FLYI 
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 JAMES R.MSCONNELL 
 
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FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
JAMES R. McCONNELL 
 
 " I frankly confess to a feeling of marked satisfaction at re- 
 ceiving that grade [Sergeant] in the world's finest army" 
 
 (See page 45) 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 With the American Escadrille 
 at Verdun 
 
 BY 
 JAMES R. McCONNELL 
 
 Sergeant-Pilot in the French Flying Corps 
 
 Illustrated front Photographs 
 
 through the kindness of Mr. Paul 
 
 Rockwell 
 
 Garden City New York 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1917 
 
Copyright, 1916, 1917, by 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 including the Scandinavian 
 
To 
 MRS. ALICE S. WEEKS 
 
 Who having lost a splendid son in the 
 French Army has given to a great number of 
 us other Americans in the war the tender 
 sympathy and help of a mother. 
 
 O 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction xi 
 
 By F. C. P. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. Verdun 3 
 
 II. From Verdun to the Somme 74 
 
 III. Personal Letters from Ser- 
 
 geant McConnell ... 120 
 
 IV. How France Trains Pilot 
 
 Aviators 140 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 James R. McConnell . . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Some of the Americans Who are 
 Flying for France .... 18 
 
 Two Members of the American Es- 
 cadrille, of the French Flying 
 Service, Who Were Killed Flying 
 For France 50 
 
 " Whiskey." The Lion and Mascot 
 of the American Flying Squadron 
 in France 82 
 
 Kiffin Rockwell, of Asheville, N. C, 
 Who Was Killed in an Air Duel 
 Over Verdun 98 
 
 Sergeant Lufbery in one of the New 
 Nieuports in Which He Convoyed 
 the Bombardment Fleet Which 
 Attacked Oberndorf . . . . 114 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 One day in January, 1915, I saw 
 Jim McConnell in front of the Court 
 House at Carthage, North Carolina. 
 "Well," he said, "I'm all fixed up and 
 am leaving on Wednesday." " Where 
 for?" I asked. "I've got a job to 
 drive an ambulance in France, " was 
 his answer. 
 
 And then he went on to tell me, 
 first, that as he saw it the greatest 
 event in history was going on right at 
 hand and that he would be missing 
 the opportunity of a lifetime if he 
 did not see it. "These Sand Hills," 
 he said "will be here forever, but the 
 war won't; and so I'm going." Then, 
 as an afterthought, he added: "And 
 
 xi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 I'll be of some use, too, not just a sight- 
 seer looking on; that wouldn't be fair." 
 
 So he went. He joined the Ameri- 
 can ambulance service in the Vosges, 
 was mentioned more than once in the 
 orders of the day for conspicuous brav- 
 ery in saving wounded under fire, and 
 received the much-coveted Croix de 
 Guerre. 
 
 Meanwhile, he wrote interesting 
 letters home. And his point of view 
 changed, even as does the point of 
 view of all Americans who visit Eu- 
 rope. From the attitude of an ad- 
 venturous spirit anxious to see the 
 excitement, his letters showed a new 
 belief that any one who goes to France 
 and is not able and willing to do more 
 than his share — to give everything in 
 him toward helping the wounded and 
 suffering — has no business there. 
 
 xii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 And as time went on, still a new 
 note crept into his letters; the first 
 admiration for France was strength- 
 ened and almost replaced by a new 
 feeling— a profound conviction that 
 France and the French people were 
 fighting the fight of liberty against 
 enormous odds. The new spirit of 
 France — the spirit of the "Marseil- 
 laise," strengthened by a grim deter- 
 mination and absolute certainty of 
 being right — pervades every line he 
 writes. So he gave up the ambulance 
 service and enlisted in the French 
 flying corps along with an ever- 
 increasing number of other Americans. 
 
 The spirit which pervades them 
 is something above the spirit of ad- 
 venture that draws many to war; it is 
 the spirit of a man who has found 
 an inspiring duty toward the advance- 
 xiii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 ment of liberty and humanity and is 
 glad and proud to contribute what he 
 can. 
 
 His last letters bring out a new 
 point — the assurance of victory of a 
 just cause. "Of late," he writes, 
 "things are much brighter and one 
 can feel a certain elation in the air. 
 Victory, before, was a sort of aca- 
 demic certainty; now, it is felt.'* 
 
 F. C. P. 
 
 November 10, 1916. 
 
 3QV 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 VERDUN 
 
 Beneath the canvas of a huge hangar 
 mechanicians are at work on the motor 
 of an airplane. Outside, on the bor- 
 ders of an aviation field, others loiter 
 awaiting their aerial charge's return 
 from the sky. Near the hangar stands 
 a hut-shaped tent. In front of it 
 several short-winged biplanes are lined 
 up ; inside it three or four young men 
 are lolling in wicker chairs. 
 
 They wear the uniform of French 
 army aviators. These uniforms, and 
 the grim-looking machine guns 
 3 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 mounted on the upper planes of the 
 little aircraft, are the only warlike 
 note in a pleasantly peaceful scene. 
 The war seems very remote. It is 
 hard to believe that the greatest of all 
 battles — Verdun — rages only twenty- 
 five miles to the north, and that the 
 field and hangars and mechanicians 
 and aviators and airplanes are all 
 playing a part therein. 
 
