city of

Thann from among the numerous neighbouring villages, so tiny it seemed

in the valley's mouth. I had never been higher than 7,000 feet and was

unaccustomed to reading country from a great altitude. It was also

bitterly cold, and even in my fur-lined combination I was shivering.

I noticed, too, that I had to take long, deep breaths in the rarefied

atmosphere. Looking downward at a certain angle, I saw what at first

I took to be a round, shimmering pool of water. It was simply the

effect of the sunlight on the congealing mist. We had been keeping an

eye out for German machines since leaving our lines, but none had

shown up. It wasn't surprising, for we were too many.

Only four days later, however, Rockwell brought down the escadrille's

first plane in his initial aërial combat. He was flying alone when,

over Thann, he came upon a German on reconnaissance. He dived and the

German turned toward his own lines, opening fire from a long distance.

Rockwell kept straight after him. Then, closing to within thirty

yards, he pressed on the release of his machine gun, and saw the enemy

gunner fall backward and the pilot crumple up sideways in his seat.

The plane flopped downward and crashed to earth just behind the German

trenches. Swooping close to the ground Rockwell saw its débris burning

away brightly. He had turned the trick with but four shots and only

one German bullet had struck his Nieuport. An observation post

telephoned the news before Rockwell's return, and he got a great

welcome. All Luxeuil smiled upon him--particularly the girls. But he

couldn't stay to enjoy his popularity. The escadrille was ordered to

the sector of Verdun.

While in a way we were sorry to leave Luxeuil, we naturally didn't

regret the chance to take part in the aërial activity of the world's

greatest battle. The night before our departure some German aircraft

destroyed four of our tractors and killed six men with bombs, but even

that caused little excitement compared with going to Verdun. We would

get square with the Boches over Verdun, we thought--it is impossible

to chase airplanes at night, so the raiders made a safe getaway.

OFF TO VERDUN

As soon as we pilots had left in our machines, the trucks and tractors

set out in convoy, carrying the men and equipment. The Nieuports

carried us to our new post in a little more than an hour. We stowed

them away in the hangars and went to have a look at our sleeping

quarters. A commodious villa half way between the town of Bar-le-Duc

and the aviation field had been assigned to us, and comforts were as

plentiful as at Luxeuil.

Our really serious work had begun, however, and we knew it. Even as

far behind the actual fighting as Bar-le-Duc one could sense one's

proximity to a vast military operation. The endless convoys of motor

trucks, the fast-flowing stream of troops, and the distressing number

of ambulances brought realization of the near presence of a gigantic

battle.

Within a twenty-mile radius of the Verdun front aviation camps abound.

Our escadrille was listed on the schedule with the other fighting

units, each of which has its specified flying hours, rotating so there

is always an _escadrille de chasse_ over the lines. A field wireless

to enable us to keep track of the movements of enemy planes became

part of our equipment.

Lufbery joined us a few days after our arrival. He was followed by

Johnson and Balsley, who had been on the air guard over Paris. Hill

and Rumsey came next, and after them Masson and Pavelka. Nieuports

were supplied them from the nearest depot, and as soon as they had

mounted their instruments and machine guns, they were on the job with

the rest of us. Fifteen Americans are or have been members of the

American Escadrille, but there have never been so many as that on duty

at any one time.

BATTLES IN THE AIR

Before we were fairly settled at Bar-le-Duc, Hall brought down a

German observation craft and Thaw a Fokker. Fights occurred on almost

every sortie. The Germans seldom cross into our territory, unless on a

bombarding jaunt, and thus practically all the fighting takes place on

their side of the line. Thaw dropped his Fokker in the morning, and on

the afternoon of the same day there was a big combat far behind the

German trenches. Thaw was wounded in the arm, and an explosive bullet

detonating on Rockwell's wind-shield tore several gashes in his face.

Despite the blood which was blinding him Rockwell managed to reach an

aviation field and land. Thaw, whose wound bled profusely, landed in a

dazed condition just within our lines. He was too weak to walk, and

French soldiers carried him to a field dressing-station, whence he was

sent to Paris for further treatment. Rockwell's wounds were less

serious and he insisted on flying again almost immediately.

