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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Flying for France, by James R. McConnell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Flying for France
+
+Author: James R. McConnell
+
+Posting Date: September 11, 2012 [EBook #6977]
+Release Date: November, 2004
+First Posted: February 19, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FLYING FOR FRANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+VERDUN TO THE SOMME
+
+
+On the 12th of October, twenty small airplanes flying in a V
+formation, at such a height they resembled a flock of geese, crossed
+the river Rhine, where it skirts the plains of Alsace, and, turning
+north, headed for the famous Mauser works at Oberndorf. Following in
+their wake was an equal number of larger machines, and above these
+darted and circled swift fighting planes. The first group of aircraft
+was flown by British pilots, the second by French and three of the
+fighting planes by Americans in the French Aviation Division. It was a
+cosmopolitan collection that effected that successful raid.
+
+We American pilots, who are grouped into one escadrille, had been
+fighting above the battlefield of Verdun from the 20th of May until
+orders came the middle of September for us to leave our airplanes, for
+a unit that would replace us, and to report at Le Bourget, the great
+Paris aviation centre.
+
+The mechanics and the rest of the personnel left, as usual, in the
+escadrille's trucks with the material. For once the pilots did not
+take the aërial route but they boarded the Paris express at Bar-le-Duc
+with all the enthusiasm of schoolboys off for a vacation. They were
+to have a week in the capital! Where they were to go after that they
+did not know, but presumed it would be the Somme. As a matter of fact
+the escadrille was to be sent to Luxeuil in the Vosges to take part in
+the Mauser raid.
+
+Besides Captain Thénault and Lieutenant de Laage de Mieux, our French
+officers, the following American pilots were in the escadrille at this
+time: Lieutenant Thaw, who had returned to the front, even though his
+wounded arm had not entirely healed; Adjutants Norman Prince, Hall,
+Lufbery, and Masson; and Sergeants Kiffin Rockwell, Hill, Pavelka,
+Johnson, and Rumsey. I had been sent to a hospital at the end of
+August, because of a lame back resulting from a smash up in landing,
+and couldn't follow the escadrille until later.
+
+Every aviation unit boasts several mascots. Dogs of every description
+are to be seen around the camps, but the Americans managed, during
+their stay in Paris, to add to their menagerie by the acquisition of a
+lion cub named "Whiskey." The little chap had been born on a boat
+crossing from Africa and was advertised for sale in France. Some of
+the American pilots chipped in and bought him. He was a cute,
+bright-eyed baby lion who tried to roar in a most threatening manner
+but who was blissfully content the moment one gave him one's finger to
+suck. "Whiskey" got a good view of Paris during the few days he was
+there, for some one in the crowd was always borrowing him to take him
+some place. He, like most lions in captivity, became acquainted with
+bars, but the sort "Whiskey" saw were not for purposes of confinement.
+
+The orders came directing the escadrille to Luxeuil and bidding
+farewell to gay "Paree" the men boarded the Belfort train with bag and
+baggage--and the lion. Lions, it developed, were not allowed in
+passenger coaches. The conductor was assured that "Whiskey" was quite
+harmless and was going to overlook the rules when the cub began to
+roar and tried to get at the railwayman's finger. That settled it, so
+two of the men had to stay behind in order to crate up "Whiskey" and
+take him along the next day.
+
+The escadrille was joined in Paris by Robert Rockwell, of Cincinnati,
+who had finished his training as a pilot, and was waiting at the
+Reserve (Robert Rockwell had gone to France to work as a surgeon in
+one of the American war hospitals. He disliked remaining in the rear
+and eventually enlisted in aviation).
+
+The period of training for a pilot, especially for one who is to fly a
+fighting machine at the front, has been very much prolonged. It is no
+longer sufficient that he learns to fly and to master various types of
+machines. He now completes his training in schools where aërial
+shooting is taught, and in others where he practises combat, group
+manoeuvres, and acrobatic stunts such as looping the loop and the more
+difficult tricks. In all it requires from seven to nine months.
+
+Dennis Dowd, of Brooklyn, N.Y., is so far the only American volunteer
+aviator killed while in training. Dowd, who had joined the Foreign
+Legion, shortly after the war broke out, was painfully wounded during
+the offensive in Champagne. After his recovery he was transferred, at
+his request, into aviation. At the Buc school he stood at the head of
+the fifteen Americans who were learning to be aviators, and was
+considered one of the most promising pilots in the training camp. On
+August 11, 1916, while making a flight preliminary to his brevet, Dowd
+fell from a height of only 260 feet and was instantly killed. Either
+he had fainted or a control had broken.
+
+While a patient at the hospital Dowd had been sent packages by a young
+French girl of Neuilly. A correspondence ensued, and when Dowd went to
+Paris on convalescent leave he and the young lady became engaged. He
+was killed just before the time set for the wedding.
+
+When the escadrille arrived at Luxeuil it found a great surprise in
+the form of a large British aviation contingent. This detachment from
+the Royal Navy Flying Corps numbered more than fifty pilots and a
+thousand men. New hangars harboured their fleet of bombardment
+machines. Their own anti-aircraft batteries were in emplacements near
+the field. Though detached from the British forces and under French
+command this unit followed the rule of His Majesty's armies in France
+by receiving all of its food and supplies from England. It had its own
+transport service.
+
+Our escadrille had been in Luxeuil during the months of April and May.
+We had made many friends amongst the townspeople and the French pilots
+stationed there, so the older members of the American unit were
+welcomed with open arms and their new comrades made to feel at home in
+the quaint Vosges town. It wasn't long, however, before the Americans
+and the British got together. At first there was a feeling of reserve
+on both sides but once acquainted they became fast friends. The naval
+pilots were quite representative of the United Kingdom hailing as they
+did from England, Canada, New South Wales, South Africa, and other
+parts of the Empire. Most of them were soldiers by profession. All
+were officers, but they were as democratic as it is possible to be. As
+a result there was a continuous exchange of dinners. In a few days
+every one in this Anglo-American alliance was calling each other by
+some nickname and swearing lifelong friendship.
+
+"We didn't know what you Yanks would be like," remarked one of the
+Englishmen one day. "Thought you might be snobby on account of being
+volunteers, but I swear you're a bloody human lot." That, I will
+explain, is a very fine compliment.
+
+There was trouble getting new airplanes for every one in the
+escadrille. Only five arrived. They were the new model Nieuport
+fighting machine. Instead of having only 140 square feet of
+supporting surface, they had 160, and the forty-seven shot Lewis
+machine gun had been replaced by the Vickers, which fires five hundred
+rounds. This gun is mounted on the hood and by means of a timing gear
+shoots through the propeller. The 160 foot Nieuport mounts at a
+terrific rate, rising to 7,000 feet in six minutes. It will go to
+20,000 feet handled by a skillful pilot.
+
+It was some time before these airplanes arrived and every one was
+idle. There was nothing to do but loaf around the hotel, where the
+American pilots were quartered, visit the British in their barracks at
+the field, or go walking. It was about as much like war as a Bryan
+lecture. While I was in the hospital I received a letter written at
+this time from one of the boys. I opened it expecting to read of an
+air combat. It informed me that Thaw had caught a trout three feet
+long, and that Lufbery had picked two baskets of mushrooms.
+
+Day after day the British planes practised formation flying. The
+regularity with which the squadron's machines would leave the ground
+was remarkable. The twenty Sopwiths took the air at precise intervals,
+flew together in a V formation while executing difficult manoeuvres,
+and landed one after the other with the exactness of clockwork. The
+French pilots flew the Farman and Breguet bombardment machines
+whenever the weather permitted. Every one knew some big bombardment
+was ahead but when it would be made or what place was to be attacked
+was a secret.
+
+Considering the number of machines that were continually roaring above
+the field at Luxeuil it is remarkable that only two fatal accidents
+occurred. One was when a British pilot tried diving at a target, for
+machine-gun practice, and was unable to redress his airplane. Both he
+and his gunner were killed. In the second accident I lost a good
+friend--a young Frenchman. He took up his gunner in a two-seated
+Nieuport. A young Canadian pilot accompanied by a French officer
+followed in a Sopwith. When at about a thousand feet they began to
+manoeuvre about one another. In making a turn too close the tips of
+their wings touched. The Nieuport turned downward, its wings folded,
+and it fell like a stone. The Sopwith fluttered a second or two, then
+its wings buckled and it dropped in the wake of the Nieuport. The two
+men in each of the planes were killed outright.
+
+Next to falling in flames a drop in a wrecked machine is the worst
+death an aviator can meet. I know of no sound more horrible than that
+made by an airplane crashing to earth. Breathless one has watched the
+uncontrolled apparatus tumble through the air. The agony felt by the
+pilot and passenger seems to transmit itself to you. You are helpless
+to avert the certain death. You cannot even turn your eyes away at the
+moment of impact. In the dull, grinding crash there is the sound of
+breaking bones.