 Suddenly there is the distant hum 
 of a motor. One of the pilots emerges 
 from the tent and gazes fixedly up into 
 the blue sky. He points, and one 
 glimpses a black speck against the blue, 
 high overhead. The sound of the 
 motor ceases, and the speck grows 
 larger. It moves earthward in steep 
 dives and circles, and as it swoops 
 closer, takes on the shape of an airplane. 
 Now one can make out the red, white, 
 4 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 and blue circles under the wings which 
 mark a French war-plane, and the dis- 
 tinctive insignia of the pilot on its sides. 
 
 " Ton patron arrive /" one mechani- 
 cian cries to another. "Your boss is 
 coming!" 
 
 The machine dips sharply over the 
 top of a hangar, straightens out again 
 near the earth at a dizzy speed a few 
 feet above it and, losing momentum 
 in a surprisingly short time, hits the 
 ground with tail and wheels. It 
 bumps along a score of yards and 
 then, its motor whirring again, turns, 
 rolls toward the hangar, and stops. A 
 human form, enveloped in a species of 
 garment for all the world like a diver's 
 suit, and further adorned with goggles 
 and a leather hood, rises unsteadily in 
 the cockpit, clambers awkwardly over- 
 board and slides down to terra firma. 
 5 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 A group of soldiers, enjoying a brief 
 holiday from the trenches in a canton- 
 ment near the field, straggle forward 
 and gather timidly about the airplane, 
 listening open-mouthed for what its 
 rider is about to say. 
 
 "Hell!" mumbles that gentleman, 
 as he starts divesting himself of his 
 flying garb. 
 
 "What's wrong now?" inquires one 
 of the tenants of the tent. 
 
 "Everything, or else I've gone 
 nutty," is the indignant reply, de- 
 livered while disengaging a leg from 
 its Teddy Bear trousering. "Why, 
 I emptied my whole roller on a 
 Boche this morning, .'. point blank at 
 not fifteen metres off. His machine 
 gun quit firing and his propeller 
 wasn't turning and yet the darn fool 
 just hung up there as if he were tied 
 6 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 to a cloud. Say, I was so sure I had 
 him it made me sore — felt like running 
 into him and yelling, 'Now, you fall, 
 you bum!'" 
 
 The eyes of the poilus register sur^ 
 prise. Not a word of this dialogue, 
 delivered in purest American, is in- 
 telligible to them. Why is an aviator 
 in a French uniform speaking a foreign 
 tongue, they mutually ask them- 
 selves. Finally one of them, a little 
 chap in a uniform long since bleached 
 of its horizon-blue colour by the mud 
 of the firing line, whisperingly inter- 
 rogates a mechanician as to the iden- 
 tity of these strange air folk. 
 
 "But they are the Americans, my 
 old one," the latter explains with 
 noticeable condescension. 
 
 Marvelling afresh, the infantrymen 
 demand further details. They learn 
 7 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 that they are witnessing the return of 
 the American Escadrille — composed 
 of Americans who have volunteered 
 to fly for France for the duration of 
 the war — to their station near Bar-le- 
 Due, twenty-five miles south of Ver- 
 dun, from a flight over the battle 
 front of the Meuse. They have barely 
 had time to digest this knowledge 
 when other dots appear in the sky, 
 and one by one turn into airplanes 
 as they wheel downward. Finally all 
 six of the machines that have been 
 aloft are back on the ground and the 
 American Escadrille has one more 
 sortie over the German lines to its 
 credit. 
 
 PERSONNEL OF THE ESCADRILLE 
 
 Like all worth-while institutions, 
 the American Escadrille, of which I 
 8 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 have the honour of being a member, 
 was of gradual growth. When the 
 war began, it is doubtful whether 
 anybody anywhere envisaged the pos- 
 sibility of an American entering the 
 French aviation service. Yet, by the 
 fall of 1915, scarcely more than a 
 year later, there were six Americans 
 serving as full-fledged pilots, and now, 
 in the summer of 1916, the list num- 
 bers fifteen or more, with twice that 
 number training for their pilot's li- 
 cense in the military aviation schools. 
 The pioneer of them all was William 
 Thaw, of Pittsburg, who is to-day the 
 only American holding a commission 
 in the French flying corps. Lieu- 
 tenant Thaw, a flyer of considerable 
 reputation in America before the war, 
 had enlisted in the Foreign Legion in 
 August, 1914. With considerable dif- 
 9 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 ficulty he had himself transferred, 
 in the early part of 1915, into avia- 
 tion, and the autumn of that year 
 found him piloting a Caudron bi- 
 plane, and doing excellent observa- 
 tion work. At the same time, Ser- 
 geants Norman Prince, of Boston, 
 and Elliot Gowdin, of New York — 
 who were the first to enter the avia- 
 tion service coming directly from the 
 United States — were at the front on 
 Voisin planes with a cannon mounted 
 in the bow. 
 
