Georges Guynemer: Knight of the Air Part 9

"I happen to be wounded, General."

"Wounded, you! It's impossible. When a man falls from the sky without being broken, he is a magician, no doubt of that. You cannot be wounded.

However, lean upon me."

And holding him up, almost indeed carrying him, he walked with the young _sous-lieutenant_ in front of the troops. From the neighboring trenches rose the sound of singing, first half-suppressed, and then swelling into a formidable roar: the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_. The song had sprung spontaneously to the men's lips.

Cerebral commotion required Guynemer to rest for a few days. But on October 5 he started off again. The month of October on the Somme was marked by an improvement in German aviation, their numbers being considerably reinforced and supplied with new tactics. Guynemer defied the new tactics of numbers, and in one day, October 17, attacked a group of three one-seated planes, and another group of five. A second time he made a sortie, and attacked a two-seated plane which was aided by five one-seated machines. On another occasion, November 9, he waged six battles with one-seated and two-seated machines, all of which made their escape, one after another, by diving. Still this was not enough, and he set forth again and attacked a group of one Albatros and four one-seated planes. "Hard fight," says the journal, "the enemy has the advantage."

He broke off this combat, but only to engage in another with an Albatros which had surprised Lieutenant Deullin at 50 meters. On the following day, November 10, he added two more items to his list (making his nineteenth and twentieth): his first victim, at whom he had shot fifteen times from a distance less than ten meters, fell in flames south of Nesle; the other, a two-seated Albatros, 220 H.P. Mercedes, protected by three one-seated machines, fell and was crushed to pieces in the Morcourt ravine. This double stroke he repeated on the twenty-second of the same month (making his twenty-second and twenty-third), and again on January 23, 1917 (his twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh), and still again the next day, the twenty-fourth (his twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth victories). In addition, here is one of his letters with a statement of the results of three chasing days. There are no longer headings or endings to his letters; he makes a direct attack, as he does in the air.

26-1-'17

_January_ 24, 1917.--Fell on a group of five Boches at 2300. I brought them back, with drums beating, at 800 meters (one wire stay cut, one escape pot broken). At the end of the boxing-round, 400 meters above Roye, I succeeded in getting behind a one-seated machine of the group. My motor stopped; obliged to pump and let the Boche go.

11.45.--Attacked a Fritz, let him go at 800 meters, my motor spattered, but the Boche landed, head down, near Goyancourt. I only count him as damaged.

At this instant, I see a Boche cannonaded at 2400, hence at 11.50 a boxing round necessary with a little Rumpler armed with two machine-guns. The pilot got a bullet in his lung; the pa.s.senger, who fired at me, got one in his knee. The two reservoirs were hit, and the whole machine took fire and tumbled down at Lignieres, within our lines. I landed alongside; in starting in again one wheel was broken in the plowed frozen earth. In taking away the "taxi" the park people completely demolished it for me. It was rushed to Paris for repairs.

25.--I watch the others fly, and fume.

26.--Bucquet loaned me his "taxi." No view-finder; only a wretchedly bad (oh, how bad!) sight-line.

At 12 o'clock.--Saw a Boche at 3800; took the lift.--Arrived at the sun.--In turning, was caught in an eddy-wind, rotten tail spin.--While coming down again I saw the Boche aiming at me 200 meters away; sent him ten shots: gun jammed; but the Boche seemed excited and dived with his motor in full blast straight south. Off we go! But I took care not to get too near so that he would not see that my gun was out of action. The altimeter tumbled: 1600 Estrees-Saint-Denis came in sight. I maneuvered my Boche as well as I could. Suddenly he righted himself and departed in the direction of Rheims, banging away at me.

I tried bluffing; I rose 500 meters and let myself fall on him like a pebble. When I began to think my bluff had not succeeded, he seemed impressed and began to descend again. I placed myself at a distance of 10 meters, but every time I showed my nose the pa.s.senger aimed at me. The road to Compiegne: 1000 ... 800 meters.

When I showed my nose, the pa.s.senger, standing, stopped aiming and made a sign that he gave himself up. All right! I saw under his belly that four sh.e.l.ls had struck the mark. 400 meters: the Boche slowed up his "_moulin_" (motor). 200 meters, 20 meters. I let him go and watched him land. At 100 meters I circled and found I was over an aerodrome. But, having no more cartridges, I could not prevent them from setting fire to their "taxi," a magnificent 200 H.P. Albatros. When I saw they had been surrounded, I landed and showed the Boches my broken machine-gun. Sensation. They had fired at me two hundred times: my bullets, before the breakdown, had gone through their altimeter and their tachometer, which had caused their excitement. The pilot said that an airplane had been forced down two days before at Goyancourt: pa.s.senger killed, pilot wounded in legs--had to have one amputated above the knee. I hope this original confirmation will be accepted, which will make 30.