+
+Luxeuil was an excellent place to observe the difference that exists
+between the French, English, and American aviator, but when all is
+said and done there is but little difference. The Frenchman is the
+most natural pilot and the most adroit. Flying comes easier to him
+than to an Englishman or American, but once accustomed to an airplane
+and the air they all accomplish the same amount of work. A Frenchman
+goes about it with a little more dash than the others, and puts on a
+few extra frills, but the Englishman calmly carries out his mission
+and obtains the same results. An American is a combination of the
+two, but neither better nor worse. Though there is a large number of
+expert German airmen I do not believe the average Teuton makes as good
+a flier as a Frenchman, Englishman, or American.
+
+In spite of their bombardment of open towns and the use of explosive
+bullets in their aërial machine guns, the Boches have shown up in a
+better light in aviation than in any other arm. A few of the Hun
+pilots have evinced certain elements of honor and decency. I remember
+one chap that was the right sort.
+
+He was a young man but a pilot of long standing. An old infantry
+captain stationed near his aviation field at Etain, east of Verdun,
+prevailed upon this German pilot to take him on a flight. There was a
+new machine to test out and he told the captain to climb aboard.
+Foolishly he crossed the trench lines and, actuated by a desire to
+give his passenger an interesting trip, proceeded to fly over the
+French aviation headquarters. Unfortunately for him he encountered
+three French fighting planes which promptly opened fire. The German
+pilot was wounded in the leg and the gasoline tank of his airplane was
+pierced. Under him was an aviation field. He decided to land. The
+machine was captured before the Germans had time to burn it up.
+Explosive bullets were discovered in the machine gun. A French
+officer turned to the German captain and informed him that he would
+probably be shot for using explosive bullets. The captain did not
+understand.
+
+"Don't shoot him," said the pilot, using excellent French, "if you're
+going to shoot any one take me. The captain has nothing to do with the
+bullets. He doesn't even know how to work a machine gun. It's his
+first trip in an airplane."
+
+"Well, if you'll give us some good information, we won't shoot you,"
+said the French officer.
+
+"Information," replied the German, "I can't give you any. I come from
+Etain, and you know where that is as well as I do."
+
+"No, you must give us some worth-while information, or I'm afraid
+you'll be shot," insisted the Frenchman.
+
+"If I give you worth-while information," answered the pilot, "you'll
+go over and kill a lot of soldiers, and if I don't you'll only kill
+one--so go ahead."
+
+The last time I heard of the Boche he was being well taken care of.
+
+Kiffin Rockwell and Lufbery were the first to get their new machines
+ready and on the 23rd of September went out for the first flight since
+the escadrille had arrived at Luxeuil. They became separated in the
+air but each flew on alone, which was a dangerous thing to do in the
+Alsace sector. There is but little fighting in the trenches there, but
+great air activity. Due to the British and French squadrons at
+Luxeuil, and the threat their presence implied, the Germans had to
+oppose them by a large fleet of fighting machines. I believe there
+were more than forty Fokkers alone in the camps of Colmar and
+Habsheim. Observation machines protected by two or three fighting
+planes would venture far into our lines. It is something the Germans
+dare not do on any other part of the front. They had a special trick
+that consisted in sending a large, slow observation machine into our
+lines to invite attack. When a French plane would dive after it, two
+Fokkers, that had been hovering high overhead, would drop on the tail
+of the Frenchman and he stood but small chance if caught in the trap.
+
+Just before Kiffin Rockwell reached the lines he spied a German
+machine under him flying at 11,000 feet. I can imagine the
+satisfaction he felt in at last catching an enemy plane in our lines.
+Rockwell had fought more combats than the rest of us put together, and
+had shot down many German machines that had fallen in their lines, but
+this was the first time he had had an opportunity of bringing down a
+Boche in our territory.
+
+A captain, the commandant of an Alsatian village, watched the aërial
+battle through his field glasses. He said that Rockwell approached so
+close to the enemy that he thought there would be a collision. The
+German craft, which carried two machine guns, had opened a rapid fire
+when Rockwell started his dive. He plunged through the stream of lead
+and only when very close to his enemy did he begin shooting. For a
+second it looked as though the German was falling, so the captain
+said, but then he saw the French machine turn rapidly nose down, the
+wings of one side broke off and fluttered in the wake of the airplane,
+which hurtled earthward in a rapid drop. It crashed into the ground in
+a small field--a field of flowers--a few hundred yards back of the
+trenches. It was not more than two and a half miles from the spot
+where Rockwell, in the month of May, brought down his first enemy
+machine. The Germans immediately opened up on the wreck with
+artillery fire. In spite of the bursting shrapnel, gunners from a
+near-by battery rushed out and recovered poor Rockwell's broken body.
+There was a hideous wound in his breast where an explosive bullet had
+torn through. A surgeon who examined the body, testified that if it
+had been an ordinary bullet Rockwell would have had an even chance of
+landing with only a bad wound. As it was he was killed the instant the
+unlawful missile exploded.
+
+Lufbery engaged a German craft but before he could get to close range
+two Fokkers swooped down from behind and filled his aeroplane full of
+holes. Exhausting his ammunition he landed at Fontaine, an aviation
+field near the lines. There he learned of Rockwell's death and was
+told that two other French machines had been brought down within the
+hour. He ordered his gasoline tank filled, procured a full band of
+cartridges and soared up into the air to avenge his comrade. He sped
+up and down the lines, and made a wide détour to Habsheim where the
+Germans have an aviation field, but all to no avail. Not a Boche was
+in the air.
+
+The news of Rockwell's death was telephoned to the escadrille. The
+captain, lieutenant, and a couple of men jumped in a staff car and
+hastened to where he had fallen. On their return the American pilots
+were convened in a room of the hotel and the news was broken to them.
+With tears in his eyes the captain said: "The best and bravest of us
+all is no more."
+
+No greater blow could have befallen the escadrille. Kiffin was its
+soul. He was loved and looked up to by not only every man in our
+flying corps but by every one who knew him. Kiffin was imbued with the
+spirit of the cause for which he fought and gave his heart and soul to
+the performance of his duty. He said: "I pay my part for Lafayette
+and Rochambeau," and he gave the fullest measure. The old flame of
+chivalry burned brightly in this boy's fine and sensitive being. With
+his death France lost one of her most valuable pilots. When he was
+over the lines the Germans did not pass--and he was over them most of
+the time. He brought down four enemy planes that were credited to him
+officially, and Lieutenant de Laage, who was his fighting partner,
+says he is convinced that Rockwell accounted for many others which
+fell too far within the German lines to be observed. Rockwell had been
+given the Médaille Militaire and the Croix de Guerre, on the ribbon of
+which he wore four palms, representing the four magnificent citations
+he had received in the order of the army. As a further reward for his
+excellent work he had been proposed for promotion from the grade of
+sergeant to that of second lieutenant. Unfortunately the official
+order did not arrive until a few days following his death.
+
+The night before Rockwell was killed he had stated that if he were
+brought down he would like to be buried where he fell. It was
+impossible, however, to place him in a grave so near the trenches. His
+body was draped in a French flag and brought back to Luxeuil. He was
+given a funeral worthy of a general. His brother, Paul, who had
+fought in the Legion with him, and who had been rendered unfit for
+service by a wound, was granted permission to attend the obsequies.
+Pilots from all near-by camps flew over to render homage to Rockwell's
+remains. Every Frenchman in the aviation at Luxeuil marched behind
+the bier. The British pilots, followed by a detachment of five
+hundred of their men, were in line, and a battalion of French troops
+brought up the rear. As the slow moving procession of blue and
+khaki-clad men passed from the church to the graveyard, airplanes
+circled at a feeble height above and showered down myriads of flowers.
+
+Rockwell's death urged the rest of the men to greater action, and the
+few who had machines were constantly after the Boches. Prince brought
+one down. Lufbery, the most skillful and successful fighter in the
+escadrille, would venture far into the enemy's lines and spiral down
+over a German aviation camp, daring the pilots to venture forth. One
+day he stirred them up, but as he was short of fuel he had to make for
+home before they took to the air. Prince was out in search of a combat
+at this time. He got it. He ran into the crowd Lufbery had aroused.
+Bullets cut into his machine and one exploding on the front edge of a
+lower wing broke it. Another shattered a supporting mast. It was a
+miracle that the machine did not give way. As badly battered as it was
+Prince succeeded in bringing it back from over Mulhouse, where the
+fight occurred, to his field at Luxeuil.