 Sergeant Bert Hall, who signs from 
 the Lone Star State and had got him- 
 self shifted from the Foreign Legion to 
 aviation soon after Thaw, was flying a 
 Nieuport fighting machine, and, a 
 little later, instructing less-advanced 
 students of the air in the Avord Train- 
 ing School. His particular chum in the 
 10 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 Foreign Legion, James Bach, who also 
 had become an aviator, had the distress- 
 ing distinction soon after he reached 
 the front of becoming the first Amer- 
 ican to fall into the hands of the enemy. 
 Going to the assistance of a companion 
 who had broken down in landing a spy 
 in the German lines, Bach smashed his 
 machine against a tree. Both he and 
 his French comrade were captured, 
 and Bach was twice court-martialed 
 by the Germans on suspicion of being 
 an American franc-tireur — the penalty 
 for which is death ! He was acquitted 
 but of course still languishes in a 
 prison camp "somewhere in Ger- 
 many." The sixth of the original 
 sextet was Adjutant Didier Masson, 
 who did exhibition flying in the States 
 until — Carranza having grown am- 
 bitious in Mexico — he turned his 
 11 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 talents to spotting los Federates for 
 General Obregon. When the real 
 war broke out, Masson answered the 
 call of his French blood and was soon 
 flying and fighting for the land of his 
 ancestors. 
 
 Of the other members of the esca- 
 drille Sergeant Givas Lufbery, Ameri- 
 can citizen and soldier, but dweller in 
 the world at large, was among the 
 earliest to wear the French airman's 
 wings. Exhibition work with a French 
 pilot in the Far East prepared him 
 efficiently for the task of patiently 
 unloading explosives on to German 
 military centres from a slow-moving 
 Voisin which was his first mount. 
 Upon the heels of Lufbery came two 
 more graduates of the Foreign Legion 
 — Kiffin Rockwell, of Asheville, N. C., 
 who had been wounded at Carency; 
 12 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 Victor Chapman, of New York, who 
 after recovering from his wounds 
 became an airplane bomb-dropper 
 and so caught the craving to become a 
 pilot. At about this time one Paul 
 Pavelka, whose birthplace was Mad: 
 son, Conn., and who from the age of 
 fifteen had sailed the seven seas, 
 managed to slip out of the Foreign 
 Legion into aviation and joined the 
 other Americans at Pau. 
 
 There seems to be a fascination to 
 aviation, particularly when it is cou- 
 pled with fighting. Perhaps it's be- 
 cause the game is new, but more 
 probably because as a rule nobody 
 knows anything about it. Whatever 
 be the reason, adventurous young 
 Americans were attracted by it in 
 rapidly increasing numbers. Man^ 
 of them, of course, never got fasci- 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 nated beyond the stage of talking 
 about joining. Among the chaps 
 serving with the American ambulance 
 field sections a good many imagina- 
 tions were stirred, and a few actually 
 did enlist, when, toward the end of 
 the summer of 1915, the Ministry of 
 War, finding that the original Ameri- 
 can pilots had made good, grew 
 more liberal in considering applica- 
 tions. 
 
 Chouteau Johnson, of New York; 
 Lawrence Rumsey, of Buffalo ; Dudley 
 Hill, of Peekskill, N. Y.; and Clyde 
 Balsley, of El Paso; one after another 
 doffed the ambulance driver's khaki 
 for the horizon-blue of the French 
 flying corps. All of them had seen 
 plenty of action, collecting the 
 wounded under fire, but they were all 
 tired of being non-combatant spec- 
 Id 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 tators. More or less the same feeling 
 actuated me, I suppose. I had come 
 over from Carthage, N. C, in Jan- 
 uary, 1915, and worked with an 
 American ambulance section in the 
 Bois-le-Pretre. All along I had been 
 convinced that the United States 
 ought to aid in the struggle against 
 Germany. With that conviction, it 
 was plainly up to me to do more than 
 drive an ambulance. The more I 
 saw the splendour of the fight the 
 French were fighting, the more I felt 
 like an embusque — what the British 
 call a "shirker." So I made up my 
 mind to go into aviation. 
 
 A special channel had been created 
 for the reception of applications from 
 Americans, and my own was favour- 
 ably replied to within a few days. 
 It took four days more to pass through 
 15 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 all the various departments, sign 
 one's name to a few hundred papers, 
 and undergo the physical examina- 
 tions. Then I was sent to the avia- 
 tion depot at Dijon and fitted out 
 with a uniform and personal equip- 
 ment. The next stop was the school 
 at Pau, where I was to be taught to 
 fly. My elation at arriving there was 
 second only to my satisfaction at 
 being a French soldier. It was a vast 
 improvement, I thought, in the Amer- 
 ican Ambulance. 
 
 Talk about forming an all- American 
 flying unit, or escadrille, was rife while 
 I was at Pau. What with the pilots 
 already breveted, and the eleves, or 
 pupils in the training-schools, there 
 were quite enough of our compatriots 
 to man the dozen airplanes in one 
 escadrille. Every day somebody "had 
 
 m 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 it absolutely straight" that we were 
 to become a unit at the front, and 
 every other day the report turned out 
 to be untrue. But at last, in the 
 month of February, our dream came 
 true. We learned that a captain 
 had actually been assigned to com- 
 mand an American escadrille and 
 that the Americans at the front had 
 been recalled and placed under his 
 orders. Soon afterward we eleves got 
 another delightful thrill. 
 