A week or so later Chapman was wounded. Considering the number of

fights he had been in and the courage with which he attacked it was a

miracle he had not been hit before. He always fought against odds and

far within the enemy's country. He flew more than any of us, never

missing an opportunity to go up, and never coming down until his

gasolene was giving out. His machine was a sieve of patched-up bullet

holes. His nerve was almost superhuman and his devotion to the cause

for which he fought sublime. The day he was wounded he attacked four

machines. Swooping down from behind, one of them, a Fokker, riddled

Chapman's plane. One bullet cut deep into his scalp, but Chapman, a

master pilot, escaped from the trap, and fired several shots to show

he was still safe. A stability control had been severed by a bullet.

Chapman held the broken rod in one hand, managed his machine with the

other, and succeeded in landing on a near-by aviation field. His wound

was dressed, his machine repaired, and he immediately took the air in

pursuit of some more enemies. He would take no rest, and with bandaged

head continued to fly and fight.

The escadrille's next serious encounter with the foe took place a few

days later. Rockwell, Balsley, Prince, and Captain Thénault were

surrounded by a large number of Germans, who, circling about them,

commenced firing at long range. Realizing their numerical inferiority,

the Americans and their commander sought the safest way out by

attacking the enemy machines nearest the French lines. Rockwell,

Prince, and the captain broke through successfully, but Balsley found

himself hemmed in. He attacked the German nearest him, only to receive

an explosive bullet in his thigh. In trying to get away by a vertical

dive his machine went into a corkscrew and swung over on its back.

Extra cartridge rollers dislodged from their case hit his arms. He was

tumbling straight toward the trenches, but by a supreme effort he

regained control, righted the plane, and landed without disaster in a

meadow just behind the firing line.

Soldiers carried him to the shelter of a near-by fort, and later he

was taken to a field hospital, where he lingered for days between life

and death. Ten fragments of the explosive bullet were removed from his

stomach. He bore up bravely, and became the favourite of the wounded

officers in whose ward he lay. When we flew over to see him they would

say: _Il est un brave petit gars, l'aviateur américain_. [He's a brave

little fellow, the American aviator.] On a shelf by his bed, done up

in a handkerchief, he kept the pieces of bullet taken out of him, and

under them some sheets of paper on which he was trying to write to his

mother, back in El Paso.

Balsley was awarded the _Médaille Militaire_ and the _Croix de

Guerre_, but the honours scared him. He had seen them decorate

officers in the ward before they died.

CHAPMAN'S LAST FIGHT

Then came Chapman's last fight. Before leaving, he had put two bags

of oranges in his machine to take to Balsley, who liked to suck them

to relieve his terrible thirst, after the day's flying was over. There

was an aërial struggle against odds, far within the German lines, and

Chapman, to divert their fire from his comrades, engaged several enemy

airmen at once. He sent one tumbling to earth, and had forced the

others off when two more swooped down upon him. Such a fight is a

matter of seconds, and one cannot clearly see what passes. Lufbery and

Prince, whom Chapman had defended so gallantly, regained the French

lines. They told us of the combat, and we waited on the field for

Chapman's return. He was always the last in, so we were not much

worried. Then a pilot from another fighting escadrille telephoned us

that he had seen a Nieuport falling. A little later the observer of a

reconnaissance airplane called up and told us how he had witnessed

Chapman's fall. The wings of the plane had buckled, and it had dropped

like a stone he said.

We talked in lowered voices after that; we could read the pain in one

another's eyes. If only it could have been some one else, was what we

all thought, I suppose. To lose Victor was not an irreparable loss to

us merely, but to France, and to the world as well. I kept thinking of

him lying over there, and of the oranges he was taking to Balsley. As

I left the field I caught sight of Victor's mechanician leaning

against the end of our hangar. He was looking northward into the sky

where his _patron_ had vanished, and his face was very sad.

PROMOTIONS AND DECORATIONS

By this time Prince and Hall had been made adjutants, and we corporals

transformed into sergeants. I frankly confess to a feeling of marked

satisfaction at receiving that grade in the world's finest army. I was

a far more important person, in my own estimation, than I had been as

a second lieutenant in the militia at home. The next impressive event

was the awarding of decorations. We had assisted at that ceremony for

Cowdin at Luxeuil, but this time three of our messmates were to be

honoured for the Germans they had brought down. Rockwell and Hall

received the _Médaille Militaire_ and the _Croix de Guerre_, and Thaw,

being a lieutenant, the _Légion d'honneur_ and another "palm" for the

ribbon of the _Croix de Guerre_ he had won previously. Thaw, who came

up from Paris specially for the presentation, still carried his arm in

a sling.