+
+The same day that Prince was so nearly brought down Lufbery missed
+death by a very small margin. He had taken on more gasoline and made
+another sortie. When over the lines again he encountered a German with
+whom he had a fighting acquaintance. That is he and the Boche, who
+was an excellent pilot, had tried to kill each other on one or two
+occasions before. Each was too good for the other. Lufbery manoeuvred
+for position but, before he could shoot, the Teuton would evade him by
+a clever turn. They kept after one another, the Boche retreating into
+his lines. When they were nearing Habsheim, Lufbery glanced back and
+saw French shrapnel bursting over the trenches. It meant a German
+plane was over French territory and it was his duty to drive it off.
+Swooping down near his adversary he waved good-bye, the enemy pilot
+did likewise, and Lufbery whirred off to chase the other
+representative of Kultur. He caught up with him and dove to the
+attack, but he was surprised by a German he had not seen. Before he
+could escape three bullets entered his motor, two passed through the
+fur-lined combination he wore, another ripped open one of his woolen
+flying boots, his airplane was riddled from wing tip to wing tip, and
+other bullets cut the elevating plane. Had he not been an exceptional
+aviator he never would have brought safely to earth so badly damaged a
+machine. It was so thoroughly shot up that it was junked as being
+beyond repairs. Fortunately Lufbery was over French territory or his
+forced descent would have resulted in his being made prisoner.
+
+I know of only one other airplane that was safely landed after
+receiving as heavy punishment as did Lufbery's. It was a two-place
+Nieuport piloted by a young Frenchman named Fontaine with whom I
+trained. He and his gunner attacked a German over the Bois le Pretre
+who dove rapidly far into his lines. Fontaine followed and in turn was
+attacked by three other Boches. He dropped to escape, they plunged
+after him forcing him lower. He looked and saw a German aviation field
+under him. He was by this time only 2,000 feet above the ground.
+Fontaine saw the mechanics rush out to grasp him, thinking he would
+land. The attacking airplanes had stopped shooting. Fontaine pulled on
+full power and headed for the lines. The German planes dropped down on
+him and again opened fire. They were on his level, behind and on his
+sides. Bullets whistled by him in streams. The rapid-fire gun on
+Fontaine's machine had jammed and he was helpless. His gunner fell
+forward on him, dead. The trenches were just ahead, but as he was
+slanting downward to gain speed he had lost a good deal of height, and
+was at only six hundred feet when he crossed the lines, from which he
+received a ground fire. The Germans gave up the chase and Fontaine
+landed with his dead gunner. His wings were so full of holes that they
+barely supported the machine in the air.
+
+The uncertain wait at Luxeuil finally came to an end on the 12th of
+October. The afternoon of that day the British did not say: "Come on
+Yanks, let's call off the war and have tea," as was their wont, for
+the bombardment of Oberndorf was on. The British and French machines
+had been prepared. Just before climbing into their airplanes the
+pilots were given their orders. The English in their single-seated
+Sopwiths, which carried four bombs each, were the first to leave. The
+big French Brequets and Farmans then soared aloft with their tons of
+explosive destined for the Mauser works. The fighting machines, which
+were to convoy them as far as the Rhine, rapidly gained their height
+and circled above their charges. Four of the battleplanes were from
+the American escadrille. They were piloted respectively by Lieutenant
+de Laage, Lufbery, Norman Prince, and Masson.
+
+The Germans were taken by surprise and as a result few of their
+machines were in the air. The bombardment fleet was attacked, however,
+and six of its planes shot down, some of them falling in flames.
+Baron, the famous French night bombarder, lost his life in one of the
+Farmans. Two Germans were brought down by machines they attacked and
+the four pilots from the American escadrille accounted for one each.
+Lieutenant de Laage shot down his Boche as it was attacking another
+French machine and Masson did likewise. Explaining it afterward he
+said: "All of a sudden I saw a Boche come in between me and a Breguet
+I was following. I just began to shoot, and darned if he didn't fall."
+
+As the fuel capacity of a Nieuport allows but little more than two
+hours in the air the _avions de chasse_ were forced to return to their
+own lines to take on more gasoline, while the bombardment planes
+continued on into Germany. The Sopwiths arrived first at Oberndorf.
+Dropping low over the Mauser works they discharged their bombs and
+headed homeward. All arrived, save one, whose pilot lost his way and
+came to earth in Switzerland. When the big machines got to Oberndorf
+they saw only flames and smoke where once the rifle factory stood.
+They unloaded their explosives on the burning mass.
+
+The Nieuports having refilled their tanks went up to clear the air of
+Germans that might be hovering in wait for the returning raiders.
+Prince found one and promptly shot it down. Lufbery came upon three.
+He drove for one, making it drop below the others, then forcing a
+second to descend, attacked the one remaining above. The combat was
+short and at the end of it the German tumbled to earth. This made the
+fifth enemy machine which was officially credited to Lufbery. When a
+pilot has accounted for five Boches he is mentioned by name in the
+official communication, and is spoken of as an "Ace," which in French
+aërial slang means a super-pilot. Papers are allowed to call an "ace"
+by name, print his picture and give him a write-up. The successful
+aviator becomes a national hero. When Lufbery worked into this
+category the French papers made him a head liner. The American "Ace,"
+with his string of medals, then came in for the ennuis of a matinee
+idol. The choicest bit in the collection was a letter from
+Wallingford, Conn., his home town, thanking him for putting it on the
+map.
+
+Darkness was coming rapidly on but Prince and Lufbery remained in the
+air to protect the bombardment fleet. Just at nightfall Lufbery made
+for a small aviation field near the lines, known as Corcieux.
+Slow-moving machines, with great planing capacity, can be landed in
+the dark, but to try and feel for the ground in a Nieuport, which
+comes down at about a hundred miles an hour, is to court disaster. Ten
+minutes after Lufbery landed Prince decided to make for the field. He
+spiraled down through the night air and skimmed rapidly over the trees
+bordering the Corcieux field. In the dark he did not see a
+high-tension electric cable that was stretched just above the tree
+tops. The landing gear of his airplane struck it. The machine snapped
+forward and hit the ground on its nose. It turned over and over. The
+belt holding Prince broke and he was thrown far from the wrecked
+plane. Both of his legs were broken and he naturally suffered internal
+injuries. In spite of the terrific shock and his intense pain Prince
+did not lose consciousness. He even kept his presence of mind and
+gave orders to the men who had run to pick him up. Hearing the hum of
+a motor, and realizing a machine was in the air, Prince told them to
+light gasoline fires on the field. "You don't want another fellow to
+come down and break himself up the way I've done," he said.
+
+Lufbery went with Prince to the hospital in Gerardmer. As the
+ambulance rolled along Prince sang to keep up his spirits. He spoke of
+getting well soon and returning to service. It was like Norman. He
+was always energetic about his flying. Even when he passed through
+the harrowing experience of having a wing shattered, the first thing
+he did on landing was to busy himself about getting another fitted in
+place and the next morning he was in the air again.
+
+No one thought that Prince was mortally injured but the next day he
+went into a coma. A blood clot had formed on his brain. Captain Haff
+in command of the aviation groups of Luxeuil, accompanied by our
+officers, hastened to Gerardmer. Prince lying unconscious on his bed,
+was named a second lieutenant and decorated with the Legion of Honor.
+He already held the Médaille Militaire and Croix de Guerre. Norman
+Prince died on the 15th of October. He was brought back to Luxeuil and
+given a funeral similar to Rockwell's. It was hard to realize that
+poor old Norman had gone. He was the founder of the American
+escadrille and every one in it had come to rely on him. He never let
+his own spirits drop, and was always on hand with encouragement for
+the others. I do not think Prince minded going. He wanted to do his
+part before being killed, and he had more than done it. He had, day
+after day, freed the line of Germans, making it impossible for them to
+do their work, and three of them he had shot to earth.
+
+Two days after Prince's death the escadrille received orders to leave
+for the Somme. The night before the departure the British gave the
+American pilots a farewell banquet and toasted them as their "Guardian
+Angels." They keenly appreciated the fact that four men from the
+American escadrille had brought down four Germans, and had cleared the
+way for their squadron returning from Oberndorf. When the train pulled
+out the next day the station platform was packed by khaki-clad pilots
+waving good-bye to their friends the "Yanks."
+
+The escadrille passed through Paris on its way to the Somme front. The
+few members who had machines flew from Luxeuil to their new post. At
+Paris the pilots were reënforced by three other American boys who had
+completed their training. They were: Fred Prince, who ten months
+before had come over from Boston to serve in aviation with his brother
+Norman; Willis Haviland, of Chicago, who left the American Ambulance
+for the life of a birdman, and Bob Soubrian, of New York, who had been
+transferred from the Foreign Legion to the flying corps after being
+wounded in the Champagne offensive.
+
+Before its arrival in the Somme the escadrille had always been
+quartered in towns and the life of the pilots was all that could be
+desired in the way of comforts. We had, as a result, come to believe
+that we would wage only a de luxe war, and were unprepared for any
+other sort of campaign. The introduction to the Somme was a rude
+awakening. Instead of being quartered in a villa or hotel, the pilots
+were directed to a portable barracks newly erected in a sea of mud.
