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He familiarized himself with all the levers of the engine and every part of the controlling elements. When the obligatory exercises were finished, and his comrades were resting and idling, he remounted the airplane, as a child gets onto his rocking-horse, and took the levers again into his hands. When he went up, he watched for the exact instant for quitting the ground and sought the easiest line of ascension; during flights, he was careful about his position, avoiding too much diving, or nosing-up, maintaining a horizontal movement, making sure of his lateral and longitudinal equilibrium, familiarizing himself with winds, and adapting his motions to every sort of rocking. When he came down, and the earth seemed to leap up at him, he noted the angle and swiftness of the descent and found the right height at which to slow down. Although his first efforts had been so clever that his monitors were convinced for a long time that he had already been a pilot, yet it is not so much his talent that we should admire as his determination. He was more successful than others because he wore himself out during the whole of his short life in trying to do better—to do better in order to serve better. He worked more than any one else; when he was not satisfied with himself he began all over again, and sought the cause of his errors. There are many other pilots as gifted as Guynemer, but he possessed an energy which was extraordinary, and in this respect excelled all the rest.
And there were no limits to the exercise of this energy. He gave his own body to complete so to speak, the airplane,—a centaur of the air. The wind that whistled through his tension wires and canvas made his own body vibrate like the piano wires. His body was so sensitive that it, too, seemed to obey the rudder. Nothing that concerned his voyages was either unknown or negligible to him. He verified all his instruments—the map-holder, the compass, the altimeter, the tachometer, the speedometer—with searching care. Before every flight he himself made sure that his machine was in perfect condition. When it was brought out of the hangar he looked it over as they look over race-horses, and never forgot this task. How would it be when he should have his own airplane?
At Pau he increased the number of his flights, and changed airplanes, leaving the Bleriot Gnome for the Morane. His altitudes at this time varied from 500 to 600 meters. Going, on March 21, to the Avord school, he went up on the 28th to a height of 1500 meters, and on April 1 to 2600. His flights became longer, and lasted one hour, then an hour and a half. The spiral descent from a height of 500 meters, with the motor switched off, triangular voyages, the test of altitude and that of duration of flight, which were necessary for his military diploma, soon became nothing more to him than sport. In May nearly every day he piloted one passenger on an M.S.P. (Morane-Saunier-Parasol). During all this period his record-book registers only one breakdown. Finally, on May 25, he was sent to the general Aviation Reserves, and on the 31st made two flights in a Nieuport with a passenger. This was the end of his apprenticeship, and on June 8 Corporal Georges Guynemer was designated as member of Escadrille M.S.3, which he joined next day at Vauciennes.
This M.S.3 was the future N.3, the "Ciogognes" or Storks Escadrille. It was already commanded by Captain Brocard, under whose orders it was destined to become illustrious. Vedrines belonged to it. Sous-lieutenant de cavalerie Deullin joined it almost simultaneously with Guynemer, whose friend he soon became. Later, little by little, came Heurtaux, de la Tour, Dorme, Auger, Raymond, etc., all the famous valiant knights of the escadrille, like the peers of France who followed Roland over the Spanish roads. This aviation camp was at Vauciennes, near Villers-Cotterets, in the Valois country with its beautiful forests, its chateaux, its fertile meadows, and its delicate outlines made shadowy by the humid vapor rising from ponds or woods. "Complete calm," wrote Guynemer on June 9, "not one sound of any kind; one might think oneself in the Midi, except that the inhabitants have seen the beast at close range, and know how to appreciate us.... Vedrines is very friendly and has given me excellent advice. He has recommended me to his 'mecanos,' who are the real type of the clever Parisian, inventive, lively and good humored...." Next day he gives some details of his billet, and adds: "I have had a mitrailleuse support mounted on my machine, and now I am ready for the hunt.... Yesterday at five o'clock I darted around above the house at 1700 or 2000 meters. Did you see me? I forced my motor for five minutes in hopes that you would hear me." He had recently parted from his family, and a happy chance had brought him to fight over the very lines that protected his own home. The front of the Sixth Army to which he was attached, extending from Ribecourt beyond the forest of Laigue, passed in front of Railly and Tracy-le-Val, hollowed itself before the enemy salient of Moulin-sous-Touvent, straightened itself again near Autreches and Nouvron-Vingre, covered Soissons, whose very outskirts were menaced, was obliged to turn back on the left bank of the Aisne where the enemy took, in January, 1915, the bridge-head at Conde, and Vailly and Chavonne, and crossed the river again at Soupir which belonged to us. Laon, La Fere, Coucy-le-Chateau, Chauny, Noyon, Ham, and Peronne were the objects of his reconnoitering flights.
War acts more poignantly, more directly upon a soldier whose own home is immediately behind him. If the front were pierced in the sector which had been intrusted to him, his own people would be exposed. So he becomes their sentinel. Under such conditions, la Patrie is no longer merely the historic soil of the French people, the sacred ground every parcel of which is responsible for all the rest, but also the beloved home of infancy, the home of parents, and, for this collegian of yesterday, the scene of charming walks and delightful vacations. He has but just now left the paternal mansion; and, not yet accustomed to the separation, he visits it by the roads of the air, the only ones which he is now free to travel. He does not take advantage of his proximity to Compiegne to go ring the familiar door-bell, because he is a soldier and respects orders; but, on returning from his rounds, he does not hesitate to turn aside a bit in order to pass over his home, indulging up there in the sky in all sorts of acrobatic caprioles to attract attention and prolong the interview. What lover was ever more ingenious and madder in his rendezvous?
Throughout all his correspondence he recalls his air visits. "You must have seen my head, for I never took my eyes off the house...." Or, after an aerial somersault that filled all those down below with terror: "I am wretched to know that my veering the other day frightened maman so much, but I did it so as to see the house without having to lean over the side of the machine, which is unpleasant on account of the wind...." Or sometimes he threw down a paper which was picked up in Count Foy's park: "Everything is all right." He thought he was reassuring his parents about his safety; but their state of mind can be conceived when they beheld, exactly over their heads, an airplane engaged apparently in performing a dance, while through their binoculars they could see the tiny black speck of a head which looked over its side. He had indeed a singular fashion of reassuring them!
Meanwhile, at Vauciennes the newcomer was being tested. At first he was thought to look rather sickly and weak, to be somewhat reserved and distant, and too well dressed, with a "young-ladyish" air. He was known to be already an expert pilot, capable of making tail spins after barely three months' experience. But still the men felt some uncertainty about this youngster whom they dared not trifle with on account of his eyes, "out of which fire and spirit flowed like a torrent."[15] Later on they were to know him better.
[Footnote 15: Saint-Simon.]
A legend was current as to the large quantity of "wood broken" by Guynemer in his early days with the escadrille. This is radically untrue, and his notebook contradicts it. From the very first day the debutant fulfilled the promise of his apprentice days. After one or two trial flights, he left for a scouting expedition on Sunday, June 13, above the enemy lines, and there met three German airplanes. On the 14th he described what he had seen in a letter to his father.—His correspondence still included some description at that time, the earth still held his attention; but it was soon to lose interest for him.—"The appearance of Tracy and Quennevieres," he wrote, "is simply unbelievable: ruins, an inextricable entanglement of trenches almost touching one another, the soil turned over by the shells, the holes of which one sees by thousands. One wonders how there could be a single living man there. Only a few trees of a wood are left standing, the others beaten down by the "marmites,"[16] and everywhere may be seen the yellow color of the literally plowed-up earth. It seems incredible that all these details can be seen from a height of over 3000 meters. I could see to a distance of 60 or 70 kilometers, and never lost sight of Compiegne. Saint-Quentin, Peronne, etc., were as distinct as if I were there...."
[Footnote 16: Shells.]
Next day, the 14th, another reconnaissance, of which the itinerary was Coucy, Laon, La Fere, Tergnier, Appily, Vic-sur-Aisne. Not a cannon shot disturbed these first two expeditions. But danger lurked under this apparent security, and on the 15th he was saluted by shells, dropping quite near. It was his "baptism by fire," and only inspired this sentence a la Duguesclin: "No impression, except satisfied curiosity."
The following days were passed in a perfect tempest, and he only laughed. The new Roland, the bold and marvelous knight, is already revealed in the letters to be given below. On the 16th he departed on his rounds, carrying, as observer, Lieutenant de Lavalette. His airplane was hit by a shell projectile in the right wing. On the 17th his machine returned with eight wounds, two in the right wing, four in the body, and in addition one strut and one longitudinal spar hit. On the 18th he returned from a reconnaissance with Lieutenant Colcomb during which his machine had been hit in the right wing, the rudder, and the body. But his notebook only contains statements of facts, and we have to turn to his correspondence for more details.
"Decidedly," he wrote on June 17 to his sister Odette, "the Boches have quite a special affection for me, and the parts of my 'coucou' serve me for a calendar. Yesterday we flew over Chauny, Tergnier, Laon, Coucy, Soissons. Up to Chauny my observer had counted 243 shells; Coucy shot 500 to 600; my observer estimated 1000 shots in all. All we heard was a rolling sound, and then the shells burst everywhere, below us, above, in front, behind, on the right and on the left, for we descended to take some photographs of a place which they did not want us to see. We could hear the shell-fragments whistling past; there was one that, after piercing the wing, passed within the radius of the propeller without touching it, and then to within fifty centimeters of my face; another entered by the same hole but stayed there, and I will send it to you. Fragments also struck the rudder, and one the body." (His journal mentions more.) "My observer, who has been an observer from the beginning, says that he never saw a cannonade like that one, and that he was glad to get back again. At one moment a bomb-head of 105 millimeters, which we knew by its shape and the color of its explosion, fell on us and just grazed us. In fact, we often see enormous shells exploding. It is very curious. On our return we met Captain Gerard, and my observer told him that I had astounding nerve; zim, boum boum! He said he knew it.... I will send you a photograph of my 'coucou' with its nine bruises: it is superb."