There were also decorations for Chapman, but poor Victor, who so often

had been cited in the Orders of the Day, was not on hand to receive

them.

THE MORNING SORTIE

Our daily routine goes on with little change. Whenever the weather

permits--that is, when it isn't raining, and the clouds aren't too

low--we fly over the Verdun battlefield at the hours dictated by

General Headquarters. As a rule the most successful sorties are those

in the early morning.

We are called while it's still dark. Sleepily I try to reconcile the

French orderly's muttered, _C'est l'heure, monsieur_, that rouses me

from slumber, with the strictly American words and music of "When That

Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam'" warbled by a particularly

wide-awake pilot in the next room. A few minutes later, having

swallowed some coffee, we motor to the field. The east is turning gray

as the hangar curtains are drawn apart and our machines trundled out

by the mechanicians. All the pilots whose planes are in

commission--save those remaining behind on guard--prepare to leave.

We average from four to six on a sortie, unless too many flights have

been ordered for that day, in which case only two or three go out at a

time.

Now the east is pink, and overhead the sky has changed from gray to

pale blue. It is light enough to fly. We don our fur-lined shoes and

combinations and adjust the leather flying hoods and goggles. A good

deal of conversation occurs--perhaps because, once aloft, there's

nobody to talk to.

"Eh, you," one pilot cries jokingly to another, "I hope some Boche

just ruins you this morning, so I won't have to pay you the fifty

francs you won from me last night!"

This financial reference concerns a poker game.

"You do, do you?" replies the other as he swings into his machine.

"Well, I'd be glad to pass up the fifty to see you landed by the

Boches. You'd make a fine sight walking down the street of some

German town in those wooden shoes and pyjama pants. Why don't you

dress yourself? Don't you know an aviator's supposed to look _chic?_"

A sartorial eccentricity on the part of one of our colleagues is here

referred to.

GETTING UNDER WAY

The raillery is silenced by a deafening roar as the motors are tested.

Quiet is briefly restored, only to be broken by a series of rapid

explosions incidental to the trying out of machine guns. You loudly

inquire at what altitude we are to meet above the field.

"Fifteen hundred metres--go ahead!" comes an answering yell.

_Essence et gaz!_ [Oil and gas!] you call to your mechanician,

adjusting your gasolene and air throttles while he grips the

propeller.

_Contact!_ he shrieks, and _Contact!_ you reply. You snap on the

switch, he spins the propeller, and the motor takes. Drawing forward

out of line, you put on full power, race across the grass and take the

air. The ground drops as the hood slants up before you and you seem to

be going more and more slowly as you rise. At a great height you

hardly realize you are moving. You glance at the clock to note the

time of your departure, and at the oil gauge to see its throb. The

altimeter registers 650 feet. You turn and look back at the field

below and see others leaving.

In three minutes you are at about 4,000 feet. You have been making

wide circles over the field and watching the other machines. At 4,500

feet you throttle down and wait on that level for your companions to

catch up. Soon the escadrille is bunched and off for the lines. You

begin climbing again, gulping to clear your ears in the changing

pressure. Surveying the other machines, you recognize the pilot of

each by the marks on its side--or by the way he flies. The

distinguishing marks of the Nieuports are various and sometimes

amusing. Bert Hall, for instance, has BERT painted on the left side of

his plane and the same word reversed (as if spelled backward with the

left hand) on the right--so an aviator passing him on that side at

great speed will be able to read the name without difficulty, he says!

The country below has changed into a flat surface of varicoloured

figures. Woods are irregular blocks of dark green, like daubs of ink

spilled on a table; fields are geometrical designs of different shades

of green and brown, forming in composite an ultra-cubist painting;

roads are thin white lines, each with its distinctive windings and

crossings--from which you determine your location. The higher you are

the easier it is to read.