+
+It was set in a cluster of similar barns nine miles from the nearest
+town. A sieve was a watertight compartment in comparison with that
+elongated shed. The damp cold penetrated through every crack, chilling
+one to the bone. There were no blankets and until they were procured
+the pilots had to curl up in their flying clothes. There were no
+arrangements for cooking and the Americans depended on the other
+escadrilles for food. Eight fighting units were located at the same
+field and our ever-generous French comrades saw to it that no one went
+hungry. The thick mist, for which the Somme is famous, hung like a
+pall over the birdmen's nest dampening both the clothes and spirits of
+the men.
+
+Something had to be done, so Thaw and Masson, who is our _Chef de
+Popote_ (President of the Mess) obtained permission to go to Paris in
+one of our light trucks. They returned with cooking utensils, a stove,
+and other necessary things. All hands set to work and as a result life
+was made bearable. In fact I was surprised to find the quarters as
+good as they were when I rejoined the escadrille a couple of weeks
+after its arrival in the Somme. Outside of the cold, mud, and dampness
+it wasn't so bad. The barracks had been partitioned off into little
+rooms leaving a large space for a dining hall. The stove is set up
+there and all animate life from the lion cub to the pilots centre
+around its warming glow.
+
+The eight escadrilles of fighting machines form a rather interesting
+colony. The large canvas hangars are surrounded by the house tents of
+their respective escadrilles; wooden barracks for the men and pilots
+are in close proximity, and sandwiched in between the encampments of
+the various units are the tents where the commanding officers hold
+forth. In addition there is a bath house where one may go and freeze
+while a tiny stream of hot water trickles down one's shivering form.
+Another shack houses the power plant which generates electric light
+for the tents and barracks, and in one very popular canvas is located
+the community bar, the profits from which go to the Red Cross.
+
+We had never before been grouped with as many other fighting
+escadrilles, nor at a field so near the front. We sensed the war to
+better advantage than at Luxeuil or Bar-le-Duc. When there is
+activity on the lines the rumble of heavy artillery reaches us in a
+heavy volume of sound. From the field one can see the line of
+sausage-shaped observation balloons, which delineate the front, and
+beyond them the high-flying airplanes, darting like swallows in the
+shrapnel puffs of anti-air-craft fire. The roar of motors that are
+being tested, is punctuated by the staccato barking of machine guns,
+and at intervals the hollow whistling sound of a fast plane diving to
+earth is added to this symphony of war notes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PERSONAL LETTERS FROM SERGEANT McCONNELL--AT THE FRONT
+
+
+We're still waiting for our machines. In the meantime the Boches sail
+gaily over and drop bombs. One of our drivers has been killed and five
+wounded so far but we'll put a stop to it soon. The machines have
+left and are due to-day.
+
+You ask me what my work will be and how my machine is armed. First of
+all I mount an _avion de chasse_ and am supposed to shoot down Boches
+or keep them away from over our lines. I do not do observation, or
+regulating of artillery fire. These are handled by escadrilles
+equipped with bigger machines. I mount at daybreak over the lines;
+stay at from 11,000 to 15,000 feet and wait for the sight of an enemy
+plane. It may be a bombardment machine, a regulator of fire, an
+observer, or an _avion de chasse_ looking for me. Whatever she is I
+make for her and manoeuvre for position. All the machines carry
+different gun positions and one seeks the blind side. Having obtained
+the proper position one turns down or up, whichever the case may be,
+and, when within fifty yards, opens up with the machine gun. That is
+on the upper plane and it is sighted by a series of holes and cross
+webs. As one is passing at a terrific rate there is not time for many
+shots, so, unless wounded or one's machine is injured by the first
+try--for the enemy plane shoots, too--one tries it again and again
+until there's nothing doing or the other fellow is dropped. Apart from
+work over the lines, which is comparatively calm, there is the job of
+convoying bombardment machines. That is the rotten task. The captain
+has called on us to act as guards on the next trip. You see we are
+like torpedo boats of the air with our swift machines.
+
+We have the honour of being attached to a bombardment squadron that is
+the most famous in the French Army. The captain of the unit once lost
+his whole escadrille, and on the last trip eight lost their lives. It
+was a wonderful fight. The squadron was attacked by thirty-three
+Boches. Two French planes crashed to earth--then two German; another
+German was set on fire and streaked down, followed by a streaming
+column of smoke. Another Frenchman fell; another German; and then a
+French lieutenant, mortally wounded and realizing that he was dying,
+plunged his airplane into a German below him and both fell to earth
+like stones.
+
+The tours of Alsace and the Vosges that we have made, to look over
+possible landing places, were wonderful. I've never seen such
+ravishing sights, and in regarding the beauty of the country I have
+missed noting the landing places. The valleys are marvellous. On each
+side the mountain slopes are a solid mass of giant pines and down
+these avenues of green tumble myriads of glittering cascades which
+form into sparkling streams beneath. It is a pleasant feeling to go
+into Alsace and realize that one is touring over country we have taken
+from the Germans. It's a treat to go by auto that way. In the air, you
+know, one feels detached from all below. It's a different world, that
+has no particular meaning, and besides, it all looks flat and of a
+weary pattern.
+
+
+THE FIRST TRIP
+
+Well, I've made my first trip over the lines and proved a few things
+to myself. First, I can stand high altitudes. I had never been higher
+than 7,000 feet before, nor had I flown more than an hour. On my trip
+to Germany I went to 14,000 feet and was in the air for two hours. I
+wore the fur head-to-foot combination they give one and paper gloves
+under the fur ones you sent me. I was not cold. In a way it seemed
+amusing to be going out knowing as little as I do. My mitrailleuse
+had been mounted the night before. I had never fired it, nor did I
+know the country at all even though I'd motored along our lines. I
+followed the others or I surely should have been lost. I shall have to
+make special trips to study the land and be able to make it out from
+my map which I carry on board. For one thing the weather was hazy and
+clouds obscured the view.
+
+We left en escadrille, at 30-second intervals, at 6:30 A.M. I'd been
+on guard since three, waiting for an enemy plane. I climbed to 3,500
+feet in four minutes and so started off higher than the rest. I lost
+them immediately but took a compass course in the direction we were
+headed. Clouds were below me and I could see the earth only in spots.
+Ahead was a great barrier of clouds and fog. It seemed like a
+limitless ocean. To the south the Alps jutted up through the clouds
+and glistened like icebergs in the morning sun. I began to feel
+completely lost. I was at 7,000 feet and that was all I knew. Suddenly
+I saw a little black speck pop out of a cloud to my left--then two
+others. They were our machines and from then on I never let them get
+out of my sight. I went to 14,000 in order to be able to keep them
+well in view below me. We went over Belfort which I recognized, and,
+turning, went toward the lines. The clouds had dispersed by this time.
+Alsace was below us and in the distance I could see the straight
+course of the Rhine. It looked very small. I looked down and saw the
+trenches and when I next looked for our machines I saw clusters of
+smoke puffs. We were being fired at. One machine just under me seemed
+to be in the centre of a lot of shrapnel. The puffs were white, or
+black, or green, depending on the size of the shell used. It struck me
+as more amusing than anything else to watch the explosions and smoke.
+I thought of what a lot of money we were making the Germans spend. It
+is not often that they hit. The day before one of our machines had a
+part of the tail shot away and the propeller nicked, but that's just
+bum luck. Two shells went off just at my height and in a way that led
+me to think that the third one would get me; but it didn't. It's hard
+even for the aviator to tell how far off they are. We went over
+Mulhouse and to the north. Then we sailed south and turned over the
+lines on the way home. I was very tired after the flight but it was
+because I was not used to it and it was a strain on me keeping a
+look-out for the others.
+
+
+AT VERDUN
+
+To-day the army moving picture outfit took pictures of us. We had a
+big show. Thirty bombardment planes went off like clock-work and we
+followed. We circled and swooped down by the camera. We were taken in
+groups, then individually, in flying togs, and God knows what-all.
+They will be shown in the States.
+
+If you happen to see them you will recognize my machine by the MAC,
+painted on the side.
+
+Seems quite an important thing to have one's own airplane with two
+mechanics to take care of it, to help one dress for flights, and to
+obey orders. A pilot of no matter what grade is like an officer in any
+other arm.
+
+We didn't see any Boche planes on our trip. We were too many. The only
+way to do is to sneak up on them.