The next day, June 18, it was his mother who received his confidences. The enemy had bombarded Villers-Cotterets with a long-distance gun which had to be discovered. On this occasion he took Lieutenant Colcomb as observer: "At Coucy, terribly accurate cannonade: toc, toc, two projectiles in the right wing, one within a meter of me; we went on with our observations in the same place. Suddenly a formidable crash: a shell burst 8 to 10 meters under the machine. Result: three holes, one strut and one spar spoiled. We went on for five minutes longer observing the same spot, always encircled, naturally. Returning, the shooting was less accurate. On landing, my observer congratulated me for not having moved or zig-zagged, which would have bothered his observation. We had, in fact, only made very slight and very slow changes of altitude, speed, and direction. Compliments from him mean something, for nobody has better nerve. In the evening Captain Gerard, in command of army aviation, called me and said: 'You are a nervy pilot, all right; you won't spoil our reputation by lack of pluck—quite the contrary. For a beginner!—' and he asked me how long I had been a corporal. Y a bon. My 'coucou' is superb, with its parts all dated in red. You can see them all, for those underneath spread up over the sides. In the air I showed each hole in the wing, as it was hit, to the passenger, and he was enchanted, too. It's a thrilling sport. It is a bore, though, when they burst over our heads, because I cannot see them, though I can hear. The observer has to give me information in that case. Just now, le roi n'est pas mon cousin...."
Lieutenant, now Captain, Colcomb, has completed this account. During the entire period of his observation, the pilot, in fact, did not make any maneuver or in any way shake the machine in order to dodge the firing. He simply sent the airplane a bit higher and calmly lowered it again over the spot to be photographed, as if he were master of the air. The following dialogue occurred:
The Observer: "I have finished; we can go back."
The Pilot: "Lieutenant, do me the favor of photographing for me the projectiles falling around us."
Children have always had a passion for pictures; and the pictures were taken.
The chasers and bombardiers in the history of aviation have attracted public attention to the detriment of their comrades, the observers, whose admirable services will become better known in time. It is by them that the battle field is exposed, and the preparations and ruses of the enemy balked: they are the eyes of the commanders, and also the friends of the troops. On April 29, 1916, Lieutenant Robbe flew over the trenches of the Mort-Homme at 200 meters, and brought back a detailed exposition of the entanglement of the lines. A year later, in nearly the same place, Lieutenant Pierre Guilland, observer on board a biplane of the Moroccan division, was forced down by three enemy airplanes just at the moment when his division, whose progress he was following in order to report it, started its attack on the Corbeaux Woods east of the Mort-Homme, on August 20, 1917. He fell on the first advancing lines and was picked up, unconscious and mortally wounded, by an artillery officer who proceeded to carry out the aviator's mission. When the latter reopened his eyes—for only a short while—he asked: "Where am I?"—"North of Chattancourt, west of Cumieres."—"Has the attack succeeded?"—"Every object has been attained."—"Ah! that's good, that's good." ... He made them repeat the news to him. He was dying, but his division was victorious.
Near Frise, Lieutenant Sains, who had been obliged to land on July 1, 1916, was rescued by the French army on July 4, after having hidden himself for three days in a shell-hole to avoid surrendering, his pilot, Quartermaster de Kyspotter, having been killed.
During the battle of the Aisne in April, 1917, Lieutenant Godillot, whose pilot had also been killed, slid along the plane, sat on the knees of the dead pilot, and brought the machine back into the French lines. And Captain Mery, Lieutenant Viguier, Lieutenant de Saint-Severin, and Fressagues, Floret, de Niort, and Major Challe, Lieutenant Boudereau, Captain Roeckel, and Adjutant Fonck—who was to become famous as a chaser—how many of these elite observers furthered the destruction wrought by the artillery, and aided the progress of the infantry!
On October 24, 1916, as the fog cleared away, I saw the airplane of the Guyot de Salins division fly over Fort Douaumont just at the moment when Major Nicolai's marines entered there.[17] The airplane had descended so low into the mist that it seemed as if magnetically drawn down by the earth, and the observer, leaning over the edge, was clapping his hands to applaud the triumph of his comrades. The latter saw his gesture, even though they could not hear the applause, and cheered him—a spontaneous exchange of soldierly confidence and affection between the sky and the earth.
[Footnote 17: See Les Captifs delivres.]
Almost exactly one year later, on October 23, 1917, I saw the airplane of the same division hovering over the Fort of the Malmaison just as the Giraud battalion of the 4th Zouaves Regiment took possession of it. At dawn it came to observe and note the site of the commanding officer's post, and to read the optical signals announcing our success. At each visit it seemed like the moving star of old, now guiding the new shepherds, the guardians of our dear human flocks—not over the stable where a God was born, but over the ruins where victory was born.
* * * * *
Later on Captain Colcomb spoke of Guynemer as "the most sublime military figure I have ever been permitted to behold, one of the finest and most generous souls I have ever known." Guynemer was not satisfied to be merely calm and systematically immovable, and to display sang-froid, though to an extraordinary degree. He amused himself by counting the holes in his wings, and pointing them out to the observer. He was furious when the explosions occurred outside his range of vision, because he was not resigned to missing anything. He seemed to juggle with the shrapnel. And after landing, he rushed off to his escadrille chief, Captain Brocard, took him by the arm, and never left him until he had drawn him almost by force to his machine, compelling him to put his fingers into the wounds, exulting meanwhile and fairly bounding with joy. Captain, now Major Brocard, felt quite sure of him from that time, and referred to him later in these words: "Very young: his extraordinary self-confidence and natural qualities will very soon make him an excellent pilot...."
His curiosity, indeed, was satisfied; and to whom would he confide all the risks that he ran? His mother and his sisters, the hearts which were the most troubled about him, and whose peace and happiness he had carried off into the air. He never dreamed of the torment he caused them, and which they knew how to conceal from him. Even the idea of such a thing never occurred to him. As they loved him, they loved him just as he was, in the raw. He was too young to dissimulate, too young to spare them. He knew nothing either of lies or of pity. He never thought that any one could suffer anguish about a son or a brother when this son and brother was himself supremely happy in his vocation. He was naively cruel.
But the rounds and reconnaissances were not to hold him long; and he already scented other adventures. He had scented the odor of the beast, and he had his airplane furnished with a support for a machine-gun. That particular airplane, it is true, came to an untimely end in a ditch, but was already condemned by its body-frame, which was rotten with bullet holes. That was the only "wood" Guynemer "broke" during his early flights.
But his next airplane was also armed, and in the young pilot could already be plainly seen that taste for enemy-chasing which was to bewitch and take possession of him. Though after this time he certainly carried over the lines Lieutenant de Lavalette, Lieutenant Colcomb and Captain Simeon, and always with equal calm, yet he aspired to other flights, further away from earth. Lieutenant de Beauchamp—the future Captain de Beauchamp, who was to die so soon after his audacious raids on Essen and Munich—divined what was hidden in this thin boy who was in such breathless haste to get on. He would not allow Corporal Guynemer to address him as lieutenant, feeling so surely his equality, and to-morrow perhaps his mastery. On July 6, 1915, he sent him a little guide for aviators in a few lines: "Be cautious. Look well at what is happening around you before acting. Invoke Saint Benoit every morning. But above all, write in letters of fire in your memory: In aviation, everything not useful should be avoided." Oh, of course! The "little girl" laughed at the advice as he laughed at the tempest. He had an admiration for Beauchamp, but when did a Roland ever listen to an Oliver? One day he went up in a wind of over 25 meters, and even by nosing-up a bit he could hardly make any progress. With the wind behind him he made over 200 kilometers. Then he landed. Vedrines addressed a few warning remarks to him, and he was thought to be calmed. But off he went again before the frightened spectators. He would always do too much, and nothing could restrain him.
The importance of the development of aviation in the war had been foreseen neither by the Germans nor ourselves. If before the beginning of the campaign the military chiefs had understood all the services which would be rendered by aerial strategic scouting, the regulation of artillery fire would not have still been in an experimental stage. No one knew the help which was to be derived from aerial photography. The air duel was regarded simply as a possible incident that might occur during a patrol or a reconnaissance, and in view of which the observer or mechanician armed himself with a gun or an automatic pistol. Airplanes armed with machine-guns were very exceptional, and at the end of 1914 there were only thirty. The Germans used them generally before we did; but it was the French aviators, nevertheless, who forced the Germans to fight in the air. I had the opportunity in October, 1914, to see, from a hill on the Aisne, one of these first airplane combats, which ended by the enemy falling on the outskirts of the village of Muizon on the left bank of the Vesle. The French champion bore the fine name of Franc, and piloted a Voisin. At that date it was not unusual to pick up messages dropped within our lines by enemy pilots, substantially to this effect: "Useless for us to fight each other; there are enough risks without that...."
Meanwhile, strategic reconnaissance was perfected as the line of the front became firmly established, and more and more importance was accorded to the search for objectives. Remarkable results were attained by air photography from December, 1914; and after January, 1915, the regulation of artillery fire by wireless telegraphy was in general practice. It was necessary to protect the airplanes attached to army corps, and to clean up the air for their free circulation. This role devolved upon the most rapid airplanes, which were then the Morane-Saunier-Parasols, and in the spring of 1915 these formed the first escadrilles de chasse, one for each army. Garros, already popular before the war for having been the first air-pilot to cross the Mediterranean, from Saint-Raphael to Bizerto, forced down a large Aviatik above Dixmude in April, 1915. A few days later a motor breakdown compelled him to land at Ingelminster, north of Courtrai, and he was made prisoner.[18] The aviators, like the knights of ancient times, sent one another challenges. Sergeant David—who was killed shortly after—having been obliged to refuse to fight an enemy airplane because his machine-gun jammed, dropped a challenge to the latter on the German aerodrome, and waited at the place, on the day and hour fixed, at Vauquois (noon, in June, 1915, above the German lines), but his adversary never came to the rendezvous.
[Footnote 18: The romantic circumstances under which he escaped in February, 1918, are well known.]