Thirty victories, twenty or twenty-one of which occurred on the Somme: such is the schedule of these extraordinary flights. The last one surpa.s.sed all the rest. He fought unarmed, with nothing but his machine, like a knight who, with sword broken, manages his horse and brings his adversary to bay. What a scene it was when the German pilot and pa.s.senger, prisoners, became aware that Guynemer's machine-gun had been out of action! Once more he had imposed his will upon others, and his power of domination had fascinated his enemies.

In the beginning of February, 1917, the Storks Escadrille left the Somme after six months' fighting, and flew into Lorraine.

CANTO III

AT THE ZENITH

I. ON THE 25TH OF MAY, 1917

The destiny of a Guynemer is to surpa.s.s himself. Part of his power, however, must lie in the perfection of his weapons. Why could he not forge them himself? In him, the mechanician and the gunsmith were impatient to serve the pilot and the fighter. Nothing in the science of aviation was unknown to him, and Guynemer in the factory was always the same Guynemer. He worked with the same nervous tension when he overhauled his machine-guns to avoid the too frequent and too troublesome jamming, or when he improved the arrangement of the instruments and tools in his airplane in accordance with his superior practical experience, as when he chased an enemy. He wanted to compel the obedience of matter, as he compelled the enemy to surrender.

In the Somme campaign he had forced down two airplanes in a single day, and then four in two days. In Lorraine he was to do even better. At that time, the beginning of 1917, the German aerial forces were very active in Lorraine, but the city of Nancy paid no attention to them. In 1914 Nancy had seen the invading army broken against the mountain of Saint Genevieve and the Grand Couronne; she had withstood a bombardment by gigantic sh.e.l.ls and visits from air squadrons, and all without losing her good humor and her animation. She was one of those cities on the front who are accustomed to danger, and who find in it an inspiration for courage, for commerce, and even for pleasure which does not belong to cities behind the lines. Sometimes people who were dining on the Place Stanislas left their tables to watch some fine battle in the air, after which they resumed their seats and their appet.i.tes, merely replacing Rhenish by Moselle wines. Nevertheless, the frequency of raids, and the destruction caused by bombs, began to make the existence of both native and visiting Nancyites decidedly unpleasant. The Storks Escadrille, which arrived in February, very promptly punished these aerial brigands, by a police policy both rapid and severe. The enemy airplanes which flew over Nancy were vigorously chased, and less than a month later the framework of a good dozen of them, arranged in an orderly manner around the statue of Stanislas Leczinski, rea.s.sured the population and served as an interesting spectacle for the visitor who could no longer have the pleasure of admiring, behind Lamour's gates, the two monumental fountains consecrated to Neptune and Amphitrite, by Guibal, and which were then covered by coa.r.s.e sacks of earth.

Guynemer had contributed his share of these _spolia opima_. On March 16 he alone had forced down three Boches, and a fourth on the 17th. Three victories in one day const.i.tuted a novel exploit. Navarre had achieved a double victory on February 26, 1916, at Verdun, and Guynemer had the same success on the Somme; in this campaign Nungesser had burned a drachen and two airplanes in one morning; but three airplanes destroyed in one day had never been seen before.

On that same evening Guynemer wrote to his family, and I transcribe the letter just as it is, with neither heading nor final formula. The King of Spain, in _Ruy Blas_, talks of the weather before he tells of the six wolves he has killed; but the new Cid fought in all weathers and speaks of nothing but his chase:

9 o'clock.--Rose from the ground on hearing sh.e.l.l explosions.

Forced down in flames a two-seated Albatros at 9.08.

9.20.--Attacked with Deuillin a group of three one-seated Albatros, famous on the Lorraine front. At 9.26 I brought one down almost intact: pilot wounded, Lieutenant von Hausen, nephew of the general. And Deullin brought down another in flames at the same time. About 9 o'clock Dorme and Auger had attacked and grilled a two-seated plane. These four Boches were in a quadrilateral, the sides of which measured five kilometers, four and a half kilometers, three kilometers and three kilometers. Those who were in the middle need not have bothered themselves, but they were completely distracted.

14.30.--Forced down a two-seated Albatros in flames.

Three Boches within our lines for my day's work.... Ouf! G.G.