 THREE TYPES OF FRENCH AIR SERVICE 
 
 Thaw, Prince, Cowdin, and the 
 other veterans were training on the 
 Nieuport ! That meant the American 
 Escadrille was to fly the Nieuport 
 — the best type of avion de chasse — 
 and hence would be a fighting unit. 
 It is necessary to explain parentheti- 
 17 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 cally here that French military avia- 
 tion, generally speaking, is divided 
 into three groups — the avions de chasse 
 or airplanes of pursuit, which are 
 used to hunt down enemy aircraft 
 or to fight them off; avions de bom- 
 bardement, big, unwieldy monsters 
 for use in bombarding raids; and 
 avions de reglage, cumbersome creat- 
 ures designed to regulate artillery 
 fire, take photographs, and do scout 
 duty. The Nieuport is the smallest, 
 fastest-rising, fastest-moving biplane 
 in the French service. It can travel 
 110 miles an hour, and is a one-man 
 apparatus with a machine gun mounted 
 on its roof and fired by the pilot 
 with one hand while with the other 
 and his feet he operates his controls. 
 The French call their Nieuport pilots 
 the "aces" of the air. No wonder 
 18 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 we were tickled to be included in 
 that august brotherhood ! 
 
 Before the American Escadrille 
 became an established fact, Thaw 
 and Cowdin, who had mastered the 
 Nieuport, managed to be sent to the 
 Verdun front. While there Cowdin 
 was credited with having brought 
 down a German machine and was 
 proposed for the Medaille Militaire, 
 the highest decoration that can be 
 awarded a non-commissioned officer 
 or private. 
 
 After completing his training, re- 
 ceiving his military pilot's brevet, and 
 being perfected on the type of plane 
 he is to use at the front, an aviator is 
 ordered to the reserve headquarters 
 near Paris to await his call. Kiffin 
 Rockwell and Victor Chapman had 
 
 been there for months, and I had just 
 19 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 arrived, when on the 16th of April 
 orders came for the Americans to 
 join their escadrille at Luxeuil, in the 
 Vosges. 
 
 The rush was breathless! Never 
 were flying clothes and fur coats 
 drawn from the quartermaster, be- 
 longings packed, and red tape in the 
 various administrative bureaux un- 
 furled, with such headlong haste. 
 In a few hours we were aboard the 
 train, panting, but happy. Our party 
 consisted of Sergeant Prince, and 
 Rockwell, Chapman, and myself, who 
 were only corporals at that time. 
 We were joined at Luxeuil by Lieu- 
 tenant Thaw and Sergeants Hall and 
 Gowdin. 
 
 For the veterans our arrival at the 
 front was devoid of excitement; for 
 the three neophytes — Rockwell, Chap- 
 20 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 1 - - - I III, .ljm- 
 
 man, and myself — it was the beginning 
 of a new existence, the entry into 
 an unknown world. Of course Rock- 
 well and Chapman had seen plenty 
 of warfare on the ground, but war- 
 fare in the air was as novel to them 
 as to me. For us all it contained 
 unlimited possibilities for initiative 
 and service to France, and for them 
 it must have meant, too, the restora- 
 tion of personality lost during those 
 months in the trenches with the 
 Foreign Legion. Rockwell summed 
 it up characteristically. 
 
 "Well, we're off for the races," he 
 remarked. 
 
 PILOT LIFE AT THE FRONT 
 
 There is a considerable change in 
 the life of a pilot when he arrives on 
 the front. During the training period 
 21 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 he is subject to rules and regulations 
 as stringent as those of the barracks. 
 But once assigned to duty over the 
 firing line he receives the treatment 
 accorded an officer, no matter what 
 his grade. Save when he is flying 
 or on guard, his time is his own. 
 There are no roll calls or other military 
 frills, and in place of the mink he 
 slept upon as an eleve, he finds a 
 regular bed in a room to himself, 
 and the services of an orderly. Even 
 men of higher rank who although 
 connected with his escadrille are not 
 pilots, treat him with respect. His 
 two mechanicians are under his orders. 
 Being volunteers, we Americans are 
 shown more than the ordinary con- 
 sideration by the ever-generous French 
 Government, which sees to it that we 
 have the best of everything. 
 22 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 On our arrival at Luxeuil we were 
 met by Captain Thenault, the French 
 commander of the American Escadrille 
 — officially known as No. 124, by 
 the way — and motored to the aviation 
 field in one of the staff cars assigned 
 to us. I enjoyed that ride. Lolling 
 back against the soft leather cushions, 
 I recalled how in my apprenticeship 
 days at Pau I had had to walk six 
 miles for my laundry. 
 
 The equipment awaiting us at the 
 field was even more impressive than 
 our automobile. Everything was 
 brand new, from the fifteen Fiat 
 trucks to the office, magazine, and 
 rest tents. And the men attached 
 to the escadrille! At first sight they 
 seemed to outnumber the Nicaraguan 
 army — mechanicians, chauffeurs, ar- 
 mourers, motorcyclists, telephonists, 
 23 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 wireless operators, Red Cross stretcher 
 bearers, clerks! Afterward I learned 
 they totalled seventy-odd, and that 
 all of them were glad to be connected 
 with the American Escadrille. 
 
 In their hangars stood our trim 
 little Nieuports. I looked mine over 
 with a new feeling of importance and 
 gave orders to my mechanicians for 
 the mere satisfaction of being able to. 
 To find oneself the sole proprietor of a 
 fighting airplane is quite a treat, 
 let me tell you. One gets accustomed 
 to it, though, after one has used up 
 two or three of them — at the French 
 Government's expense. 
 