The Maurice Farman and Caudron airplanes were used for observation. The Voisin machines, strong but slower, were more especially utilized for bombardments, which began to be carried out by organized expeditions. The famous raids on the Ludwigshafen factories and the Karlsruhe railway station occurred in June, 1915. It was at the battle of Artois (May and June, 1915) that aviation for the first time constituted a branch of the army; and the work was chiefly done by the escadrilles belonging to the army corps, which rendered very considerable services as scouts and in aerial photography and destructive fire. But as an enemy chaser, the airplane was still regarded with much distrust and incredulity. Some said it was useless; was it not sufficient that the airplanes of the army corps and those for bombardments could defend themselves? Others of less extreme opinions thought it should be limited to the part of protector. This opposition was overcome by the sudden development of the German enemy-chasing airplanes after July, 1915, subsequent to our raids on Ludwigshafen and Karlsruhe, which aroused furious anger in Germany.
In the beginning the belligerent nations had collected the most heterogeneous group of all the airplane models then available. But the methodical Germans, without delay, supplied their constructors with definite types of machines in order to make their escadrilles harmonious. At that time they used monoplanes for reconnaissances, without any special arrangement for carrying arms, and incapable of carrying heavy weights; and biplanes for observation, unarmed, and possessing only a makeshift contrivance for launching bombs. The machines of both these series were two-seated, with the passenger in front. These were Albatros, Aviatiks, Eulers, Rumplers, and Gothas. Early in 1915 appeared the Fokkers, which were one-seated, and new two-seated machines, Aviatiks or Albatros, which were more rapid, with the passenger at the rear, and furnished with a revolving turret for the machine-gun. The German troops engaged in aerostation, aviation, automobile and railway service were grouped as communication troops (Verkehrstruppen), under the direction of the General Inspection of Military Communications. It was not until the autumn of 1916 that the aerostation, aviation, and aerial defense troops were made independent and, under the title of Luftstreitkraefte (aerial combatant forces), took their position in the order of battle between the pioneers and the communication troops. But early in the summer of 1915 the progress realized in aviation resulted in its forming a separate branch of the army, with campaign and enemy-chasing escadrilles.
Guynemer was now on the straight road toward aerial combat. Most of our pilots were still chasing enemy airplanes with one passenger armed with a simple musketoon. More circumspect than the others, Guynemer had his airplane armed with a machine-gun. Meanwhile the staff was preparing to reorganize the army escadrilles. The bold Pegoud had several times fought with too enterprising Fokkers or Aviatiks; Captain Brocard had forced down one of them in flames over Soissons; and the latest recruit of the escadrille, this youngster of a Guynemer, was burning to have his own Boche.
The first entries in his notebook of flights for July, 1915, record expeditions without result, in company with Adjutant Hatin, Lieutenant de Ruppiere, in the region of Noyon, Roye, Ham, and Coucy-le-Chateau. On the 10th, the chasseurs put to flight three Albatros, while a more rapid Fokker attempted an attack, but turned back having tried a shot at their machine-gun. On the 16th Guynemer and Hatin dropped bombs on the Chauny railway station; during the bombardment an Aviatik attacked them, they stood his fire, replying as well as they could with their musketoon, and returned to camp uninjured. Adjutant Hatin was decorated with the Military Medal. As Hatin was a gourmet, Guynemer went that same evening to Le Bourget to fetch two bottles of Rhine wine to celebrate this family fete. At Le Bourget he tried the new Nieuport machine, which was the hope of the fighting airplanes. Finally, on July 19—memorable date—his journal records Guynemer's first victory:
"Started with Guerder after a Boche reported at Couvres and caught up with him over Pierrefonds. Shot one belt, machine-gun jammed, then unjammed. The Boche fled and landed in the direction of Laon. At Coucy we turned back and saw an Aviatik going toward Soissons at about 3200 meters up. We followed him, and as soon as he was within our lines we dived and placed ourselves about 50 meters under and behind him at the left. At our first salvo, the Aviatik lurched, and we saw a part of the machine crack. He replied with a rifle shot, one ball hitting a wing, another grazing Guerder's hand and head. At our last shot the pilot sank down on the body-frame, the observer raised his arms, and the Aviatik fell straight downward in flames, between the trenches...."
This flight began at 3700 meters in the air, and lasted ten minutes, the two combatants being separated by a distance of 50 and sometimes 20 meters. The statement of fact is characteristic of Guynemer. An unforgettable sight had been imprinted on his eyes: the pilot sinking down in his cock-pit, the arms of the observer beating the air, the burning airplane sinking. Such were to be his future landscape sketches, done in the sky. The wings of the bird of prey were unfurled definitely in space.
The two fighting airmen had left Vauciennes at two o'clock in the afternoon, and at quarter-past three they landed, conquerors, at Carriere l'Eveque. From their opposing camps the infantry had followed the fight with their eyes. The Germans, made furious by defeat, cannonaded the landing-place. Georges, who was too thin for his clothes, and whose leather pantaloons lined with sheepskin, which he wore over his breeches, slipped and impeded his walking, sat down under the exploding shells and calmly took them off. Then he placed the machine in a position of greater safety, but broke the propeller on a pile of hay. During this time a crowd had come running and now surrounded the victors. Artillery officers escorted them off, sentinels saluted them, a colonel offered them champagne. Guerder was taken first into the commanding officer's post, and on being questioned about the maneuver that won the victory excused himself with modesty:
"That was the pilot's affair."
Guynemer, who had stolen in, was willing to talk.
"Who is this?" asked the colonel.
"That's the pilot."
"You? How old are you?"
"Twenty."
"And the gunner?"
"Twenty-two."
"The deuce! There are nothing but children left to do the fighting."
So, passed along in this manner from staff to staff, they finally landed at Compiegne, conducted by Captain Simeon. No happiness was complete for Guynemer if his home was not associated with it.
"He will get the Military Medal," declared Captain Simeon, "because he wanted his Boche and went after him."
Words of a true chief who knew his men. Always to go after what he wanted was the basic characteristic of Guynemer. And now various details concerning the combat came one by one to light. Guerder had been half out of the machine to have the machine-gun ready to hand. When the gun jammed, Georges yelled to his comrade how to release it. Guerder, who had picked up his rifle, laid it down, executed the maneuver indicated by Guynemer, and resumed his machine-gun fire. This episode lasted two minutes during which Georges maintained the airplane under the Aviatik, unwilling to change his position, as he saw that a recoil would expose them to the Boche's gun.
Meanwhile Vedrines came in search of the victor, and piloted the machine back to head-quarters, with Guynemer on board seated on the body and quivering with joy.
With this very first victory Guynemer sealed his friendship with the infantry, whom his youthful audacity had comforted in their trenches. He received the following letter, dated July 20, 1915:
Lieutenant-colonel Maillard, commanding the 238th Infantry, to Corporal Pilot Guynemer and Mechanician Guerder of Escadrille M.S. 3, at Vauciennes.
The Lieutenant-colonel, The Officers, The whole Regiment,
Having witnessed the aerial attack you made upon a German Aviatik over their trenches, spontaneously applauded your victory which terminated in the vertical fall of your adversary. They offer you their warmest congratulations, and share the joy you must have felt in achieving so brilliant a success. Maillard.
On July 21 the Military Medal was given to the two victors, Guynemer's being accompanied by the following mention: "Corporal Guynemer: a pilot full of spirit and audacity, volunteering for the most dangerous missions. After a hot pursuit, gave battle to a German airplane, which ended in the burning and destruction of the latter." The decoration was bestowed on August 4 at Vauciennes by General Dubois, then in command of the Sixth Army, and in presence of his father, who had been sent for. Then Guynemer paid for his newly won glory by a few days of fever.
II. FROM THE AISNE TO VERDUN
Guynemer's first victory occurred on July 19, 1915, and for his second he had to wait nearly six months. This was not because he had not been on the watch. He would have been glad to mount a Nieuport, but, after all, he had had his Boche, and at that time the exploit was exceptional: he had to be patient, and give his comrades a chance to do the same.
When finally he obtained the longed-for Nieuport, he flew sixteen hours in five days, and naturally went to parade himself over Compiegne. Without this dedication to his home, the machine would never be consecrated.
When the overwork incident to such a life forced him to take a little repose, he wandered back to his home like a soul in pain. It was in vain that his parents and his two sisters—whom he called his "kids" as if he were their elder—exhausted their ingenuity to amuse him. This home he loved so much, which he left so recently, and returned to so happily, bringing with him his young fame, no longer sufficed him. Though he was so comfortable there, yet on clear days the house stifled him. On such days he seemed like a school child caught in some fault: a little more and he would have condemned himself. Then his sister Yvonne, who had understood the situation, made a bargain with him.
"What is it you miss here at home?"
"Something you cannot give me. Or rather, yes, you can give it to me. Promise me you will."
"Surely, if it will make you happy."
"I shall be the happiest of men."
"Then it's granted in advance."
"Very well, this is it: every morning you must examine the weather. If it is bad, you will let me sleep."
"And if it is fine?"
"If it is fine, you will wake me up."
His sister was afraid to ask more, as she guessed how he would use a fine day. As she was silent, he pretended to pout with that cajoling manner he could assume, and which fascinated everybody.
"You won't do it? I could not stay home: c'est plus fort que moi."
"But, I promise."
And to keep him at home until he should be cured, more or less, the young girl opened her window every morning and inspected the sky, secretly hoping to find it thickly covered with clouds.
"Clouds, waiting over there, motionless, on the edge of the horizon, what are you waiting for? Will you stand idle and let me awaken my brother, who is resting?"
The clouds being indifferent, the sleeper had to be awakened. He dressed hastily, with a smile at the transparent sky, and soon reached Vauciennes by automobile, where he called for his machine, mounted, ascended, flew, hunted the enemy, and returned to Compiegne for luncheon.
"And you can leave us like that?" remonstrated his mother. "Why, this is your holiday."
"Yes, the effort to leave is all the greater."
"Well?—"
"I like the effort, Maman."