Guynemer, who had been promoted lieutenant in February and was to be made captain in March, treated this Lieutenant von Hausen humanely and courteously as soon as he had landed. In all his mentions up to that time Guynemer had been described as a "brilliant chasing pilot"; he was now mentioned as an "incomparable chasing pilot."

Early in April the Storks left Lorraine and went to make their nests on a plateau on the left bank of the Aisne, back of Fismes. New events were in preparation. After the German retreat to the Hindenburg line, the French army in connection with the English army--which was to attack Vimy cliffs (April 9-10, 1917)--was about to undertake that vast offensive operation which, from Soissons to Auberive in Champagne, was to roll like an ocean wave over the slopes of the Chemin des Dames, the hills of Sapigneul and Brimont, and the Moronvillers mountain. Hearts were filled with hope, and the men were inspired by a sacred joy. Their sufferings and their wounds did not prevent the hearts of the soldiers in that spring of 1917 from flowering in sublime sacrifices for the cause of liberty.

As at the battle of the Somme, so at the battle of the Aisne our aerial escadrilles were in close touch with the general staff and the other arms of the service. Their success was no doubt dependent upon the quality of the airplanes, and the factory output, and limited by the enemy's power in the air. But though they were unable to achieve the mastery of the air from the very first, they continued obstinately to increase their force, and little by little their successes increased.

They had to oppose an enemy who had just accomplished an immense improvement in his aviation corps.

In September, 1916, the German staff, profiting by the lessons of the Somme campaign during which its aviation forces had been so terribly scourged, resolved upon an almost complete reorganization of its aeronautical service. Hindenburg's program arranged for a rehandling of both the direction and the technical services. A decree dating from November, 1916, announced the separation from the other services of the Air Fight Forces (_Luftstreitkrafte_), which were to be placed under a staff officer, the _Kommandeur der Luftstreitkrafte_. This new _Kommandeur_, who was to superintend the building of the machines as well as the training of the pilots, was Lieutenant General von Hoeppner, with Lieutenant Colonel Tjomsen as an a.s.sistant. The squadrons, numbering more than 270, were divided into bombing, chasing, patrolling and field escadrilles, these last being intrusted with scouting, photographing, and artillery work, in constant touch with the infantry.

Most of these novelties were servilely copied from French aviation. The Germans had borrowed the details of _liaison_ service, as well as those for the regulation of artillery fire, from the French regulations. The commander of the aeronautical section of the Fifth German Army (Verdun) said in a report that "a conscientious aviator was the only reliable informant in action." And his supreme chief, the Kronprinz, commenting upon this sentence, drew the following conclusions: "All this shows once more that through methodical use of Infantry Aviation, the command can be kept informed of developments through the whole battle. But the necessary condition for fruitful work in the field lies in a previous training carried on with the infantry, machine-guns, artillery, and _liaison_ units. The task of the Infantry Flyer is apt to become more difficult as the weather grows worse, and ground more deeply plowed up, the enemy more pressing, or our own troops yielding ground. When all these unfavorable circ.u.mstances are united, the Infantry Aviator can only be effective if he has perfect training. So he must be in constant contact with the other services, and the Infantry must know him personally. At a pinch he ought to make himself understood by the troops, even without any of the usual signals."

But these airplanes, while doing this special work, must be protected by patrolling escadrilles. The best protection is afforded by the chasing units, fitted to spread terror and death far afield, or to stop enemy escadrilles bound on a similar errand. Here again, copying the French services, Germany strengthened her chasing escadrilles during the whole winter of 1916-1917, and by the following spring she possessed no less than forty. Before the war she had given her attention almost exclusively to heavy airplanes. French types were plagiarized: as the Morane had been altered into the Fokker, the Nieuport became an Albatros. Their one-seated 160 H.P. Albatros, with a Benz or Mercedes fixed engine and two Maxim guns shooting through the propeller, was henceforth the typical chasing machine. However, the powerful two-engine Gothas (520 H.P.) and the Friedrichshafen and A.E.G. (450 H.P.) soon made their appearance in bombing escadrilles.

At the same time, the defensive att.i.tude adopted at the beginning of the Somme campaign was repudiated. The order of the day became strong concentration, likely to secure, at least in one sector, decided superiority in the air, even if other sectors must be left dest.i.tute or battle s.h.i.+rked. The flying men were never to be over-worked, so as to be fresh in an emergency. The subordination of aviation to the other services was evidently an inspiration from the French regulation saying: "The aviation forces shall be always ready to attack, but in perfect subordination to the orders of the commanding officers."