In about ten minutes you see the Meuse sparkling in the morning light,

and on either side the long line of sausage-shaped observation

balloons far below you. Red-roofed Verdun springs into view just

beyond. There are spots in it where no red shows and you know what has

happened there. In the green pasture land bordering the town, round

flecks of brown indicate the shell holes. You cross the Meuse.

VERDUN, SEEN FROM THE SKY

Immediately east and north of Verdun there lies a broad, brown band.

From the Woevre plain it runs westward to the "S" bend in the Meuse,

and on the left bank of that famous stream continues on into the

Argonne Forest. Peaceful fields and farms and villages adorned that

landscape a few months ago--when there was no Battle of Verdun. Now

there is only that sinister brown belt, a strip of murdered Nature. It

seems to belong to another world. Every sign of humanity has been

swept away. The woods and roads have vanished like chalk wiped from a

blackboard; of the villages nothing remains but gray smears where

stone walls have tumbled together. The great forts of Douaumont and

Vaux are outlined faintly, like the tracings of a finger in wet sand.

One cannot distinguish any one shell crater, as one can on the

pockmarked fields on either side. On the brown band the indentations

are so closely interlocked that they blend into a confused mass of

troubled earth. Of the trenches only broken, half-obliterated links

are visible.

Columns of muddy smoke spurt up continually as high explosives tear

deeper into this ulcered area. During heavy bombardment and attacks I

have seen shells falling like rain. The countless towers of smoke

remind one of Gustave Doré's picture of the fiery tombs of the

arch-heretics in Dante's "Hell." A smoky pall covers the sector under

fire, rising so high that at a height of 1,000 feet one is enveloped

in its mist-like fumes. Now and then monster projectiles hurtling

through the air close by leave one's plane rocking violently in their

wake. Airplanes have been cut in two by them.

THE ROAR OF BATTLE--UNHEARD

For us the battle passes in silence, the noise of one's motor

deadening all other sounds. In the green patches behind the brown belt

myriads of tiny flashes tell where the guns are hidden; and those

flashes, and the smoke of bursting shells, are all we see of the

fighting. It is a weird combination of stillness and havoc, the Verdun

conflict viewed from the sky.

Far below us, the observation and range-finding planes circle over the

trenches like gliding gulls. At a feeble altitude they follow the

attacking infantrymen and flash back wireless reports of the

engagement. Only through them can communication be maintained when,

under the barrier fire, wires from the front lines are cut. Sometimes

it falls to our lot to guard these machines from Germans eager to

swoop down on their backs. Sailing about high above a busy flock of

them makes one feel like an old mother hen protecting her chicks.

"NAVIGATING" IN A SEA OF CLOUDS

The pilot of an _avion de chasse_ must not concern himself with the

ground, which to him is useful only for learning his whereabouts.

The earth is all-important to the men in the observation,

artillery-regulating, and bombardment machines, but the fighting

aviator has an entirely different sphere. His domain is the blue

heavens, the glistening rolls of clouds below the fleecy banks

towering above, the vague aërial horizon, and he must watch it as

carefully as a navigator watches the storm-tossed sea.

On days when the clouds form almost a solid flooring, one feels very

much at sea, and wonders if one is in the navy instead of aviation.

The diminutive Nieuports skirt the white expanse like torpedo boats in

an arctic sea, and sometimes, far across the cloud-waves, one sights

an enemy escadrille, moving as a fleet.

Principally our work consists of keeping German airmen away from our

lines, and in attacking them when opportunity offers. We traverse the

brown band and enter enemy territory to the accompaniment of an

antiaircraft cannonade. Most of the shots are wild, however, and we

pay little attention to them. When the shrapnel comes uncomfortably

close, one shifts position slightly to evade the range. One glances up

to see if there is another machine higher than one's own. Low and far

within the German lines are several enemy planes, a dull white in

appearance, resembling sand flies against the mottled earth. High

above them one glimpses the mosquito-like forms of two Fokkers. Away

off to one side white shrapnel puffs are vaguely visible, perhaps

directed against a German crossing the lines. We approach the enemy

machines ahead, only to find them slanting at a rapid rate into their

own country. High above them lurks a protection plane. The man doing

the "ceiling work," as it is called, will look after him for us.