His Antigone forced herself to keep her bargain with him. The sun never shone above the forest in vain, but nevertheless she detested the sun. What a strange Romeo this boy would have made! Without the least doubt he would have charged Juliet to wake him to go to battle, and would never have forgiven her for confounding the lark and the nightingale.
On his return to the aviation camp, in the absence of his own longed-for victories, he took pleasure in describing those of others. He knew nothing of rivalry or envy. He wrote his sister Odette the following description of a combat waged by Captain Brocard, who surprised a Boche from the rear, approached him to within fifteen meters without being seen, and, just at the moment when the enemy pilot turned round his head, sent him seven cartridges from his machine-gun: "Result: one ball in the ear, and another through the middle of his chest. You can imagine whether the fall of the machine was instantaneous or not. There was nothing left of the pilot but one chin, one ear, one mouth, a torso and material enough to reconstitute two arms. As to the "coucou" (burned), nothing was left but the motor and a few bits of iron. The passenger was emptied out during the fall...." It cannot be said that he had much consideration for the nerves of young girls. He treated them as if they were warriors who could understand everything relating to battles. He wrote with the same freedom that Shakespeare's characters use in speech.
Until the middle of September he piloted two-seated airplanes, carrying one passenger, either as observer or combatant. At last he went up in his one-seated Nieuport, reveling in the intoxication of being alone, that intoxication well known to lovers of the mountains and the air. Is it the sensation of liberty, the freedom from all the usual material bonds, the feeling of coming into possession of these deserts of space or ice where the traveler covers leagues without meeting anybody, the forgetfulness of all that interferes with one's own personal object? Such solitaries do not easily accommodate themselves to company which seems to them to encroach upon their domain, and steal a part of their enjoyment. Guynemer never enjoyed anything so much as these lonely rounds in which he took possession of the whole sky, and woe to the enemy who ventured into this immensity, which was now his park.
On September 29, and October 1, 1915, he was sent on special missions. These special missions were generally confided to Vedrines, who had accomplished seven. The time is not yet ripe for a revelation of their details, but they were particularly dangerous, for it was necessary to land in occupied territory and return. Guynemer's first mission required three hours' flying. He ascended in a storm, just as the countermand arrived owing to the unfavorable weather. When he descended, volplaning, at daybreak, with slackened, noiseless motor, and landed on our invaded territory, his heart beat fast. Some peasants going to their work in the fields saw him as he ascended again, and recognizing the tricolor, showed much surprise, and then extended their hands to him. This mission won for Sergeant Guynemer—he had been promoted sergeant shortly before—his second mention: "Has proved his courage, energy and sang-froid by accomplishing, as a volunteer, an important and difficult special mission in stormy weather."—"This palm is worth while," he wrote in a letter to his parents, "for the mission was hard." On his way back an English aviator shot at him, but on recognizing him signaled elaborate excuses.
Some rather exciting reconnaissances with Captain Simeon—one day over Saint-Quentin they were attacked by a Fokker and, their machine-gun refusing to work, they were subjected to two hundred shots from the enemy at 100 meters, then at 50 meters, so that they were obliged to dive into a cloud, with one tire gone—and a few bombardments of railway stations and goods depots did not assuage his fever for the chase. Nothing sufficed him but to explore and rake the heavens. On November 6, 3000 meters above Chaulnes, he waged an epic combat with an L.V.G. (Luft-Verkehr-Gesellschaft), 150 H.P. Having succeeded in placing himself three meters under his enemy, he almost laughed with the surety he felt of forcing him down, when his machine-gun jammed. He immediately banked, but he was so near the enemy that the machines interlocked. Would he fall? A bit of his canvas was torn off, but the airplane held its own. As he drew away he saw the enormous enemy machine-gun aimed at him. A bullet grazed his head. He dived under the Boche, who retreated. "All the same," Guynemer added gaily, "if I ever get into a terrible financial fix and have to become a cab-driver, I shall have memories which are far from ordinary: a tire exploding at 3400 meters, an interlocking at 3000 meters. That rotten Boche only owed his life to a spring being slightly out of order, as was shown by the autopsy on the machine-gun. For my eighth combat, this was decidedly annoying...."
It was annoying, but what could be done? Nothing, in fact, but return to one's apprenticeship. He was perfectly satisfied with his work as a pilot, but it was necessary to avoid these too frequent jammings which saved the enemy. At Stanislas College Guynemer was known as an excellent shot. He began to practice again with his rifle, and with the machine-gun; above all, he carefully examined every part of this delicate weapon, taking it apart and putting it together, and increasing his practice. He became a gunsmith. And there lies the secret of his genius: he never gave up anything, nor ever acknowledged himself beaten. If he failed, he began all over again, but after having sought the cause of his failure in order to remedy it. When he was asked one day to choose a device for himself, he adopted this, which completely expresses his character: Faire face. He always faced everything, not only the enemy, but every object which opposed his progress. His determination compelled success. In the career of Guynemer nothing was left to chance, and everything won by effort, pursuit, and implacable will.
On Sunday, December 5, 1915, as he was making his rounds in the Compiegne region, he saw two airplanes more than 3000 meters above Chauny. As the higher one flew over Bailly he sprang upon it and attacked it: at 50 meters, fifteen shots from his machine-gun; at 20 meters, thirty shots. The German fell in a tail spin, north of Bailly over against the Bois Carre. Guynemer was sure he had forced him down; but the other airplane was still there. He tacked in order to chase and attack him, but in vain, for his second adversary had fled. And when he tried to discover the spot where the first must have fallen, he failed to find it. This was really too much: was he going to lose his prey? Suddenly he had an idea. He landed in a field near Compiegne. It was Sunday, and just noon, and he knew that his parents would be coming home from mass. He watched for them, and as soon as he perceived his father rushed to him:
"Father, I have lost my Boche."
"You have lost your Boche?"
"Yes, an airplane that I have forced down. I must return to my escadrille, but I don't want to lose him."
"What can I do?"
"Why, look for him and find him. He ought to be near Bailly, towards the Bois Carre."
And he vanished, leaving to his father the task of finding the lost airplane as a partridge is found in a field of lucerne. The military authority kindly lent its aid, and in fact the body of the German pilot was discovered on the edge of the Bois Carre, where it was buried.
This victory was ratified, but a few days later the authorities, failing to find the necessary material proof, refused to give Guynemer credit for it. Ah, the regulations refuse the hunter this game? Guynemer, turning very red, declared: "It doesn't matter, I will get another." He was always wanting another; and in fact he got one four days later, on December 8. This is the report in his notebook: "Discovering the strategic line Royne-Nesle. While descending, saw a German airplane high, and far within its own lines. As it passed the lines at Beuvraigne, I cut off its retreat and chased it. I caught up to it in five minutes, and fired forty-seven shots from my Lewis from a point 20 meters behind and under it. The enemy airplane, an L.V.G. 165 H.P. probably, dived, caught fire, turned over, and, carried along by the west wind, fell on its back at Beuvraigne. The passenger fell out at Bus, the pilot at Tilloloy...."
When the victor landed at Beuvraigne near his victim, the artillerymen belonging to a nearby battery of 95 mm. guns (47th battery of the 31st regiment of artillery), and who were already crowding around the enemy's body, rushed upon and surrounded Guynemer. But the commander, Captain Allain Launay, mustered his men, ordered a salute to Guynemer, made a speech to his command, and said: "We shall now fire a volley in honor of Sergeant Guynemer." The salvo demolished a small house where some Boches had taken refuge. Through the binoculars they could be seen to scatter when the first shell struck their shelter.
"They owe that to me, too!" cried the enthusiastic urchin.
Meanwhile Captain Allain Launay had patiently ripped the captain's stripes from his cap, and when he had finished handed them to Guynemer:
"Promise me to wear them when you are appointed captain."
This victory was not questioned, and there was even some discussion about making this youngster a Knight of the Legion of Honor. But even when he had been promoted sergeant there had been some objection, owing to his youth. "Nevertheless," Guynemer had observed angrily, "I am not too young to be hit by the enemy's shells." This time another objection arose: If he receives the "cross" for this victory, what can be given him for succeeding ones? The proud little Roland rebelled, revolted, rose up like a cock on its spurs. He did not see that everybody already foresaw his destiny. He would have his "cross," he would have it, and he would not wait long for it, either. He would know how to wring it out of them.
Six days later, December 14, with his comrade, the sober and calm Bucquet, he attacked two Fokkers, one of which was dashed to pieces in its fall, while the other damaged his own machine. A letter to his father described the combat in his own brief and direct manner, without a superfluous word: "Combat with two Fokkers. The first, trapped, and his passenger killed, dived upon me without having seen me. Result: 35 bullets at close quarters and 'couic' [his finish]! The fall was seen by four other airplanes (3 plus 1 makes 4, and perhaps that will win me the 'cross'). Then combat with the second Fokker, a one-seated machine shooting through the propeller, as rapid and easily handled as mine. We fought at ten meters, both turning vertically to try to get behind.
"My spring was slack: compelled to shoot with one hand above my head, I was handicapped; I was able to shoot twenty-one times in ten seconds. Once we almost telescoped, and I jumped over him—his head must have passed within fifty centimeters of my wheels. That disgusted him; he went away and let me go. I came back with an intake pipe burst, one rocker torn away: the splinters had made a number of holes in my over-coat and two notches in the propeller. There were three more in one wheel, in the body-frame (injuring a cable), and in the rudder."
All these accounts of the chase, cruel and clear, seem to breathe a savage joy and the pride of triumph. The sight of a burning airplane, of an enemy sinking down, intoxicated him. Even the remains of his enemies were dear to him, like treasures won by his young strength. The shoulder-straps and decorations worn by his adversary who fell at Tilloloy were given over to him; and Achilles before the trophies of Hector was not more arrogant. These combats in the sky, more than nine thousand feet above the earth, in which the two antagonists are isolated in a duel to the death, scarcely to be seen from the land, alone in empty space, in which every second lost, every shot lost, may cause defeat—and what a defeat! falling, burning, into the abyss beneath—in which they fight sometimes so near together, with short, unsteady thrusts, that they see each other like knights in the lists, while the machines graze and clash together like shields, so that fragments of them fall down like the feathers of birds of prey fighting beak to beak—these combats which require the simultaneous handling of the controlling elements and of the machine-gun, and in which speed is a weapon, why should they not change these young men, these children, into demi-gods? Hercules, Achilles, Roland, the Cid—where shall we find outside of mythology or the epics any prototypes for the wild and furious Guynemer?