+
+I do not get a chance to see much of the biggest battle in the world
+which is being fought here, for I'm on a fighting machine and the sky
+is my province. We fly so high that ground details are lacking. Where
+the battle has raged there is a broad, browned band. It is a great
+strip of murdered Nature. Trees, houses, and even roads have been
+blasted completely away. The shell holes are so numerous that they
+blend into one another and cannot be separately seen. It looks as if
+shells fell by the thousand every second. There are spurts of smoke at
+nearly every foot of the brown areas and a thick pall of mist covers
+it all. There are but holes where the trenches ran, and when one
+thinks of the poor devils crouching in their inadequate shelters under
+such a hurricane of flying metal, it increases one's respect for the
+staying powers of modern man. It's terrible to watch, and I feel sad
+every time I look down. The only shooting we hear is the tut-tut-tut
+of our own or enemy plane's machine guns when fighting is at close
+quarters. The Germans shoot explosive bullets from theirs. I must
+admit that they have an excellent air fleet even if they do not fight
+decently.
+
+I'm a sergeant now--_sergent_ in French--and I get about two francs
+more a day and wear a gold band on my cap, which makes old
+territorials think I'm an officer and occasions salutes which are some
+bother.
+
+
+A SORTIE
+
+We made a foolish sortie this morning. Only five of us went, the
+others remaining in bed thinking the weather was too bad. It was. When
+at only 3,000 feet we hit a solid layer of clouds, and when we had
+passed through, we couldn't see anything but a shimmering field of
+white. Above were the bright sun and the blue sky, but how we were in
+regard to the earth no one knew. Fortunately the clouds had a big
+hole in them at one point and the whole mass was moving toward the
+lines. By circling, climbing, and dropping we stayed above the hole,
+and, when over the trenches, worked into it, ready to fall on the
+Boches. It's a stunt they use, too. We finally found ourselves 20
+kilometres in the German lines. In coming back I steered by compass
+and then when I thought I was near the field I dived and found myself
+not so far off, having the field in view. In the clouds it shakes
+terribly and one feels as if one were in a canoe on a rough sea.
+
+
+VICTOR CHAPMAN
+
+I was mighty sorry to see old Victor Chapman go. He was one of the
+finest men I've ever known. He was _too_ brave if anything. He was
+exceptionally well educated, had a fine brain, and a heart as big as a
+house. Why, on the day of his fatal trip, he had put oranges in his
+machine to take to Balsley who was lying wounded with an explosive
+bullet. He was going to land near the hospital after the sortie.
+
+Received letter inclosing note from Chapman's father. I'm glad you
+wrote him. I feel sure that some of my letters never reach you. I
+never let more than a week go by without writing. Maybe I do not get
+all yours, either.
+
+
+A SMASH-UP
+
+Weather has been fine and we've been doing a lot of work. Our
+Lieutenant de Laage de Mieux, brought down a Boche. I had another
+beautiful smash-up. Prince and I had stayed too long over the lines.
+Important day as an attack was going on. It was getting dark and we
+could see the tiny balls of fire the infantry light to show the
+low-flying observation machines their new positions. On my return,
+when I was over another aviation field, my motor broke. I made for
+field. In the darkness I couldn't judge my distance well, and went too
+far. At the edge of the field there were trees, and beyond, a deep cut
+where a road ran. I was skimming ground at a hundred miles an hour and
+heading for the trees. I saw soldiers running to be in at the finish
+and I thought to myself that James's hash was cooked, but I went
+between two trees and ended up head on against the opposite bank of
+the road. My motor took the shock and my belt held me. As my tail went
+up it was cut in two by some very low 'phone wires. I wasn't even
+bruised. Took dinner with the officers there who gave me a car to go
+home in afterward.
+
+
+FIGHTING A BOCHE
+
+To-day I shared another chap's machine (Hill of Peekskill), and got it
+shot up for him. De Laage (our lieutenant) and I made a sortie at
+noon. When over the German lines, near _Côte_ 304, I saw two Boches
+under me. I picked out the rear chap and dived. Fired a few shots and
+then tried to get under his tail and hit him from there. I missed, and
+bobbed up alongside of him. Fine for the Boche, but rotten for me! I
+could see his gunner working the mitrailleuse for fair, and felt his
+bullets darn close. I dived, for I could not shoot from that
+position, and beat it. He kept plunking away and altogether put seven
+holes in my machine. One was only ten inches in from me. De Laage was
+too far off to get to the Boche and ruin him while I was amusing him.
+
+Yesterday I motored up to an aviation camp to see a Boche machine that
+had been forced to land and was captured. On the way up I passed a
+cantonment of Senegalese. About twenty of 'em jumped up from the bench
+they were sitting on and gave me the hell of a salute. Thought I was a
+general because I was riding in a car, I guess. They're the blackest
+niggers you ever saw. Good-looking soldiers. Can't stand shelling but
+they're good on the cold steel end of the game. The Boche machine was
+a beauty. Its motor is excellent and she carries a machine gun aft and
+one forward. Same kind of a machine I attacked to-day. The German
+pilots must be mighty cold-footed, for if the Frenchmen had airplanes
+like that they surely would raise the devil with the Boches.
+
+As it is the Boches keep well within their lines, save occasionally,
+and we have to go over and fight them there.
+
+
+KIFFIN ROCKWELL
+
+Poor Kiffin Rockwell has been killed. He was known and admired far
+and wide, and he was accorded extraordinary honours. Fifty English
+pilots and eight hundred aviation men from the British unit in the
+Vosges marched at his funeral. There was a regiment of Territorials
+and a battalion of Colonial troops in addition to the hundreds of
+French pilots and aviation men. Captain Thénault of the American
+Escadrille delivered an exceptionally eulogistic funeral oration. He
+spoke at length of Rockwell's ideals and his magnificent work. He told
+of his combats. "When Rockwell was on the lines," he said, "no German
+passed, but on the contrary was forced to seek a refuge on the
+ground."
+
+Rockwell made the _esprit_ of the escadrille, and the Captain voiced
+the sentiments of us all when, in announcing his death, he said: "The
+best and bravest of us all is no more."
+
+How does the war look to you--as regards duration? We are figuring on
+about ten more months, but then it may be ten more years. Of late
+things are much brighter and one can feel a certain elation in the
+air. Victory, before, was a sort of academic certainty; now, it's
+felt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+HOW FRANCE TRAINS PILOT AVIATORS
+
+
+France now has thousands of men training to become military aviators,
+and the flying schools, of which there is a very great number, are
+turning out pilots at an astounding rate.
+
+The process of training a man to be a pilot aviator naturally varies
+in accordance with the type of machine on which he takes his first
+instruction, and so the methods of the various schools depend on the
+apparatus upon which they teach an _élève pilote_--as an embryonic
+aviator is called--to fly.
+
+In the case of the larger biplanes, a student goes up in a
+dual-control airplane, accompanied by an old pilot, who, after first
+taking him on many short trips, then allows him part, and later full,
+control, and who immediately corrects any false moves made by him.
+After that, short, straight line flights are made alone in a
+smaller-powered machine by the student, and, following that, the
+training goes on by degrees to the point where a certain mastery of
+the apparatus is attained. Then follows the prescribed "stunts" and
+voyages necessary to obtain the military brevet.
+
+
+TRAINING FOR PURSUIT AIRPLANES
+
+The method of training a pilot for a small, fast _avion de chasse_, as
+a fighting airplane is termed, is quite different, and as it is the
+most thorough and interesting I will take that course up in greater
+detail.
+
+The man who trains for one of these machines never has the advantage
+of going first into the air in a double-control airplane. He is alone
+when he first leaves the earth, and so the training preparatory to
+that stage is very carefully planned to teach a man the habit of
+control in such a way that all the essential movements will come
+naturally when he first finds himself face to face with the new
+problems the air has set for him. In this preparatory training a great
+deal of weeding out is effected, for a man's aptitude for the work
+shows up, and unless he is by nature especially well fitted he is
+transferred to the division which teaches one to fly the larger and
+safer machines.
+
+First of all, the student is put on what is called a roller. It is a
+low-powered machine with very small wings. It is strongly built to
+stand the rough wear it gets, and no matter how much one might try it
+could not leave the ground. The apparatus is jokingly and universally
+known as a Penguin, both because of its humorous resemblance to the
+quaint arctic birds and its inability in common with them to do any
+flying. A student makes a few trips up and down the field in a
+double-control Penguin, and learns how to steer with his feet. Then he
+gets into a single-seated one and, while the rapidly whirling
+propeller is pulling him along, tries to keep the Penguin in a
+straight line. The slightest mistake or delayed movement will send the
+machine skidding off to the right or left, and sometimes, if the motor
+is not stopped in time, over on its side or back. Something is always
+being broken on a Penguin, and so a reserve flock is kept at the side
+of the field in order that no time may be lost.