In spite of this _readiness to attack_, the enemy recommended prudence in scouting and patrolling work. The airman was not to engage in a fight without special orders. He seldom cruises by himself, and most often is one of five. To one Boelcke, fond of high alt.i.tudes and given to pouncing falconlike on his prey, like Guynemer, there are scores of Richtofens who, under careful protection from other airplanes, circle round and round trying to attract the enemy, and unexpectedly getting behind him by a spiral or a loop. It should be said here that the German controlling boards take the pilot's word concerning the number of his victories instead of requiring, as the French do, the evidence of eye witnesses. The high figures generously allowed to a Richtofen or a Werner Voss are less creditable than the strictly controlled record of a Guynemer, a Nungesser, or a Dorme.

The enemy expected in April, 1917, a ma.s.sive attack from the French air forces in the Aisne, and had taken measures to evade it. An order from the staff of the Seventh Army says that all flying units shall be given the alarm whenever a large number of French airplanes are sighted. The German machines must return to camp at once, refusing combat except on equal terms; and balloons must be lowered, or even pulled down to the ground. If, on the contrary, the German machines took the offensive, the order was that, at the hour determined upon, all available machines must rise together to a low alt.i.tude, and divide into two distinct fleets, the chasing units flying above the rest. These two fleets must then make for the point of attack, gaining height as they go, and must engage the enemy above the lines with the utmost energy, never giving up the pursuit until they reach the French lines, when the danger from anti-aircraft batteries becomes too great.

From this it is evident that the preference of German Aviation for taking the offensive was not sufficient to induce it to offer battle above the enemy lines, and the tendency of the staff was to group squadrons into overpowering ma.s.ses. The French had preceded their opponents in the way of technical progress, but the Germans made up for the inferiority, as usual, by method and system. The French were unrivaled for technical improvements, and the training of their pilots.

Their new machine, the Spad, was a first-rate instrument, superior in strength, speed, and ease of control to the best Albatros, and the Germans knew that this inferiority must be obviated. All modern battles are thus preceded by technical rivalry. The preparation in factories, week after week, and month after month, ultimately results in living machinery which the staff uses as it pleases.

Living machinery it is, but it is in appearance only that it seems to be independent of man. A battle is a collective work, to which each partic.i.p.ant, from the General-in-chief to the road-mender behind the lines, brings his contribution. Colossal though the whole seems, perfect as the enormous machine seems to be, it would not work if there were not behind it a weak man made of poor flesh. A humble gunner, the anonymous defenders of a trench, a pilot who purges the air of the hostile presence, an observer who secures information in good time, some poor soldier who has no idea that his individual action was connected with the great drama, has occasionally brought about wonderful results--as a stone falling into a pool makes its presence felt to the remotest banks.

Amidst the fighters on the Aisne, Guynemer was at his post in the Storks Escadrille. "All right! (sic) they tumble down," he wrote laconically to his family. There were indeed some five tumbling down: on May 25 he had surpa.s.sed all that had been done so far in aerial fights, bringing down four German machines in that one day. His notebook states the fact briefly:

8.30.--Downed a two-seater, which lost a wing as it fell and was smashed on the trees 1200 meters NNE. of Corbeny.

8.31.--Another two-seater downed, in flames, above Juvincourt.--With Captain Auger, forced another two-seater to dive down to 600 meters, one kilometer from our lines.

Downed a D.F.W.[22] in flames above Courlandon.

Downed a two-seater in flames between Guignicourt and Conde-sur-Suippes. Dispersed with Captain Auger a squadron of six one-seaters.

[Footnote 22: The D.F.W. (_Deutsche Flugzeug Werke_) is a scouting machine provided with two machine-guns, one shooting through the propeller, the other mounted on a turret aft. It is thirty-nine feet across the wings, and twenty-four in length. One Benz six-cylinder engine of 200/225 H.P. Its speed at an alt.i.tude of 3000 meters supposed to be 150 kilometers an hour. One of these machines has been on view at the Invalides since July, 1917.]

Now, his Excellency, Lieutenant General von Hoeppner, _Kommandeur der Luftstreitkrafte_, being interviewed two days later by newspaper men he had summoned for the purpose, told them and through them told Germany and, if possible, the whole world, that the German airplanes and the German airmen were unrivaled. "As for the French aviators," he went on to say remarkably apropos, "they only engage our men when they are sure of victory. When they have doubts about their own superiority, they prefer to desist rather than take any risks." This solemn lie the newspaper men repeated at once in their issues of May 28.