On the day of his coming of age, December 24, 1915—earlier than his ancestor under the Empire—he received the Cross of the Legion of Honor, with this mention: "Pilot of great value, model of devotion and courage. Has fulfilled in the past six months two special missions requiring the finest spirit of sacrifice, and has waged thirteen aerial combats, two of which ended in the enemy airplanes falling in flames." This mention was already behindhand, having been based upon the report dated December 8. To the two victories therein mentioned should be added those of the 5th and the 14th of December. Decorated at the age of twenty-one, the enlisted mechanician of Pau continued to progress at breakneck speed. The red ribbon, the yellow ribbon and green War Medal with four palms, are very becoming to a young man's black coat. Georges Guynemer never despised these baubles, nor in any way concealed the pleasure they afforded him. He knew how high one has to climb to pick them. And he was eager for more and more, not because of vanity, but for what they signified.
On the 3d and 5th of February, 1916, new combats took place, always in the region of Roy and Chaulnes. On February 3 he met three enemies within forty minutes, on the same round: "Attacked at 11.10 an L.V.G., which replied with its machine-gun. Fired 47 shots at 100 meters; the enemy airplane dived swiftly down to its own lines, smoking. Lost to view at 500 meters from the ground. At 11.40 attacked an L.V.G. (with Parabellum) from behind, at 20 meters; it tacked and dived spirally, pursued neck to neck at 1300 meters. It fell three kilometers from its lines. I rose again and lost sight of it. (This airplane had wings of the usual yellow color, its body was blue like the N., and its outlines seemed similar to that of the monococques.) At 11.50 attacked an L.V.G., which immediately dived into the clouds and disappeared. Landed at Amiens." He cleared the sky of every Boche: one fallen and two put to flight is not a bad record. He always attacked. With his accurate eyes he tracked out the enemy in the mystery of space, and placing himself higher, tried to surprise him. On the 5th, near Frise, he closed the road to another L.V.G. which was returning to its lines, attacked it from above in front, tacked over it, reached its rear, and overwhelmed it like a thunder-clap. The Boche fell in flames between Assevillers and Herbecourt. One more victory, and this one had the honor of appearing in the official communique. Sometimes he got back with his machine and his clothes riddled with bullet-holes. He carried fire and massacre up into the sky. And all this was nothing as yet but the exercise of a knight-errant in his infancy. This became evident later when he had acquired complete mastery of his work.
February, 1916—the month in which began the longest, the most stubborn and cruel, and perhaps the most significant battle of the Great War. In this month began Verdun, and the menacing German advance on the right of the Meuse (February 21-26), to the wood of Haumont, the wood of the Caures and Herbebois, then to Samogneux, the wood of the Fosses, the Le Chaume wood and Ornes, and finally, on February 25, the attack on Louvemont and Douaumont. The escadrilles, little by little, headed in the same direction, and Guynemer was about to leave the Sixth Army. He would dart no more above the paternal mansion, announcing his victories by his caracoles in the air; nor watch over his own household during his patrol of the region beyond Compiegne, over Noyon, Chauny, Coucy, and Tracy-le-Val. The cord which still linked him with his infancy and youth was now to be strained, and on March 11 the Storks Escadrille received orders to depart next day, and to fly to the Verdun region.
The development of the German fighting airplanes had constantly progressed during 1915. Now, early in 1916, they appeared at Verdun, more homogeneous and better trained, and in possession of a series of new machines: small, one-seated biplanes (Albatros, Halberstadt, new Fokker, and Ago), with a fixed motor of 165-175 H.P. (Mercedes, and more rarely Benz and Argus), and two stationary machine-guns firing through the propeller. These chasing escadrilles (Jagdstaffeln) are essentially fighting units. Each Jagdstaffel comprises eighteen airplanes, and sometimes twenty-two, four of which are reserves. These airplanes do not generally travel alone, at least when they have to leave their lines, but fly in groups (Ketten) of five each, one of them serving as guide (Kettenfuhrer), and conducted by the most experienced pilot, regardless of rank. German aviation tactics seek more and more to avoid solitary combat and replace it by squadron fighting, or to surprise an isolated enemy by a squadron, like an attack of sparrow-hawks upon an eagle.
Ever since the establishment of our first autonomous group of fighting airplanes, which figured in the Artois offensives in May, 1915, but which did not take the offensive (having their cantonments in the barriers and limiting themselves to keeping off the enemy and cruising above our lines and often behind them), our fighting airplanes gradually overcame prejudice. They were not, it is true, so promptly brought to perfection as our army corps airplanes, which proved so useful in the Champagne campaign of September, 1915; but it was admitted that the aerial combat should not be regarded as a result of mere chance, but as inevitable, and that it constituted, first, a protection, and afterwards an effective obstruction to an enemy forbidden to make raids in our aerial domain. The next German offensive—against Verdun—had been foreseen. In consequence, the staff had organized a safety service to avoid all surprise by the enemy, to meet attacks, and prepare the way for the reinforcing troops. But the violence of the Verdun offensive exceeded all expectations.
Our escadrilles had done their duty as scouts before the attack. After it began, they were overwhelmed and numerically unable to perform all the aerial missions required. The fighting enemy escadrilles, with their new series of machines and their improvements, won for a few days the complete mastery of the air. Our own airplanes were forced off the battle-field, and driven from their landing-places by cannon. Meanwhile the Verdun battle was changing its character. General Petain, who took command on February 26, restored the order which had been compromised by the bending of the front, and established the new front against which the Germans hurled their forces. It was also necessary for him to reconquer the mastery of the air. He asked for and obtained a rapid concentration of all the available escadrilles, and demanded of them vigorous offensive tactics. To economize and cooerdinate strength, all the fighting escadrilles at Verdun were grouped under the sole command of Major de Rose. They operated by patrols, sometimes following very distant itineraries, and attacking all the airplanes they met. In a short time we regained our air supremacy, and our airplanes which were engaged in regulating artillery fire and in taking aerial photographs could work in safety. Their protection was assured by raids even into the German lines.
The Storks Escadrille, then, flew in the direction of Verdun. In the course of the voyage, Guynemer brought down his eighth airplane, which fell vertically in flames. This was a good augury. Hardly had he arrived on March 15 when he began to explore the battle-field with his conqueror's eyes. The enemy at that time still thought himself master, and dared to venture within the French lines. Guynemer chased, over Revigny, a group of five airplanes, drove another out of Argonne, and while returning met two others, almost face to face. He engaged the first one, tacking under it and firing from a distance of ten meters. But the adversary answered his fire, and Guynemer's machine was hit: the right-hand rear longitudinal spar was cut, the cable injured, the right forward strut also cut, and the wind-shield shattered. The airman himself was wounded in the face by fragments of aluminum and iron, one lodging in the jaw, from which it could never be extracted, one in the right cheek, one in the left eyelid, miraculously leaving the eye unhurt, while smaller fragments peppered him generally, causing hemorrhages which clogged his mask and made it adhere to the flesh. In addition, he had two bullets in his left arm. Though blinded by blood, he did not lose his sang-froid, and hastily dived, while the second airplane continued firing, and a third, furnished with a turret, which had come to the rescue of its comrades, descended after him and fired down upon his machine. Nevertheless, he had escaped by his maneuver, and in spite of his injuries made a good landing at Brocourt. On the 14th he was evacuated to Paris, to the Japanese ambulance in the Hotel Astoria, and with despair in his soul was obliged to let his comrades fight their battle of Verdun without his help.
III. "LA TERRE A VU JADIS ERRER DES PALADINS...."[19]
At Verdun our aerial as well as our land forces underwent sudden and almost prodigious reverses. Within a few days the Storks Escadrille had been decimated: its chief, Captain Brocard, had been wounded in the face by a bullet and compelled to land; Lieutenant Perretti had been killed, Lieutenant Deullin wounded, Guynemer wounded and nearly all its best pilots put hors de combat. The lost air-mastery was only regained by the tenacity of Major de Rose, Chief of Aviation of the Second Army, and by a rapid reconcentration of forces.
[Footnote 19: "Once knightly heroes wandered over earth...."]
Major de Rose ordered enemy-chasing, and electrified and inspired his escadrilles. The part he played during those terrible Verdun months can never be sufficiently praised. Guynemer's comrades held the sky under fire, as their brothers, the infantrymen, held the shifting ground which protected the ancient citadel. Chaput brought down seven airplanes, Nungesser six, and a drachen, Navarre four, Lenoir four, Auger and Pelletier d'Oisy three, Puple, Chainat, and Lesort two. The observation airplanes rivaled the fighting machines, often defending themselves, and not infrequently forcing down their assailants in flames. Twice Sergeant Fedoroff rid himself in this manner of troublesome adversaries. But other pilots deserve to be mentioned, pilots such as Stribick and Houtt, Captain Vuillemin, Lieutenant de Laage, Sergeants de Ridder, Viallet and Buisse, and such observers as Lieutenant Liebmann, who was killed, and Mutel, Naudeau, Campion, Moulines, Dumas, Robbe, Travers, sous-lieutenant Boillot, Captain Verdurand—admirable squadron chief—and Major Roisin, expert in bombardments. The lists of names are always too short, but these, at least, should be loudly acclaimed.
Meanwhile the battle of Verdun shattered trees, knocked down walls, annihilated villages, hollowed out the earth, dug up the plains, distorted the hills, and renewed once more that chaos of the third day, according to Genesis, on which the Creator separated the waters from the earth. Almost the entire French army filed through this extraordinary epic battle, and Guynemer, wounded and weeping with rage, was not there.