+
+After one is able to keep a fairly straight line, he is put on a
+Penguin that moves at a faster rate, and after being able to handle it
+successfully passes to a very speedy one, known as the "rapid." Here
+one learns to keep the tail of the machine at a proper angle by means
+of the elevating lever, and to make a perfectly straight line. When
+this has been accomplished and the monitor is thoroughly convinced
+that the student is absolutely certain of making no mistakes in
+guiding with his feet, the young aviator is passed on to the class
+which teaches him how to leave the ground. As one passes from one
+machine to another one finds that the foot movements must be made
+smaller and smaller. The increased speed makes the machine more and
+more responsive to the rudder, and as a result the foot movements
+become so gentle when one gets into the air that they must come
+instinctively.
+
+
+FIRST FLIGHTS ALONE
+
+The class where one will leave the ground has now been reached, and an
+outfit of leather clothes and casque is given to the would-be pilot.
+The machines used at this stage are low-powered monoplanes of the
+Blériot type, which, though being capable of leaving the ground,
+cannot rise more than a few feet. They do not run when the wind is
+blowing or when there are any movements of air from the ground, for
+though a great deal of balancing is done by correcting with the
+rudder, the student knows nothing of maintaining the lateral
+stability, and if caught in the air by a bad movement would be apt to
+sustain a severe accident. He has now only to learn how to take the
+machine off the ground and hold it at a low line of flight for a few
+moments.
+
+For the first time one is strapped into the seat of the machine, and
+this continues to be the case from this point on. The motor is
+started, and one begins to roll swiftly along the ground. The tail is
+brought to an angle slightly above a straight line. Then one sits
+tight and waits. Suddenly the motion seems softer, the motor does not
+roar so loudly, and the ground is slipping away. The class standing at
+the end of the line looks far below; the individuals are very small,
+but though you imagine you are going too high, you must not push to go
+down more than the smallest fraction, or the machine will dive and
+smash. The small push has brought you down with a bump from a
+seemingly great height. In reality you have been but three feet off
+the ground. Little by little the student becomes accustomed to leaving
+the ground, for these short hop-skip-and-jump flights, and has learned
+how to steer in the air.
+
+If he has no bad smash-ups he is passed on to a class where he rises
+higher, and is taught the rudiments of landing. If, after a few days,
+that act is reasonably performed and the young pilot does not land too
+hard, he is passed to the class where he goes about sixty feet high,
+maintains his line of flight for five or six minutes and learns to
+make a good landing from that height. He must by this time be able to
+keep his machine on the line of flight without dipping and rising, and
+the landings must be uniformly good. The instructor takes a great deal
+of time showing the student the proper line of descent, for the
+landings must be perfect before he can pass on.
+
+Now comes the class where the pilot rises three or four hundred feet
+high and travels for more than two miles in a straight line. Here he
+is taught how to combat air movements and maintain lateral stability.
+All the flying up to this point has been done in a straight line, but
+now comes the class where one is taught to turn. Machines in this
+division are almost as high powered as a regular flying machine, and
+can easily climb to two thousand feet. The turn is at first very wide,
+and then, as the student becomes more confident, it is done more
+quickly, and while the machine leans at an angle that would frighten
+one if the training in turning had not been gradual. When the pilot
+can make reasonably close right and left turns, he is told to make
+figure eights. After doing this well he is sent to the real flying
+machines.
+
+There is nothing in the way of a radical step from the turns and
+figure eights to the real flying machines. It is a question of
+becoming at ease in the better and faster airplanes taking greater
+altitudes, making little trips, perfecting landings, and mastering all
+the movements of correction that one is forced to make. Finally one is
+taught how to shut off and start one's motor again in the air, and
+then to go to a certain height, shut off the motor, make a half-turn
+while dropping and start the motor again. After this, one climbs to
+about two thousand feet and, shutting off the motor, spirals down to
+within five hundred feet of the ground. When that has been practised
+sufficiently, a registering altitude meter is strapped to the pilot's
+back and he essays the official spiral, in which one must spiral all
+the way to earth with the motor off, and come to a stop within a few
+yards of a fixed point on the aviation grounds. After this, the
+student passes to the voyage machines, which are of almost twice the
+power of the machine used for the short trips and spirals.
+
+
+TESTS FOR THE MILITARY BREVET
+
+There are three voyages to make. Two consist in going to designated
+towns an hour or so distant and returning. The third voyage is a
+triangle. A landing is made at one point and the other two points are
+only necessary to cross. In addition, there are two altitudes of about
+seven thousand feet each that one has to attain either while on the
+voyages or afterward.
+
+The young pilot has not, up to this point, had any experience on
+trips, and there is always a sense of adventure in starting out over
+unknown country with only a roller map to guide one and the gauges and
+controls, which need constant attention, to distract one from the
+reading of the chart. Then, too, it is the first time that the student
+has flown free and at a great height over the earth, and his sense of
+exultation at navigating at will the boundless sky causes him to
+imagine he is a real pilot. True it is that when the voyages and
+altitudes are over, and his examinations in aeronautical sciences
+passed, the student becomes officially a _pilote-aviateur_, and he can
+wear two little gold-woven wings on his collar to designate his
+capacity, and carry a winged propeller emblem on his arm, but he is
+not ready for the difficult work of the front, and before he has time
+to enjoy more than a few days' rest he is sent to a school of
+_perfectionnement_. There the real, serious and thorough training
+begins.
+
+Schools where the pilots are trained on the modern machines--_écoles
+de perfectionnement_ as they are called--are usually an annex to the
+centres where the soldiers are taught to fly, though there are one or
+two camps that are devoted exclusively to giving advanced instruction
+to aviators who are to fly the _avions de chasse_, or fighting
+machines. When the aviator enters one of these schools he is a
+breveted pilot, and he is allowed a little more freedom than he
+enjoyed during the time he was learning to fly.
+
+He now takes up the Morane monoplane. It is interesting to note that
+the German Fokker is practically a copy of this machine. After flying
+for a while on a low-powered Morane and having mastered the landing,
+the pilot is put on a new, higher-powered model of the same make. He
+has a good many hours of flying, but his trips are very short, for the
+whole idea is to familiarize one with the method of landing. The
+Blériot has a landing gear that is elastic in action, and it is easy
+to bring to earth. The Nieuport and other makes of small, fast
+machines for which the pilot is training have a solid wheel base, and
+good landings are much more difficult to make. The Morane pilot has
+the same practices climbing to small altitudes around eight thousand
+feet and picking his landing from that height with motor off. When he
+becomes proficient in flying the single- and double-plane types he
+leaves the school for another, where shooting with machine guns is
+taught.
+
+This course in shooting familiarizes one with various makes of machine
+guns used on airplanes, and one learns to shoot at targets from the
+air. After two or three weeks the pilot is sent to another school of
+combat.
+
+
+TRICK FLYING AND DOING STUNTS
+
+These schools of combat are connected with the _écoles de
+perfectionnement_ with which the pilot has finished. In the combat
+school he learns battle tactics, how to fight singly and in fleet
+formation, and how to extract himself from a too dangerous position.
+Trips are made in squadron formation and sham battles are effected
+with other escadrilles, as the smallest unit of an aërial fleet is
+called. For the first time the pilot is allowed to do fancy flying. He
+is taught how to loop the loop, slide on his wings or tail, go into
+corkscrews and, more important, to get out of them, and is encouraged
+to try new stunts.
+
+Finally the pilot is considered well enough trained to be sent to the
+reserve, where he waits his call to the front. At the reserve he flies
+to keep his hand in, practises on any new make of machine that happens
+to come out or that he may be put on in place of the Nieuport, and
+receives information regarding old and new makes of enemy airplanes.
+
+At last the pilot receives his call to the front, where he takes his
+place in some established or newly formed escadrille. He is given a
+new machine from the nearest airplane reserve centre, and he then
+begins his active service in the war, which, if he survives the
+course, is the best school of them all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+AGAINST ODDS
+
+
+Since the publication of previous editions of "Flying for France" we
+have obtained the following letters which add greatly to the interest
+and complete the record of McConnell's connection with the Lafayette
+Escadrille.
+
+
+
+_March 19, 1917._
+
+DEAR PAUL:
+
+We are passing through some very interesting times. The boches are in
+full retreat, offering very little resistance to the English and
+French advance. The boches have systematically destroyed all the towns
+and villages abandoned. Where they haven't burned a house, they have
+made holes through the roofs with pickaxes. All the cross-roads are
+blown up at the junctions, and when the trees bordering the roads
+haven't been cut down, barricading the roads, they have been cut half
+way through so that when the wind blows they keep falling on the
+passing convoys. The inhabitants left in these villages are wild with
+delight and are giving the troops an inspiring reception. In one town
+the boches raped all the women before leaving, then locked them down
+cellar, and carried off all the young girls with them.
+
+We have been flying low, and watching the cavalry overrunning the
+country. The boches are retreating to very strongly fortified
+positions, where the advance is going to come up against a stone wall.