 Rooms were assigned to us in a villa 
 adjoining the famous hot baths of 
 Luxeuil, where Caesar's cohorts were 
 wont to besport themselves. We 
 messed with our officers, Captain 
 24 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 Thenault and Lieutenant de Laage de 
 Mux, at the best hotel in town. An 
 automobile was always on hand to 
 carry us to the field. I began to 
 wonder whether I was a summer 
 resorter instead of a soldier. 
 
 Among the pilots who had wel- 
 comed us with open arms, we dis- 
 covered the famous Captain Happe, 
 commander of the Luxeuil bombard- 
 ment group. The doughty bomb- 
 dispenser, upon whose head the Ger- 
 mans have set a price, was in his 
 quarters. After we had been intro- 
 duced, he pointed to eight little boxes 
 arranged on a table. 
 
 "They contain Croix de Guerre for 
 the families of the men I lost on 
 my last trip," he explained, and 
 he added: "It's a good thing you're 
 here to go along with us for protec- 
 25 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 tion. There are lots of Bodies in this 
 sector." 
 
 I thought of the luxury we were 
 enjoying: our comfortable beds, baths, 
 and motor cars, and then I recalled 
 the ancient custom of giving a man 
 selected for the sacrifice a royal time 
 of it before the appointed day. 
 
 To acquaint us with the few places 
 where a safe landing was possible we 
 were motored through the Vosges 
 Mountains and on into Alsace. It 
 was a delightful opportunity to see 
 that glorious countryside, and we 
 appreciated it the more because we 
 knew its charm would be lost when 
 we surveyed it from the sky. From 
 the air the ground presents no scenic 
 effects. The ravishing beauty of the 
 Val d'Ajol, the steep mountain sides 
 bristling with a solid mass of giant 
 26 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 ^— ■ 
 
 pines, the myriads of glittering cas- 
 cades tumbling downward through 
 fairylike avenues of verdure, the roar- 
 ing, tossing torrent at the foot of the 
 slope — all this loveliness, seen from 
 an airplane at 12,000 feet, fades into 
 flat splotches of green traced with a 
 tiny ribbon of silver. 
 
 The American Escadrille was sent 
 to Luxeuil primarily to acquire the 
 team work necessary to a flying unit. 
 Then, too, the new pilots needed a 
 taste of anti-aircraft artillery to famil- 
 iarize them with the business of avia- 
 tion over a battlefield. They shot well 
 in that sector, too. Thaw's machine 
 was hit at an altitude of 13,000 feet. 
 
 THE ESCADRILLE' S FIRST SORTIE 
 
 The memory of the first sortie we 
 made as an escadrille will always re- 
 
 27 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 main fresh in my mind because it was 
 also my first trip over the lines. We 
 were to leave at six in the morning. 
 Captain Thenault pointed out on his 
 aerial map the route we were to follow. 
 Never having flown over this region 
 before, I was afraid of losing myself. 
 Therefore, as it is easier to keep other 
 airplanes in sight when one is above 
 them, I began climbing as rapidly 
 as possible, meaning to trail along 
 in the wake of my companions. Un- 
 less one has had practice in flying in 
 formation, however, it is hard to 
 keep in contact. The diminutive 
 avions de chasse are the merest pin- 
 points against the great sweep of 
 landscape below and the limitless 
 heavens above. The air was misty 
 and clouds were gathering. Ahead 
 there seemed a barrier of them. Al- 
 28 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 though as I looked down the ground 
 showed plainly, in the distance every- 
 thing was hazy. Forging up above 
 the mist, at 7,000 feet, I lost the 
 others altogether. Even when they 
 are not closely joined, the clouds, 
 seen from immediately above, appear 
 as a solid bank of white. The spaces 
 between are indistinguishable. It is 
 like being in an Arctic ice field. 
 
 To the south I made out the Alps. 
 Their glittering peaks projected up 
 through the white sea about me like 
 majestic icebergs. Not a single plane 
 was visible anywhere, and I was grow- 
 ing very uncertain about my position. 
 My splendid isolation had become 
 oppressive, when, one by one, the 
 others began bobbing up above the 
 cloud level, and I had company again. 
 
 We were over Belfort and headed 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 for the trench lines. The cloud banks 
 dropped behind, and below us we 
 saw the smiling plain of Alsace stretch- 
 ing eastward to the Rhine. It was 
 distinctly pleasurable, flying over this 
 conquered land . Following the course 
 of the canal that runs to the Rhine, 
 I sighted, from a height of 13,000 
 feet over Dannemarie, a series of 
 brown, woodworm-like tracings on 
 the ground — the trenches! 
 
 SHRAPNEL THAT COULDN'T BE HEARD 
 
 My attention was drawn elsewhere 
 almost immediately, however. Two 
 balls of black smoke had suddenly 
 appeared close to one of the machines 
 ahead of me, and with the same dis- 
 concerting abruptness similar balls 
 began to dot the sky above, below, 
 and on all sides of us. We were being 
 30 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 shot at with shrapnel. It was in- 
 teresting to watch the flash of the 
 bursting shells, and the attendant 
 smoke puffs — black, white, or yellow, 
 depending on the kind of shrapnel 
 used. The roar of the motor drowned 
 the noise of the explosions. Strangely 
 enough, my feelings about it were 
 wholly impersonal. 
 