TACTICS OF AN AIR BATTLE

Getting started is the hardest part of an attack. Once you have begun

diving you're all right. The pilot just ahead turns tail up like a

trout dropping back to water, and swoops down in irregular curves and

circles. You follow at an angle so steep your feet seem to be holding

you back in your seat. Now the black Maltese crosses on the German's

wings stand out clearly. You think of him as some sort of big bug.

Then you hear the rapid tut-tut-tut of his machine gun. The man that

dived ahead of you becomes mixed up with the topmost German. He is so

close it looks as if he had hit the enemy machine. You hear the

staccato barking of his mitrailleuse and see him pass from under the

German's tail.

The rattle of the gun that is aimed at you leaves you undisturbed.

Only when the bullets pierce the wings a few feet off do you become

uncomfortable. You see the gunner crouched down behind his weapon,

but you aim at where the pilot ought to be--there are two men aboard

the German craft--and press on the release hard. Your mitrailleuse

hammers out a stream of bullets as you pass over and dive, nose down,

to get out of range. Then, hopefully, you re-dress and look back at

the foe. He ought to be dropping earthward at several miles a minute.

As a matter of fact, however, he is sailing serenely on. They have an

annoying habit of doing that, these Boches.

Rockwell, who attacked so often that he has lost all count, and who

shoves his machine gun fairly in the faces of the Germans, used to

swear their planes were armoured. Lieutenant de Laage, whose list of

combats is equally extensive, has brought down only one. Hall, with

three machines to his credit, has had more luck. Lufbery, who

evidently has evolved a secret formula, has dropped four, according to

official statistics, since his arrival on the Verdun front. Four

"palms"--the record for the escadrille, glitter upon the ribbon of the

_Croix de Guerre_ accompanying his _Médaille Militaire_. [Footnote:

This book was written in the fall of 1915. Since that time many

additional machines have been credited to the American flyers.]

A pilot seldom has the satisfaction of beholding the result of his

bull's-eye bullet. Rarely--so difficult it is to follow the turnings

and twistings of the dropping plane--does he see his fallen foe strike

the ground. Lufbery's last direct hit was an exception, for he

followed all that took place from a balcony seat. I myself was in the

"nigger-heaven," so I know. We had set out on a sortie together just

before noon, one August day, and for the first time on such an

occasion had lost each other over the lines. Seeing no Germans, I

passed my time hovering over the French observation machines. Lufbery

found one, however, and promptly brought it down. Just then I chanced

to make a southward turn, and caught sight of an airplane falling out

of the sky into the German lines.

As it turned over, it showed its white belly for an instant, then

seemed to straighten out, and planed downward in big zigzags. The

pilot must have gripped his controls even in death, for his craft did

not tumble as most do. It passed between my line of vision and a wood,

into which it disappeared. Just as I was going down to find out where

it landed, I saw it again skimming across a field, and heading

straight for the brown band beneath me. It was outlined against the

shell-racked earth like a tiny insect, until just northwest of Fort

Douaumont it crashed down upon the battlefield. A sheet of flame and

smoke shot up from the tangled wreckage. For a moment or two I watched

it burn; then I went back to the observation machines.

I thought Lufbery would show up and point to where the German had

fallen. He failed to appear, and I began to be afraid it was he whom I

had seen come down, instead of an enemy. I spent a worried hour

before my return homeward. After getting back I learned that Lufbery

was quite safe, having hurried in after the fight to report the

destruction of his adversary before somebody else claimed him, which

is only too frequently the case. Observation posts, however,

confirmed Lufbery's story, and he was of course very much delighted.

Nevertheless, at luncheon, I heard him murmuring, half to himself:

"Those poor fellows."

The German machine gun operator, having probably escaped death in the

air, must have had a hideous descent. Lufbery told us he had seen the

whole thing, spiralling down after the German. He said he thought the

German pilot must be a novice, judging from his manoeuvres. It

occurred to me that he might have been making his first flight over

the lines, doubtless full of enthusiasm about his career. Perhaps,

dreaming of the Iron Cross and his Gretchen, he took a chance--and

then swift death and a grave in the shell-strewn soil of Douaumont.