+
+This morning Genet and McConnell flew well ahead of the advancing
+army, Mac leading. Genet saw two boche planes maneuvering to get
+above them, so he began to climb, too. Finally they got together; the
+boche was a biplane and had the edge on Genet. Almost the first shot
+got Genet in the cheek. Fortunately it was only a deep flesh wound,
+and another shot almost broke the stanchion, which supports the wings,
+in two. Genet stuck to the boche and opened fire on him. He knows he
+hit the machine and at one time he thought he saw the machine on fire,
+but nothing happened. At last the boche had Genet in a bad position,
+so he (Genet) piqued down about a thousand meters and got away from
+the boche. He looked around for Mac but couldn't find him, so he came
+home. Mac hasn't yet shown up and we are frightfully worried. Genet
+has a dim recollection that when he attacked the boche, the other
+boche piqued down in Mac's direction, and it looks as if the boche got
+Mac unawares. Late this afternoon we got a report that this morning a
+Nieuport was seen to land near Tergnier, which is unfortunately still
+in German hands. This must have been Mac's, in which case he is only
+wounded, or perhaps only his machine was badly damaged. There is a
+general feeling among us that Mac is all right. The French cavalry are
+within ten or fifteen kilometers of Tergnier now and perhaps they will
+take the place to-morrow, in which case we will certainly learn
+something. This afternoon Lieut. de Laage and Lufbery landed at Ham,
+where the advance infantry were, and made a lot of inquiries. It was
+near this place where the fight started. Nobody had seen any machine
+come down. You may be sure I will keep you informed of everything that
+turns up. Genet is going to write you in a day or so.
+
+Sincerely,
+
+WALTER (signed Walter Lovell).
+
+P. S. I apologize for the mistakes and the disconnectedness of this
+letter, but I wrote it in frightful haste in order to get it in the
+first post.
+
+
+
+_March 20, 1917._
+
+MY DEAR ROCKWELL:
+
+I do not know if any of the boys have written you about the
+disappearance of Jim, so perhaps you might know something about it
+when this letter reaches you.
+
+He left yesterday at 8:45 a.m. in his machine for the German lines,
+and has not returned yet. He and Genet were attacked by two Germans,
+the latter, who received a slight wound on the cheek, was so occupied
+he did not see what became of Jim, and returned without him.
+
+The combat took place between Ham and St. Quentin; the territory was
+still occupied by the enemy when the combat took place. The worst I
+hope has happened to our friend is that perhaps he was wounded and was
+forced to land in the enemy's lines and was made prisoner. Nothing
+definite is known. I shall write you immediately I get news.
+
+I am extremely worried. To lose my friend would be a severe blow. I
+can't and will not believe that anything serious has happened.
+
+Best wishes,
+
+Sincerely,
+
+E. A. MARSHALL.
+
+
+
+_Escadrille N. 124, Secteur Postal 182,_
+ _March 21, 1917._
+
+MY DEAR PAUL:
+
+Had I been feeling less distressed and miserable on Monday morning, or
+during yesterday, I would have written you then, but I told Lovell to
+tell you how I felt when he wrote on Monday and that I would try and
+write in a day or so. I am not feeling much better mentally but I'll
+try and write something, for I am the only one who was out with poor
+Mac on Monday morning and it just adds that much more to my distress.
+
+As you know, we have had a big advance here, due to the deliberate
+evacuation by the Germans, without much opposition, of the territory
+now in the hands of the French and English. The advance began last
+Thursday night and each day has brought the lines closer to Saint
+Quentin and the region north and south of it.
+
+On Monday morning Mac, Parsons, and myself went out at nine o'clock on
+the third patrol of the escadrille. We had orders to protect
+observation machines along the new lines around the region of Ham. Mac
+was leader. I came second and Parsons followed me. Before we had gone
+very far Parsons was forced to go back on account of motor trouble,
+which handicapped us greatly on account of what followed, but of
+course that cannot be remedied because Parsons was perfectly right in
+returning when his motor was not running well. We all do that one time
+or another.
+
+Mac and I kept on and up to ten o'clock were circling around the
+region of Ham, watching out for the heavier machines doing
+reconnoitring work below us. We went higher than a thousand meters
+during that time. About ten, for some reason or other of his own, Mac
+suddenly headed into the German lines toward Saint Quentin and I
+naturally followed close to his rear and above him. Perhaps he wanted
+to make observations around Saint Quentin. At any rate, we had gotten
+north of Ham and quite inside the hostile lines, when I saw two boche
+machines crossing towards us from the region of Saint Quentin at an
+altitude quite higher than ours. We were then about 1,600 meters. I
+supposed Mac saw them the same as I did. One boche was much farther
+ahead than the other, and was headed as if he would dive at any moment
+on Mac. I glanced ahead at Mac and saw what direction he was taking,
+and then pulled back to climb up as quickly as possible to gain an
+advantageous height over the nearest boche. It was cloudy and misty
+and I had to keep my eyes on him all the time, so naturally I couldn't
+watch Mac. The second boche was still much farther off than his mate.
+By this time I had gotten to 2,200, the boche was almost up to me and
+taking a diagonal course right in front. He started to circle and his
+gunner--it was a biplane, probably an Albatross, although the mist was
+too thick and dark for me to see much but the bare outline of his
+dirty, dark green body, with white and black crosses--opened fire
+before I did and his first volley did some damage. One bullet cut the
+left central support of my upper wing in half, an explosive bullet cut
+in half the left guiding rod of the left aileron, and I was
+momentarily stunned by part of it which dug a nasty gouge into my left
+cheek. I had already opened fire and was driving straight for the
+boche with teeth set and my hand gripping the triggers making a
+veritable stream of fire spitting out of my gun at him, as I had
+incendiary bullets, it being my job lately to chase after observation
+balloons, and on Saturday morning I had also been up after the
+reported Zeppelins. I had to keep turning toward the boche every
+second, as he was circling around towards me and I was on the inside
+of the circle, so his gunner had all the advantage over me. I thought
+I had him on fire for one instant as I saw--or supposed I did--flames
+on his fuselage. Everything passed in a few seconds and we swung past
+each other in opposite directions at scarcely twenty-five meters from
+each other--the boche beating off towards the north and I immediately
+dived down in the opposite direction wondering every second whether
+the broken wing support would hold together or not and feeling weak
+and stunned from the hole in my face. A battery opened a heavy fire on
+me as I went down, the shells breaking just behind me. I straightened
+out over Ham at a thousand meters, and began to circle around to look
+for Mac or the other boche, but saw absolutely nothing the entire
+fifteen minutes I stayed there. I was fearful every minute that my
+whole top wing would come off, and I thought that possibly Mac had
+gotten around toward the west over our lines, missed me, and was
+already on his way back to camp. So I finally turned back for our
+camp, having to fly very low and against a strong northern wind, on
+account of low clouds just forming. I got back at a quarter to eleven
+and my first question to my mechanic was: "Has McConnell returned?"
+
+He hadn't, Paul, and no news of any sort have we had of him yet,
+although we hoped and prayed every hour yesterday for some word to
+come in. The one hope that we have is that on account of this
+continued advance some news will be brought in of Mac through
+civilians who might have witnessed his flight over the lines north of
+Ham, while they were still in the hands of the enemy, for many of the
+civilians in the villages around there are being left by the Germans
+as they retire. We can likewise hope that Mac was merely forced to
+land inside the enemy lines on account of a badly damaged machine, or
+a bad wound, and is well but a prisoner. I wish to God, Paul, that I
+had been able to see Mac during his combat, or had been able to get
+down to him sooner and help him. The mists were thick, and
+consequently seeing far was difficult. I would have gone out that
+afternoon to look for him but my machine was so damaged it took until
+yesterday afternoon to be repaired. Lieut. de Laage and Lufbery did
+go out with their Spads and looked all around the region north of Ham
+towards Saint Quentin but saw nothing at all of a Nieuport on the
+ground, or anything else to give news of what had occurred.
+
+The French are still not far enough towards Saint Quentin to be on the
+territory where the chances are Mac landed, so we'll still have to
+wait for to-day's developments for any possibility of news. I got lots
+of hope, Paul, that Mac is at least alive although undoubtedly a
+prisoner. I know how badly the news has affected you. We're all
+feeling mighty blue over it and as for myself--I'm feeling utterly
+miserable over the whole affair. Just as soon as any definite news
+comes in I'll surely let you know at once. Meanwhile, keep cheered and
+hopeful. There's no use in losing hope yet. If a prisoner Mac may even
+be able to escape and return to our lines, on account of the very
+unsettled state of the retreating Germans. Others have done so under
+much less favorable conditions.
+
+I hope you are having a very enjoyable trip through the South. Walter
+showed me the postal you wrote him, which he received yesterday.
+Please give my very warm regards to your wife. Write as soon as you
+can, too.
+
+Very faithfully yours,
+
+EDMOND C. C. GENET.