 We turned north after crossing the 
 lines. Mulhouse seemed just below 
 us, and I noted with a keen sense of 
 satisfaction our invasion of real Ger- 
 man territory. The Rhine, too, looked 
 delightfully accessible. As we con- 
 tinued northward I distinguished the 
 twin lakes of Gerardmer sparkling in 
 their emerald setting. Where the 
 lines crossed the Hartmannsweiler- 
 kopf there were little spurts of brown 
 smoke as shells burst in the trenches. 
 31 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 One could scarcely pick out the old 
 zity of Thann from among the nu- 
 merous neighbouring villages, so tiny 
 it seemed in the valley's mouth. I 
 had never been higher than 7,000 feet 
 and was unaccustomed to reading 
 country from a great altitude. It was 
 also bitterly cold, and even in my 
 fur-lined combination I was shivering. 
 I noticed, too, that I had to take long, 
 deep breaths in the rarefied atmos- 
 phere. Looking downward at a cer- 
 tain angle, I saw what at first I took to 
 be a round, shimmering pool of water. 
 It was simply the effect of the sun- 
 light on the congealing mist. We 
 had been keeping an eye out for 
 German machines since leaving our 
 lines, but none had shown up. It 
 wasn't surprising, for we were too 
 many. 
 
 32 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 Only four days later, however, Rock- 
 well brought down the escadrille's 
 first plane in his initial aerial combat. 
 He was flying alone when, over Than^ 
 he came upon a German on recon- 
 naissance. He dived and the German 
 turned toward his own lines, opening 
 fire from a long distance. Rockwell 
 kept straight after him. Then, clos- 
 ing to within thirty yards, he pressed 
 on the release of his machine gun, 
 and saw the enemy gunner fall back- 
 ward and the pilot crumple up side- 
 ways in his seat. The plane flopped 
 downward and crashed to earth just 
 behind the German trenches. Swoop- 
 ing close to the ground Rockwell saw 
 its debris burning away brightly. 
 He had turned the trick with but four 
 shots and only one German bullet 
 had struck his Nieuport. An ob- 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 servation post telephoned the news 
 before Rockwell's return, and he got a 
 great welcome. All Luxeuil smiled 
 upon him — particularly the girls. But 
 he couldn't stay to enjoy his popu- 
 larity. The escadrille was ordered to 
 the sector of Verdun. 
 
 While in a way we were sorry to 
 leave Luxeuil, we naturally didn't 
 regret the chance to take part in the 
 aerial activity of the world's greatest 
 battle. The night before our de- 
 parture some German aircraft de- 
 stroyed four of our tractors and killed 
 six men with bombs, but even that 
 caused little excitement compared 
 with going to Verdun. We would get 
 square with the Boches over Verdun, 
 we thought — it is impossible to chase 
 airplanes at night, so the raiders made 
 a safe getaway , 
 
 34 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 OFF TO VERDUN 
 
 As soon as we pilots had left in our 
 machines, the trucks and tractors 
 set out in convoy, carrying the men 
 and equipment. The Nieuports car- 
 ried us to our new post in a little more 
 than an hour. We stowed them away 
 in the hangars and went to have a 
 look at our sleeping quarters. A 
 commodious villa half way between 
 the town of Bar-le-Duc and the avia- 
 tion field had been assigned to us, and 
 comforts were as plentiful as at 
 Luxeuil. 
 
 Our really serious work had begun, 
 however, and we knew it. Even as 
 far behind the actual fighting as Bar- 
 le-Duc one could sense one's prox- 
 imity to a vast military operation. 
 The endless convoys of motor trucks, 
 35 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 the fast-flowing stream of troops, and 
 the distressing number of ambulances 
 brought realization of the near pres- 
 ence of a gigantic battle. 
 
 Within a twenty-mile radius of the 
 Verdun front aviation camps abound. 
 Our escadrille was listed on the sched- 
 ule with the other fighting units, each 
 of which has its specified flying hours, 
 rotating so there is always an escadrille 
 de chasse over the lines. A field wire- 
 less to enable us to keep track of the 
 movements of enemy planes became 
 part of our equipment. 
 
 Lufbery joined us a few days after 
 our arrival. He was followed by 
 Johnson and Balsley, who had been 
 on the air guard over Paris. Hill and 
 Rumsey came next, and after them 
 Masson and Pavelka. Nieuports were 
 supplied them from the nearest depot, 
 36 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 and as soon as they had mounted 
 their instruments and machine guns, 
 they were on the job with the rest 
 of us. Fifteen Americans are or 
 have been members of the American 
 Escadrille, but there have never been 
 so many as that on duty at any one 
 time. 
 