Generally the escadrille is relieved by another fighting unit after

two hours over the lines. We turn homeward, and soon the hangars of

our field loom up in the distance. Sometimes I've been mighty glad to

see them and not infrequently I've concluded the pleasantest part of

flying is just after a good landing. Getting home after a sortie, we

usually go into the rest tent, and talk over the morning's work. Then

some of us lie down for a nap, while others play cards or read. After

luncheon we go to the field again, and the man on guard gets his

chance to eat. If the morning sortie has been an early one, we go up

again about one o'clock in the afternoon. We are home again in two

hours and after that two or three energetic pilots may make a third

trip over the lines. The rest wait around ready to take the air if an

enemy bombardment group ventures to visit our territory--as it has

done more than once over Bar-le-Duc. False alarms are plentiful, and

we spend many hours aloft squinting at an empty sky.

PRINCE'S AËRIAL FIREWORKS

Now and then one of us will get ambitious to do something on his own

account. Not long ago Norman Prince became obsessed with the idea of

bringing down a German "sausage," as observation balloons are called.

He had a special device mounted on his Nieuport for setting fire to

the aërial frankfurters. Thus equipped he resembled an advance agent

for Payne's fireworks more than an _aviateur de chasse_. Having

carefully mapped the enemy "sausages," he would sally forth in hot

pursuit whenever one was signalled at a respectable height. Poor

Norman had a terrible time of it! Sometimes the reported "sausages"

were not there when he arrived, and sometimes there was a

super-abundancy of German airplanes on guard.

He stuck to it, however, and finally his appetite for "sausage" was

satisfied. He found one just where it ought to be, swooped down upon

it, and let off his fireworks with all the gusto of an American boy on

the Fourth of July. When he looked again, the balloon had vanished.

Prince's performance isn't so easy as it sounds, by the way. If, after

the long dive necessary to turn the trick successfully, his motor had

failed to retake, he would have fallen into the hands of the Germans.

After dark, when flying is over for the day, we go down to the villa

for dinner. Usually we have two or three French officers dining with

us besides our own captain and lieutenant, and so the table talk is a

mixture of French and English. It's seldom we discuss the war in

general. Mostly the conversation revolves about our own sphere, for

just as in the navy the sea is the favourite topic, and in the army

the trenches, so with us it is aviation. Our knowledge about the

military operations is scant. We haven't the remotest idea as to what

has taken place on the battlefield--even though we've been flying over

it during an attack--until we read the papers; and they don't tell us

much.

Frequently pilots from other escadrilles will be our guests in passing

through our sector, and through these visitations we keep in touch

with the aërial news of the day, and with our friends along the front.

Gradually we have come to know a great number of _pilotes de chasse_.

We hear that so-&-so has been killed, that some one else has brought

down a Boche and that still another is a prisoner.

We don't always talk aviation, however. In the course of dinner almost

any subject may be touched upon, and with our cosmopolitan crowd one

can readily imagine the scope of the conversation. A Burton Holmes

lecture is weak and watery compared to the travel stories we listen

to. Were O. Henry alive, he could find material for a hundred new

yarns, and William James numerous pointers for another work on

psychology, while De Quincey might multiply his dreams _ad infinitum_.

Doubtless alienists as well as fiction writers would find us worth

studying. In France there's a saying that to be an aviator one must

be a bit "off."

After dinner the same scene invariably repeats itself, over the coffee

in the "next room." At the big table several sportive souls start a

poker game, while at a smaller one two sedate spirits wrap themselves

in the intricacies of chess. Captain Thénault labours away at the

messroom piano, or in lighter mood plays with Fram, his police dog. A

phonograph grinds out the ancient query "Who Paid the Rent for Mrs.

Rip Van Winkle?" or some other ragtime ditty. It is barely nine,

however, when the movement in the direction of bed begins.

A few of us remain behind a little while, and the talk becomes more

personal and more sincere. Only on such intimate occasions, I think,

have I ever heard death discussed. Certainly we are not indifferent to

it. Not many nights ago one of the pilots remarked in a tired way:

"Know what I want? Just six months of freedom to go where and do what

I like. In that time I'd get everything I wanted out of life, and be

perfectly willing to come back and be killed."

Then another, who was about to receive 2,000 francs from the American

committee that aids us, as a reward for his many citations, chimed in.

"Well, I didn't care much before," he confessed, "but now with this

money coming in I don't want to die until I've had the fun of spending

it."

So saying, he yawned and went up to bed.