But there was another period in the Great War in which the grouping of our fighting escadrilles and their employment in offensive movements gave us triumphant superiority in the aerial struggle, and this was the battle of the Somme, particularly during its first three months—a splendid and heroic time when our airmen sprang up in the sky, spreading panic and fear, like the knights-errant of La Legende des siecles. Victor Hugo's verses seem to describe them and their vertiginous rounds rather than the too slow horsemen of old:
La terre a vu jadis errer des paladins; Ils flamboyaient ainsi que des eclairs soudains, Puis s'evanouissaient, laissant sur les visages La crainte, et la lueur de leurs brusques passages... Les noms de quelques-uns jusqu'a nous sont venus.... Ils surgissaient du Sud ou du Septentrion, Portant sur leur ecu l'hydre ou l'alerion, Couverts des noirs oiseaux du taillis heraldique, Marchant seuls au sentier que le devoir indique, Ajoutant au bruit sourd de leur pas solennel La vague obscurite d'un voyage eternel, Ayant franchi les flots, les monts, les bois horribles, Ils venaient de si loin qu'ils en etaient terribles, Et ces grands chevaliers melaient a leurs blasons Toute l'immensite des sombres horizons....
These new knights-errant who wandered above the desolate plains of the Somme, no longer on earth but in the sky, mounted on winged steeds, who started up with a "heavy sound" from south or north, will be immortal like those of the ancient epics. It will be said that it was Dorme or Heurtaux, or Nungesser, Deullin, Sauvage, Tarascon, Chainat, or it was Guynemer, who accomplished such and such an exploit. The Germans, without knowing their names, recognized them, not by their armor and their sword-thrust, but by their machines, their maneuvers and methods. Almost invariably their enemies desperately avoided a fight with them, retreating far within their own lines, where, even then, they were not sure of safety. Those who accepted their gage of battle seldom returned. The enemy aviation camps from Ham to Peronne watched anxiously for the return of their champions who dared to fight over the French lines. None of them cared to fly alone, and even in groups they appeared timid. In patrols of four, five, and six, sometimes more, they flew beyond their own lines with the utmost caution, fearful at the least alarm, and anxiously examining the wide and empty sky where these mysterious knights mounted guard and might at any moment let loose a storm. But in the course of these prodigious first three months of the battle of the Somme, our French chasing-patrols not infrequently flew to and fro for two hours over German aviation camps, forcing down all those who attempted to rise, and succeeding in spreading terror and consternation in the enemy's lines.
The Franco-British offensive began on July 1, 1916, on the flat lands lying along both banks of the Somme River. The general plan of these operations had been agreed upon in the preceding December. The battle of Verdun had not prevented its execution which, on the contrary, was expected to relieve Verdun. The attack was made on a front of 40 kilometers between Gommecourt on the north and Vermandovillers on the south of the river. From the beginning the French penetrated the enemy's first lines, the 20th Corps took the village of Curlu and held the Faviere wood, while the 1st Colonial Corps and one division of the 35th Corps passed the Fay ravine and took possession of Bacquincourt, Dompierre and Bussus. On the third, this successful advance continued into the second lines. Within just a few days General Fayolle's army had taken 10,000 prisoners, 75 cannon, and several hundred machine-guns. But the Germans, who were concentrated in the Peronne region, with strong positions like Maurepas, Combles, and Clery, and, further in the rear, Bouchavesnes and Sailly-Saillisel on the right bank, and Estrees, Belloy-en-Santerre, Barleux, Albaincourt and Pressoire on the left bank, made such desperate resistance that the struggle was prolonged into mid-winter. The German retreat in March, 1917, to the famous Hindenburg line was the strategic result of this terrible battle, the tactics of which were continuously successful and the connection between the different arms brought to perfection, while the infantry made an unsurpassed record for suffering and endurance and will power in such combats as Maurepas (August 12), Clery (September 3), Bouchavesnes (September 12)—where, when evening came, the enemy was definitely broken—and the taking of Berny-en-Santerre, of Deniecourt, of Vermandovillers (September 13) on the left bank, and on the right bank the entry into Combles (surrounded on September 26), the advance on Sailly-Saillisel and the stubborn defense of this ruined village whose chateau and central district had already been occupied on October 15, and in which a few houses resisted until November 12. Then, there was the fight for the Chaulnes wood, and La Maisonnette and Ablaincourt and Pressoire; and everywhere it was the same as at Verdun: the woods were razed to the ground, villages disappeared into the soil, and the earth was so plowed and crushed and martyred that it was nothing but one immense wound.
Now, the air forces had had their part in the victory. Obliged, as they were at Verdun, to resist the numerical superiority of the enemy, they had thrown off the tyranny of atmospheric conditions and accepted and fulfilled diverse missions in all kinds of weather. Verdun had hardened them, as it had "burned the blood" of the infantry who had never known a worse hell than that one. But as our operations now took the initiative, the aviation corps was able to prepare its material more effectively, to organize its aerodromes and concentrate its forces beforehand. Its advantage was evident from the first day of the Somme offensive, not only in mechanical power, but in a method which cooerdinated and increased its efforts under a single command. Though this arm of the service was in continuous evolution, more subject than any other to the modifications of the war, and the most susceptible of all to progress and improvement, it had nevertheless finished its trial stages and acquired full development as connecting agent for all the other arms, whom it supplied with information. Serving at first for strategic reconnaissance, and then almost exclusively for regulating artillery fire, the aerial forces now performed complex and efficient service for every branch of the army. By means of aerial photography they furnished exact knowledge of the ground and of the enemy's defenses, thus preceding the execution of military operations. They regulated artillery fire, followed the program laid down for the destruction of the enemy, and supplied such information as was necessary to set the time for the attack. They then accompanied the infantry in the attack, observed its progress, located the conquered positions, revealed the situation of the enemy's new lines, betrayed his defensive works, and announced his reinforcements and his counter-attacks. They were the conducting wire between the command, the artillery, and the troops, and everybody felt them to be sure and faithful allies, for they were able to see and know, to speak and warn. But the air forces, during all their useful missions, were themselves in need of protection, and there must be no enemy airplanes about if they were to make their observations in security. But how to rid them of these enemies, and render the latter incapable of harm? Here the air cavalry, the airplanes built for distant scouting and combats, intervened. The safety of observation machines could only be insured by long-distance protection, that is to say, by aerial patrols taking the offensive, not by a solitary guard, too often disappointing, and ineffective against a resolute adversary. Their safety near to the army could be guaranteed only by carrying the aerial struggle over into the enemy's lines and preventing all raids upon our own. The groups belonging to our fighting escadrilles on both banks of the Somme achieved this result.
The one-seated Nieuport, rapid, easily managed, with high ascensional speed, and capable, by its solid construction and air-piercing power, of diving from a height upon an enemy and falling upon him like a bird of prey, was then the chasing airplane par excellence, and remained so until the appearance of the terrible Spad, which made its debut in the course of the Somme campaign, Guynemer and Corporal Sauvage piloting the first two of these machines in early September, 1916. They were armed with machine-guns, firing forward, and invariably connected with the direction of the machine's motion. The Spad is an extraordinary instrument of attack, but its defense lies only in its capacity for rapid displacement and the swiftness of its evolutions. Its rear is badly exposed: its field of visibility is very limited at the sides, and objects can be seen only above and below,—below, minus the dead angle of the motor and the cock-pit. The pilot can easily lose sight of the airplanes in his own group or that of the enemy, so that if he is alone, he is in danger of being surprised. On the other hand, one condition of his own victory is to surprise the enemy, especially if he attacks a two-seated machine whose range of fire is much broader, or if he does not hesitate to choose his victim from among a group. The Spad pilot makes use of the sun, of fog, of clouds. He flies high in order to hold the advantage of being able to pounce down upon his enemy while the enemy approaches prudently, timidly, suspecting no danger.
The battle of the Somme was the most favorable for solitary airplanes, or airplanes coupled like hunting-dogs. Since then methods have changed, and the future belongs to fighting escadrilles or groups of machines. But at that time the one-seated airplane was king of the air. One of them was enough to intimidate enemy airplanes engaged in regulating artillery fire and in short-distance scouting, making them hesitate to leave their lines, and to frighten barrier patrols of two or even four two-seated airplanes, in spite of their shooting superiority, into turning back and disbanding. The one-seated enemy machines never ventured out except in groups, and even with the advantage of two against one refused to fight. So the one-seated French machine was obliged to fly alone, for if it was accompanied by patrols, the enemy fled and there was no one to attack; whereas, when free to maneuver at will, the solitary pilot could plan ruses, hide himself in the light or in the clouds, take advantage of the enemy's blind sides, and carry out sudden destructive attacks which are impossible for groups. Our airmen never speak of the Somme without a smile of satisfaction: they have retained heroic memories of that campaign. Afterwards, the Germans drilled their one-seated or two-seated patrols, trained them in resistance to isolated attacks, and taught them in turn how to attack the solitary machine which had ventured out beyond its own lines. We were obliged to alter our tactics and adopt group formation. But the strongest types of our enemy-chasing pilots were revealed or developed during the battle of the Somme.
Moreover, our aviators at that time were incomparable; and in citing the most illustrious among them one risks injustice to their companions whose opportunities were less fortunate and whose exploits were less brilliant but not less useful. The cavalry, artillery, and infantry were drawn upon for recruits for the aviation branch of the army, and it appeared a difficult undertaking to fuse such different elements; but as all shared the same life and the same dangers, had similar tastes, and a passion for attaining the same result, and as their officers were necessarily recruited from among themselves, and chosen for services rendered, an atmosphere of camaraderie and friendly rivalry was created. A great novelist said that the origin of our friendships dates "from those hours at the beginning of life when we dream of the future in company with some comrade with the same ideals as our own, a chosen brother."[20] What difference does it make, then, if they depart in company for glory or for death? These young men gave themselves with the same willingness to the same service, a service full of constant danger. They were not gathered together by chance, but by their vocation and by selection, and they spoke the same language. For them, friendship easily became rivalry in courage and energy, and a school of mutual esteem, in which each strove to outdo the other. Friendship kept them alert, drove away inertia and weakness, and they became confident and generous, so that each rejoiced in the success of the others. In the mountains, on the sea, in every place where men feel most acutely their own fragility, such friendship is not rare; but war brings it to perfection.