 BATTLES IN THE AIR 
 
 Before we were fairly settled at 
 Bar-le-Duc, Hall brought down a 
 German observation craft and Thaw a 
 Fokker. Fights occurred on almost 
 every sortie. The Germans seldom 
 cross into our territory, unless on a 
 bombarding jaunt, and thus practi- 
 cally all the fighting takes place on 
 their side of the line. Thaw dropped 
 his Fokker in the morning, and on the 
 afternoon of the same day there was a 
 37 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 big combat far behind the German 
 trenches. Thaw was wounded in the 
 arm, and an explosive bullet detonat- 
 ing on Rockwell's wind-shield tore 
 several gashes in his face. Despite 
 the blood which was blinding him 
 Rockwell managed to reach an avia- 
 tion field and land. Thaw, whose 
 wound bled profusely, landed in a 
 dazed condition just within our lines. 
 He was too weak to walk, and French 
 soldiers carried him to a field dressing- 
 station, whence he was sent to Paris 
 for further treatment. Rockwell's 
 wounds were less serious and he in- 
 sisted on flying again almost imme- 
 diately. 
 
 A week or so later Chapman was 
 wounded. Considering the number 
 of fights he had been in and the cour- 
 age with which he attacked it was a 
 38 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 miracle he had not been hit before. 
 He always fought against odds and far 
 within the enemy's country. He flew 
 more than any of us, never missing 
 an opportunity to go up, and never 
 coming down until his gasolene was 
 giving out. His machine was a sieve 
 of patched-up bullet holes. His nerve 
 was almost superhuman and his de- 
 votion to the cause for which he 
 fought sublime. The day he was 
 wounded he attacked four machines. 
 Swooping down from behind, one of 
 them, a Fokker, riddled Chapman's 
 plane. One bullet cut deep into his 
 scalp, but Chapman, a master pilot, 
 escaped from - the trap, and fired 
 several shots to show he was still safe. 
 A stability control had been severed 
 by a bullet. Chapman held the 
 broken rod in one hand, managed his 
 39 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 machine with the other, and suc- 
 ceeded in landing on a near-by avia- 
 tion field. His wound was dressed, 
 his machine repaired, and he im- 
 mediately took the air in pursuit of 
 some more enemies. He would take 
 no rest, and with bandaged head 
 continued to fly and fight. 
 
 The escadrille's next serious en- 
 counter with the foe took place a 
 few days later. Rockwell, Balsley, 
 Prince, and Captain Thenault were 
 surrounded by a large number of 
 Germans, who, circling about them, 
 commenced firing at long range. Re- 
 alizing their numerical inferiority, 
 the Americans and their commander 
 sought the safest way out by attack- 
 ing the enemy machines nearest the 
 French lines. Rockwell, Prince, and 
 the captain broke through success- 
 40 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 fully, but Balsley found himself 
 hemmed in. He attacked the Ger- 
 man nearest him, only to receive an 
 explosive bullet in his thigh. In try- 
 ing to get away by a vertical dive 
 his machine went into a corkscrew 
 and swung over on its back. Extra 
 cartridge rollers dislodged from their 
 case hit his arms. He was tumbling 
 straight toward the trenches, but by 
 a supreme effort he regained control, 
 righted the plane, and landed without 
 disaster in a meadow just behind the 
 firing line. 
 
 Soldiers carried him to the shelter 
 of a near-by fort, and later he was 
 taken to a field hospital, where he 
 lingered for days between life and 
 death. Ten fragments of the ex- 
 plosive bullet were removed from his 
 stomach. He bore up bravely, and 
 41 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 became the favourite of the wounded 
 officers in whose ward he lay. When 
 we flew over to see him they would 
 say: II est un brave petit gars, Uavi- 
 ateur americain. [He's a brave little 
 fellow, the American aviator.] On 
 a shelf by his bed, done up in a hand- 
 kerchief, he kept the pieces of bullet 
 taken out of him, and under them 
 some sheets of paper on which he 
 was trying to write to his mother, 
 back in El Paso. 
 
 Balsley was awarded the Medaille 
 Militaire and the Croix de Guerre, 
 but the honours scared him. He had 
 seen them decorate officers in the 
 ward before they died. 
 
 chapman's last fight 
 
 Then came Chapman's last fight. 
 Before leaving, he had put two bags 
 
 42 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 of oranges in his machine to take to 
 Balsley, who liked to suck them to re- 
 lieve his terrible thirst, after the 
 day's flying was over. There was an 
 aerial struggle against odds, far within 
 the German lines, and Chapman, to 
 divert their fire from his comrades, 
 engaged several enemy airmen at 
 once. He sent one tumbling to 
 earth, and had forced the others off 
 when two more swooped down upon 
 him. Such a fight is a matter of 
 seconds, and one cannot clearly see 
 what passes. Lufbery and Prince, 
 whom Chapman had defended so 
 gallantly, regained the French lines. 
 They told us of the combat, and we 
 waited on the field for Chapman's re- 
 turn. He was always the last in, so 
 we were not much worried. Then a 
 pilot from another fighting escadrille 
 43 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 telephoned us that he had seen a 
 Nieuport falling. A little later the 
 observer of a reconnaissance airplane 
 called up and told us how he had wit- 
 nessed Chapman's fall. The wings of 
 the plane had buckled, and it had 
 dropped like a stone he said. 
 
 We talked in lowered voices after 
 that; we could read the pain in one 
 another's eyes. If only it could have 
 been some one else, was what we all 
 thought, I suppose. To lose Victor 
 was not an irreparable loss to us 
 merely, but to France, and to the 
 world as well. I kept thinking of 
 him lying over there, and of the 
 oranges he was taking to Balsley. 
 As I left the field I caught sight of 
 Victor's mechanician leaning against 
 the end of our hangar. He was 
 
 looking northward into the sky where 
 44 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 his patron had vanished, and his face 
 was very sad. 
 