+
+
+
+_March 22, 1917._
+
+MY DEAR ROCKWELL:
+
+Still no news about Jim. Last night the captain sent out a request to
+the military authorities to have our troops advancing in the direction
+of Saint Quentin report immediately any particulars about avion 2055.
+Even now I cannot reconcile myself concerning Jim's fate. I hope he
+has been made prisoner.
+
+Just a few words about myself. I am awaiting the results of my
+friends' actions in the States on my behalf. I am placed in a peculiar
+position in the escadrille. I have nothing to do here. Shall I take
+care of Jim's belongings?
+
+Best wishes,
+
+Sincerely,
+
+E. A. MARSHALL.
+
+
+
+_Escadrille N. 124, Secteur Postal 182,_
+ _March 23, 1917._
+
+DEAR PAUL:
+
+In my letter I promised to send you word as soon as any definite news
+came in concerning poor Mac. To-day word came in from a group of
+French cavalry that they witnessed our fight on Monday morning and
+that they saw Mac brought down inside the German lines towards Saint
+Quentin after being attacked by two boche machines and at the same
+time they saw me fighting a third one higher than Mac, and that just
+as I piqued down Mac fell so there were three boche machines instead
+of two, as I supposed, having missed seeing the third one on account
+of the heavy clouds and mist around us.
+
+There is still the hope that Mac wasn't killed but only wounded and a
+prisoner. If he is we'll learn of it later. The cavalrymen didn't say
+whether he came down normally or fell. Possibly he was too far off
+really to tell definitely about that. Certainly he had been already
+brought down before I could get down to help him after the boche I
+attacked beat it off. Had I known there were three boche machines I
+certainly would not have played around that boche at such a distance
+from Mac.
+
+When will Mrs. Weeks return to Paris from the States? Will you write
+and tell her about Mac? She'll be mighty well grieved to hear of it, I
+know, and you'll be the best one to break it to her.
+
+Write to me soon. Best regards to Mrs. Rockwell.
+
+E. GENET.
+
+
+
+_March 24th, a. m._
+ _C. Aeronatique, Noyon & D. C. 13._
+
+MY DEAR ROCKWELL:
+
+The targe element informs us that it has found, in the environs of the
+Bois l'Abbe, a Nieuport No. 2055. The aviator, a sergeant, has been
+dead since three days, in the opinion of the doctor. His pockets
+appear to have been searched, for no papers were found on him. The
+Bois l'Abbe is two kilometers south of Jussy. The above message
+received by us at ten o'clock last night. Jussy is on the main road
+between Saint Quentin and Chauny. I expect to go back to the infantry
+soon.
+
+Sincerely, E. A. MARSHALL.
+
+
+
+_Escadrille N. 124, Secteur Postal 182,_
+ _March 25, 1917._
+
+DEAR PAUL:
+
+The evening before last definite news was brought to us that a badly
+smashed Nieuport had been found by French troops, beside which was the
+body of a sergeant-pilot which had been there at least three days and
+had been stripped of all identification papers, flying clothes and
+even the boots. They got the number of the machine, which proved
+without further question that it was poor Mac. They gave the location
+as being at the little village of Petit Detroit, which is just south
+of Flavy-le-Martel, the latter place being about ten kilometers east
+of Ham on the railroad running from Ham to La Fere.
+
+After having made a flight over the lines yesterday morning, I went
+down around Petit Detroit to locate the machine. There was no decent
+place there on which to land so I circled around over it for a few
+minutes to see in which condition it (the Nieuport) was. The machine
+was scarcely distinguishable so badly had it smashed into the ground,
+and there is scarcely any doubt, Paul, that Mac was killed while
+having his fight in the air, as no pilot would have attempted to land
+a machine in the tiny rotten field--no more than a little orchard
+beside the road--voluntarily. It seems almost certain that he struck
+the ground with full motor on. Captain Thénault landed some distance
+from there that he might go over there in a car and see just what
+could be done about poor Mac's body. When he returned last night he
+told us the following:
+
+Mac, he said, was as badly mangled as the machine and had been
+relieved of his flying suit by the damned boches, also of his shoes
+and all papers. The machine had struck the ground so hard that it was
+half buried, the motor being totally in the earth and the rest,
+including even the machine gun, completely smashed. It was just beside
+the main road, in a small field containing apple trees cut down by the
+retreating boches, and just at the southern edge of the village.
+
+Mac has been buried right there beside the road, and we will see that
+the grave is decently marked with a cross, etc. The captain brought
+back a square piece of canvas cut from one of the wings, and we are
+going to get a good picture we have of Mac enlarged and placed on this
+with a frame. I suppose that Thaw or Johnson will attend to the
+belongings of Mac which he had written are to be sent to you to care
+for. In the letter which he had left for just such an occasion as this
+he concludes with the following words: "Good luck to the rest of you.
+God damn Germany and vive la France!"
+
+All honour to him, Paul. The world will look up to him, as well as
+France, for whom he died so gloriously, just as it is looking up to
+your fine brother and the rest of us who have given their lives so
+freely and gladly for this big cause.
+
+Warmest regards, etc.,
+
+Faithfully,
+
+EDMOND C. C. GENET.
+
+P. S. The captain has already put in a proposal for a citation for
+Mac, and also one for me. Mac surely deserved it, and lots more too.
+
+
+
+_Escadrille N. 124, S. P. 182,_
+ _March 27, 1917._
+
+DEAR PAUL:
+
+I got your postcard to-day and would have written you sooner about
+poor Jim but haven't been up to it, which I know you understand.
+
+It hit me pretty hard, Paul, for as you know we were in school and
+college together, and for the last four or five years have been very
+intimate, living in N.C. and New York together.
+
+It's hell, Paul, that all the good boys are being picked off. The
+damned Huns have raised hell with the old crowd, but I think we have
+given them more than we have received. The boys who have gone made
+the name for the escadrille and now it's up to us who are left
+(especially the old Verdun crowd) to keep her going and make the
+boches suffer.
+
+Like old Kiffin, Mac died gloriously and in full action. It was in a
+fight with three Germans in their lines. Genet took one Hun (and was
+wounded). The last he saw was a Hun on Mac's back. Later we learned
+from the cavalry that there were two on Mac and after a desperate
+fight Mac crashed to the ground. This was the 19th of March. Three
+days later we took the territory Mac fell in and they were unable to
+distinguish who he was. The swine Huns had taken every paper or piece
+of identification from him and also robbed him--even took his shoes.
+The captain went over and was able to identify him by the number of
+his machine and uniform. He had lain out there three days and was
+smashed so terribly that you couldn't recognize his face. He was
+buried where he fell in a coffin made from the door of a pillaged
+house. His last resting place (and where he fell) is "Petit Detroit,"
+which is a village southwest of Saint Quentin and north of Chauney. He
+is buried just at the southeast end of the village and in a hell of a
+small town.
+
+Jim left a letter of which I am copying the important parts:
+
+"In case of my death or made prisoner--which is worse--please send my
+canteen and what money I have on me, or coming to me [he had none on
+him as the Huns lifted that] to Mr. Paul A. Rockwell, 80 rue, etc.
+Shoes, tools, wearing apparel, etc., you can give away. The rest of my
+things, such as diary, photos, souvenirs, croix de guerre, best
+uniform [he had best uniform on and I think the croix de
+guerre--however, you may find the latter in his things, his other
+uniform can't be found], please put in canteen and ship along.
+
+"Kindly cable my sister, Mrs. Followsbee, 65 Bellevue Place, Chicago.
+It would be kind to follow same by a letter telling about my death
+[which I am doing].
+
+"I have a box trunk in Paris containing belongings I would like to
+send home. Paul R. knows about it and can attend to the shipping. I
+would appreciate it if the committee of the American Escad. would pay
+to Mr. Paul Rockwell the money needed to cover express.
+
+"My burial is of no import. Make it as easy as possible for
+yourselves. I have no religion and do not care for any service. If the
+omission would embarrass you I presume I could stand the performance.
+[Note Jim's keen sense of humour even to death instructions.]
+
+"Good luck to the rest of you. God damn Germany and vive la France.
+
+"Signed,
+
+"J. R. McCONNELL."
+
+Jim had on the day of his death been proposed for the Croix de Guerre
+with palm. When it comes I shall send it to you.
+
+Well, Paul, I have told you everything I can think of, but if there
+are any omissions or questions don't hesitate to ask.
+
+I think we are now beginning to see the beginning of the end. The
+devastation, destruction and misery the Huns have left is a
+disgraceful crime to civilization and is pitiful. It drives me so
+furious I can't talk about it.
+
+Best regards to you, old boy, and luck. All join in the above. I shall
+wind up the same as Jim.
+
+As always,
+
+CHOUT (Charles Chouteau Johnson).
+
+P. S. Steve Biglow is taking canteen to your place in Paris to-morrow,
+so you will find it there upon your return.
+
+C. C. J.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Flying for France, by James R. McConnell
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