[Footnote 20: Paul Bourget, Une Idylle tragique.]
The patrols of the Storks Escadrille, in the beginning of the Somme campaign, consisted of a single airplane, or airplanes in couples. Guynemer, whom everybody called "the kid," always took Heurtaux with him when he carried a passenger; for Heurtaux, as blond as Guynemer was brown, thin and slender, very delicate and young, seemed to give Guynemer the rights of an elder. Heurtaux was the Oliver of this Roland. In character and energy they were the same. Dorme used to take Deullin with him, or de la Tour. Or the choice was made alternately. This was the quartet of whom the enemy had cause to beware, and woe to the Boche who met any one of them! There was at that time at Bapaume a group of five one-seated German machines which never maneuvered singly. If they perceived a pair of Nieuports, they immediately tacked about and fled in haste. But if one of our chasers was cruising alone, the whole group attacked him. Heurtaux, attacked in this way, had been compelled to dive and land, and on his return had to submit to the jests of Guynemer, for at that age friendship is roughish. "Go there yourself," advised Heurtaux, "and you will see." Next day Guynemer went alone, but in his turn was forced down. After these two trials, which might have ended in disaster—but knights must amuse themselves—the five one-seated planes at Bapaume were methodically but promptly beaten down.
Friendship demands equality between souls. If one has to protect the other, if one is manifestly superior, it is no longer friendship. In the Storks Escadrille friendship reigned in peace in the midst of war, so surely did each take his turn in surpassing the others. Which one was, finally, to be the greatest, not because of the number of his mentions, nor his renown or public fame, but according to the testimony of his comrades—the surest and most clearsighted of testimony—for no one can deceive his peers? Would it be the cold and calm Dorme, who went to battle as a fisher goes to his nets, who never spoke of his exploits, and whose heart, under this modest, gentle, kind exterior, was filled with hatred for the invader who occupied his own countryside, Briey, and for six months had held in custody and ill-treated his parents? In the Somme battle alone his official victories numbered seventeen, but the enemy could recount many others, doubtless, for this silent, well-balanced young man possessed quite improbable audacity. He would fly more than fifteen or twenty kilometers above the German lines, perfectly tranquil under the showers of shells which rose from the earth. At such a distance within their lines the Boche airplanes thought themselves safe when, suddenly, du Sud ou du Septentrion, appeared this knightly hero. And he would return smilingly, as fresh as when he had started out. It was only with difficulty that a very brief statement could then be extracted from him. His machine would be inspected, and not a trace of any fragment found; he might have been a tourist returning from a promenade. In more than a hundred combats his airplane received only three very small wounds. His cleverness in handling his machine was incredible: his close veering, his twistings and turnings, made it impossible for the adversary to shoot. He also knew how to quit the combat in time, if his own maneuvers had not succeeded. He seemed invulnerable. But later, much later, while he was fighting on the Aisne in May, 1917, Dorme, who had penetrated far within the enemy's lines, never came back.
Was Heurtaux the greatest, whose method was as delicate as himself—a virtuoso of the air, clever, supple and quickwitted, whose hand and eye equaled his thought in rapidity? Was it Deullin, skilled in approach, and prompt as the tempest? Or the long-enduring, robust, admirable sous-lieutenant Nungessor, or Sergeant Sauvage, or Adjutant Tarascon? Was it Captain Menard, or Sangloer, or de la Tour? But the reader knows very well that it was Guynemer. Why was it Guynemer, according to the testimony of all his rivals? History and the epic have coupled many names of friends, like Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Nisus and Euryalus, Roland and Oliver. In these friendships, one is always surpassed by the other, but not in intelligence, nor courage nor nobility of character. For generosity, or wisdom of council, one might even prefer a Patroclus to an Achilles, an Oliver to a Roland. In what, then, lies the superiority? That is the secret of temperament, the secret of genius, the interior flame which burns the brightest, and whose appearances cause astonishment and almost terror, as if some mystery were divulged.
It is certain that Georges Guynemer was a mechanician and a gunsmith. He knew his machine and his machine-gun, and how to make them do their utmost. But there were others who knew the same. Dorme and Heurtaux were perhaps more skillful in maneuvering than he. (It was interesting to watch Guynemer when he was preparing to mount his Nieuport. First the bird was brought out of the shed; then he minutely examined and fingered it. This tall thin young man, with his amber-colored skin, his long oval face and thin nose, his mouth with its corners falling slightly, a very slight moustache, and crow-black hair tossed backward, would have resembled a Moorish chief had he been more impassive. But his features constantly showed his changing thoughts, and this play of expression gave grace and freshness to his face. Sometimes it seemed strained and hardened, and a vertical wrinkle appeared on his forehead above the nose. His eyes—the unforgettable eyes of Guynemer—round like agates, black and burning with a brilliance impossible to endure, for which there is only one expression sufficiently strong, that of Saint-Simon concerning some personage of the court of Louis XIV: "The glances of his eyes were like blows"—pierced the sky like arrows, when his practiced ear had heard the harsh hum of an enemy motor. In advance he condemned the audacious adversary to death, seeming from a distance to draw him into the abyss, like a sorcerer.)
After examining his machine he put on his fur-lined combinaison over his black coat, and his head-covering, the passe-montagne, fitting tightly over his hair, and framing the oval of his face, and over this his leather helmet. Plutarch spoke of the terrible expression of Alexander when he went to battle. Guynemer's face, when he rose for a flight, was appalling.
What did he do in the air? His flight journals and statements tell the story. On each page, a hundred times in succession, and several times on a page, his flight notebooks contain the short sentences which seem to bound from the paper, like a dog showing its teeth: "I attack ... I attack ... I attack...." At long intervals, as if ashamed, appears the phrase: "I am attacked." On the Somme more than twenty victories were credited to him, and to these should be added, as in the case of Dorme, others taking place at too great distances to receive confirmation. In the first month of the Somme battle, on September 13, 1916, the Storks Escadrille, Captain Brocard, was mentioned before the army: "Has shown unequaled energy and devotion to duty in the operations of Verdun and the Somme, waging, from March 19 to August 19, 1916, 338 combats, bringing down 36 airplanes, 3 drachen, and compelling 36 other badly damaged airplanes to land." Captain Brocard dedicated this mention to Lieutenant Guynemer, writing under it: "To Lieutenant Guynemer, my oldest pilot, and most brilliant Stork. Souvenir of gratitude and warmest friendship." And all the pilots of the escadrille, in turn, came to sign it. His comrades had often seen what he did in the air.
When Guynemer came back and landed, what a spectacle! Although a victor, his face was not appeased. It was never to be appeased. He never was satisfied, never waged enough battles, never burned or destroyed enough enemies. When he landed he was still under the influence of nervous effort, and seemed as if electrified by the fluid still passing through his frame. However, his machine bore traces of the struggle: four bullets in the wing, the body, and the elevator. And he himself was grazed by the missiles, his combinaison scratched and the end of his glove torn. By what miracle had he escaped?—He had passed through encircling death as a man leaps through a hoop.
His method was one of the wildest temerity and impetuosity, and can be recommended to nobody. The number and strength of the enemy, so far from repelling, attracted him. He flew to vertiginous heights, and taking his place in the sunshine, watched and waited. In an attack he did not make use of the aerial acrobatic maneuvers with which, however, he was perfectly familiar. He struck without delay,—what is known in fencing as the cut direct. Without trying to maintain his machine within his adversary's dead angles, he fell on him as a stone falls. He shot as near to the enemy as he could, at the risk of being shot first himself, and even of interlocking their machines, though in that respect the sureness of his maneuvering sufficed to disengage him. If he failed to take the enemy by surprise, he did not quit the combat as prudence exacted; but returned to the charge, refusing to unhook his clutch from the enemy airplane, and held him, and wanted him, and got him.
His passion for flying never diminished. On rainy days, when it was unreasonable and useless to attempt to fly, he wandered around the sheds where the winged horses took their repose. He could not resist it: he entered, and mounted his own machine, settling himself in his cock-pit and handling the controls, holding mysterious conferences with his faithful steed.
In the air, he had a higher power of resistance than the most robust men. This frail, sickly Guynemer, twice refused by the army because of feebleness of constitution, never gave up. In proportion as the requirements of aviation became more severe, as the higher altitudes reached made it more exhausting, Guynemer seemed to prolong his flights to the point where overwork and nervous depression compelled him to go away and take a little rest—which made him suffer still more. And suddenly, before he had taken the necessary repose, he threw it off like ballast, and returning to camp, reappeared in the air, like the falcon in the legend of Saint Julien the Hospitaller: "The bold bird rose straight in the air like an arrow, and there could be seen two spots of unequal size which turned and joined, and then disappeared in the heights of heaven. The falcon soon descended, tearing some bird to pieces, and returned to his perch on the gauntlet, with his wings quivering."[21] Thus the victorious Guynemer came back, quivering, to the aviation field. Truly, a god possessed him.
[Footnote 21: Flaubert.]
Apart from all that, he was just a boy, simple, gay, tender, and charming.
IV. ON THE SOMME (JUNE, 1916, TO FEBRUARY, 1917)
Georges Guynemer, then, was wounded on March 15, 1916, at Verdun. On April 26, he arrived again at the front, with his arm half-cured and the wounds scarcely healed. He had escaped from the doctors and nurses. Between times, he had been promoted sous-lieutenant. But he had to be sent back, to his bandages and massage.
He returned to Compiegne. The bargain he had made with his sister Yvonne was continued, and when the weather was clear he went to Vauciennes, where his machine awaited him. The first time he met an airplane after his fall and his wound, he experienced a quite natural but very painful sensation. Would he hesitate? Was he no longer the stubborn Guynemer? The Boche shot, but he did not reply. The Boche used up all his machine-gun belt, and the combat was broken off. Was it to be believed? What had happened?
Guynemer returned to his home. In the spring dawn comes very soon, and he had left so early that it was still morning. Was his sister awake? He waited, but waiting was not his forte. So he opened the door again, and his childish face appeared in the strip of light that filtered through. This time the sleeper saw him.
"Already back? Go back to bed. It is too early."
"Is it really so early?"
Her sisterly tenderness divined that he had something to tell her, something important, and that it would be necessary to help him to tell it. "Come in," she said.
He opened the blinds and sat down at the foot of the bed.
"What scouting have you done this morning?"
But he was following his own thoughts: "The men had warned me that under those circumstances one receives a very disagreeable impression."
"Under what circumstances?"
"When one goes up again after having been wounded, and meets a Boche. As long as you have not been wounded you think nothing can happen to you. When I saw that Boche this morning I felt something quite new. Then...."
He stopped and laughed, as if he had played some schoolboy joke.
"Then, what did you do?"
"Well, I made up my mind to submit to his shots. Calmly."
"Without replying?"
"Surely: I ordered myself not to shoot. That is the way one masters one's nerves, little sister. Mine are entirely mastered: I am now absolutely in control. The Boche presented me with five hundred shots while I maneuvered. They were necessary. I am perfectly satisfied."
She looked at him, sitting at the foot of the bed with his head resting against the post. Her eyes were wet and she kept silent. The silence continued.
Finally she said softly, "You have done well, Georges."
But he was asleep.
Later, referring to this meeting in which he offered himself to the enemy's fire, he said gravely:
"That was the decisive moment of my life. If I had not set things right then and there, I was done for...."
When he reappeared at his escadrille's head-quarters on May 18, quite cheerful but with a set face and flaming eyes, no one dared discuss his cure with him.
The Storks returned for a few days to the Oise region, and once more the contented pilot of a Nieuport flew over the country from Peronne to Roye. He had not lost the least particle of his determination; quite the reverse. One day (May 22) he searched the air desperately for three hours, and though he finally discovered a two-seated enemy machine over Noyon, he was obliged to give over the combat for lack of gasoline in his motor.
Meanwhile they were preparing the Somme battle; the escadrilles familiarized themselves with their ground, and new machines were tried. The enemy, who suspected our preparations, sent out long-distance scouting airplanes. Near Amiens, above Villers-Bretonneux, Guynemer, making his rounds with Sergeant Chainat, attacked one of these groups on June 22, isolated one of the airplanes and, maneuvering with his comrade, set it afire. That was, I believe, his ninth. This combat took place at a height of 4200 meters. The advantage went more and more to the pilot who mounted highest.
After July 1 there was a combat almost every day. Would Guynemer be put out of action from the beginning, as at Verdun? Returning on the 6th, after having put to flight an L.V.G., he surprised another Boche airplane which was diving down on one of our artillery-regulating machines. He immediately drew the enemy's attention to himself; but the enemy (Guynemer pays him this homage in his flight notebook) was keen and supple. His well-aimed shots passed through the propeller of the Nieuport and cut two cables in the right cell. Guynemer was obliged to land. He was forced down eight times during his flying career, once under fantastic conditions. He passed through every form of danger without ever losing the self-possession, the quickness of eye, and rapidity of decision which his passion for conquest had developed.
What battles he fought in the air! On July 9 his journal notes a combat of five against five; on the 10th a combat of three against seven, in which Guynemer disengaged Deullin, who was followed by an Aviatik at a distance of a hundred meters. On the 11th, at 10 o'clock, he attacked an L.V.G. and cut its cable; the enemy dived but appeared to be in control of the machine. A few moments later he and Deullin attacked an Aviatik and an L.V.G., Guynemer damaging the Aviatik, and Deullin forcing down the L.V.G.; and before returning to their base, the two comrades attacked a group of seven machines and dispersed them. On the 16th Guynemer forced down, with Heurtaux, an L.V.G., which fell with its wheels in the air. After a short absence, during which he got a more powerful machine for his own use, he began on the 25th a repetition of his former program. On the 26th he waged five combats with enemy groups consisting of from five to eleven airplanes. On the 27th he fought three L.V.G.'s, and then groups of from three to ten machines. On the 28th he successively attacked two airplanes within their own lines, then a drachen which was obliged to land, then a group of four airplanes one of which was forced down, and then a second group of four which were dispersed, Guynemer pursuing one of the fugitives and bringing him down. One blade of his own propeller was riddled with bullets, and he was compelled to land. Such was his work for three days, taken at random from the notebook.
Open his journal at any page, and it reads the same. On August 7 Guynemer got back with seven shell fragments in his machine: he had been cannonaded from the ground while in chase of four enemy airplanes. On the same day he started off again, piloting Heurtaux, who attacked the German trenches north of Clery and fired on some machine-guns. From its place up in the air the airplane encouraged the infantry, and shared in their assaults. The recital of events became, however, more and more brief: the fighting pilot had not time enough to write details; nobody had any time in the Storks Escadrille, constantly engaged as it was in its triumphant flights. We must turn then to Guynemer's letters—strange letters, indeed, which contain nothing, absolutely nothing about the war, or the battle of the Somme, or about anything else except his war and his battle. The earth-world no longer existed for him: the earth was a place which received the dead and the vanquished. So this is the way in which he wrote his two sisters, then sojourning in Switzerland (Fritz meaning any enemy airplane):
Dear Kids,
Some sport: the 17, attacked a Fritz, three shots and gun jammed; Fritz tumbled. The 18th, idem, but in two shots: two Fritzes in five shots, record.
Day before yesterday, attacked Fritz at 4.30 at ten meters: killed the passenger and perhaps the rest, prevented from seeing what happened by a fight at half-past four: the Boche ran.
At 7.40 attacked an Aviatik, carried away by the impetus, passed it at fifty centimeters; passenger "couic" (killed), the machine fell and was got under control again at fifty meters above the ground.
At 7.35, attacked an L.V.G.; at fifteen meters; just ready to shoot, when a bullet in my fingers made me let go the trigger; reservoir burst, good landing two kilometers from the trenches between two shell-holes. Inventory of the "taxi": one bullet right in the face of my Vickers; one perforative bullet in the motor; the steel stone had gone clear through it as well as the oil reservoir, the gasoline tank, the cartridge chest, my glove ... where it stayed in the index finger: result, about as if my finger had been slightly pinched in a door; not even skinned, only the top of the nail slightly blackened. At the time I thought two fingers had been shot. To continue the inventory: one bullet in the reservoir, in the direction of my left lung, having passed through four millimeters of copper and had the good sense to stop, but one wonders why.
One bullet in the edge of the back of my seat, one in the rudder, and a dozen in the wings. They knocked the "taxi" to pieces with a hatchet at two o'clock in the morning, under shell-fire. On landing, received 86 shots of 105, 130 and 150, for nothing. They will pay the bill.
For a beginning, La Tour has his fourth mention.
A hug for each of you.
Georges.
P.S.—It could not be said now that I am not strong; I stop steel bullets with the end of my finger.
Is this a letter? At first, it is a bulletin of victory: two airplanes for five bullets, plus one passenger "couic." Then it becomes a recital of the golden legend—the golden legend of aviation: he stops the enemy's bullets with his fingers; Roland would write in that style to the beautiful Aude: "Met three Saracens, Durandal cleft two, the third tried to settle the affair with his bow, but the arrow broke on the cord." Young Paul Bailly was right: "The exploits of Guynemer are not a legend, like those of Roland; in telling them just as they happened we find them more beautiful than any we could invent." That is why it is better to let Guynemer himself relate them. He says only what is necessary, but the right accent is there, the rapidity and the "couic." The following letter is dated September 15, 1916.
From the same to the same
Some sport.
On the 16th, in a group of six, four of them squeezed at 25 meters.
In four days, six combats at 25 meters: filled a few Boches with holes, but they did not seem to tumble down, though some were hard hit all the same; then five boxing rounds up between 5100 and 5300 (altitude). To-day five combats, four of them at less than 25 meters, and the fifth at 50 meters. In the first, gun jammed at 50 meters. In the second, at 5200, the Boche in his excitement lost his wings, and descended on his aerodrome in a wingless coach; his ears must be humming (16th). The third was a nose-to-nose combat with a fighting Aviatik. Too much impetus: I failed to hammer him hollow. In the fourth, same joke with an L.V.G. in a group of three: I failed to hammer him, I lurched: pan, a bullet near my head. In the fifth, I cleaned up the passenger (that is the third this week), then knocked up the pilot very badly at 10 meters,—completely disabled, he landed evidently with great difficulty, and he must be in hospital....
Three lines to describe a victory, the sixteenth. And what boarding of the adversary, from above and from below! He springs upon the enemy, but fails to go through him. Both speeds combined, he does not make much less than 400 kilometers an hour when he dives on him. The meeting and shooting hardly last one second, after which the combat continues, with other maneuvers. Some savant should calculate the time allowed for sight and thought in fighting such duels!
This was the period of the great series of combats on the Somme. The Storks Escadrille, which was the first to arrive, waged battle uninterruptedly for eight months. Other escadrilles came to the rescue. Altogether they were divided into two groups, one under the command of Major Fequant, the other under that of Captain Brocard, appointed chief of battalion. It becomes impossible to enumerate all Guynemer's victories, and we can merely emphasize the days on which he surpassed himself. September 28 was a remarkable day, on which he brought down two enemies and had a fall from a height of 3000 meters. Little Paul Bailly would hardly have believed that; he would have said it was surely a legend, the golden legend of aviation. Nevertheless, here is Guynemer's statement, countersigned by the escadrille commandant:
"Saturday, September 23.—Two combats near Eterpigny. At 11.20 forced down a Boche in flames near Aches; at 11.21 forced a Boche to land, damaged, near Carrepuy; at 11.25 forced down a Boche in flames near Roye. At 11.30, was forced down myself by a French shell, and smashed my machine near Fescamps...."
These combats occurred between Peronne and Montdidier. To his father he wrote with more precision, but in his usual elliptical style. |
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