 PROMOTIONS AND DECORATIONS 
 
 By this time Prince and Hall had 
 been made adjutants, and we cor- 
 porals transformed into sergeants. 
 I frankly confess to a feeling of marked 
 satisfaction at receiving that grade 
 in the world's finest army. I was a 
 far more important person, in my 
 own estimation, than I had been as a 
 second lieutenant in the militia at 
 home. The next impressive event 
 was the awarding of decorations. 
 We had assisted at that ceremony for 
 Cowdin at Luxeuil, but this time three 
 of our messmates were to be honoured 
 for the Germans they had brought 
 down. Rockwell and Hall received 
 
 the Medaille Militaire and the Croix 
 45 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 de Guerre, and Thaw, being a lieu- 
 tenant, the Legion d'honneur and 
 another "palm" for the ribbon of the 
 Croix de Guerre he had won previously. 
 Thaw, who came up from Paris spe- 
 ially for the presentation, still carried 
 his arm in a sling. 
 
 There were also decorations for 
 Chapman, but poor Victor, who so 
 often had been cited in the Orders of the 
 Day, was not on hand to receive them. 
 
 THE MORNING SORTIE 
 
 Our daily routine goes on with little 
 change. Whenever the weather per- 
 mits — that is, when it isn't raining, 
 and the clouds aren't too low — we fly 
 over the Verdun battlefield at the 
 hours dictated by General Headquar- 
 ters. As a rule the most successful 
 sorties are those in the early morning. 
 46 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 We are called while it's still dark. 
 Sleepily I try to reconcile the French 
 orderly's muttered, Cest Uheure, mon- 
 sieur, that rouses me from slumber, 
 with the strictly American words and 
 music of "When That Midnight Choo 
 Choo Leaves for Alabam'" warbled 
 by a particularly wide-awake pilot 
 in the next room. A few minutes 
 later, having swallowed some coffee, 
 we motor to the field. The east is 
 turning gray as the hangar curtains 
 are drawn apart and our machines 
 trundled out by the mechanicians. 
 All the pilots whose planes are in 
 commission — save those remaining be- 
 hind on guard — prepare to leave. 
 We average from four to six on a 
 sortie, unless too many flights have 
 been ordered for that day, in which 
 case only two or three go out at a time. 
 47 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 Now the east is pink, and overhead 
 the sky has changed from gray to 
 pale blue. It is light enough to fly. 
 We don our fur-lined shoes and com- 
 binations, and adjust the leather fly- 
 ing hoods and goggles. A good deal 
 of conversation occurs — perhaps be- 
 cause, once aloft, there's nobody to 
 talk to. 
 
 "Eh, you," one pilot cries jokingly 
 to another, "I hope some Boche just 
 ruins you this morning, so I won't 
 have to pay you the fifty francs you 
 won from me last night!" 
 
 This financial reference concerns a 
 poker game. 
 
 "You do, do you?" replies the 
 other as he swings into his machine. 
 "Well, I'd be glad to pass up the fifty 
 to see you landed by the Boches. 
 You'd make a fine sight walking down 
 48 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 the street of some German town in 
 those wooden shoes and pyjama 
 pants. Why don't you dress your- 
 self? Don't you know an aviator's 
 supposed to look chic ?" 
 
 A sartorial eccentricity on the part 
 of one of our colleagues is here re- 
 ferred to. 
 
 GETTING UNDER WAY 
 
 The raillery is silenced by a deafen- 
 ing roar as the motors are tested. 
 Quiet is briefly restored, only to be 
 broken by a series of rapid explosions 
 incidental to the trying out of machine 
 guns. You loudly inquire at what 
 altitude we are to meet above the 
 field. 
 
 "Fifteen hundred metres — go 
 
 ahead!" comes an answering yell. 
 
 Essence et gaz! [Oil and gas!] you 
 49 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 call to your mechanician, adjusting 
 your gasolene and air throttles while 
 he grips the propeller. 
 
 Contact ! he shrieks, and Contact ! 
 you reply. You snap on the switch, 
 he spins the propeller, and the motor 
 takes. Drawing forward out of line, 
 you put on full power, race across the 
 grass and take the air. The ground 
 drops as the hood slants up before 
 you and you seem to be going more 
 and more slowly as you rise. At a 
 great height you hardly realize you 
 are moving. You glance at the clock 
 to note the time of your departure, 
 and at the oil gauge to see its throb. 
 The altimeter registers 650 feet. You 
 turn and look back at the field below 
 and see others leaving. 
 
 In three minutes you are at about 
 4,000 feet. You have been making 
 50 
 
TWO MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN ESCADRILLE 
 Of the French Flying Service, who were killed flying for France 
 
 Upper picture: Norman Prince, of Boston, Mass. 
 Lower picture: Victor Chapman, of New York City 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 — i I * « m — 1 i« I M i. J I ii i ■ ■ ■■■ .i i nn ■ ii ■.>■■■■* 
 
 wide circles over the field and watch- 
 ing the other machines. At 4,500 
 feet you throttle down and wait on 
 that level for your companions to 
 catch up. Soon the escadrille is 
 bunched and off for the lines. You 
 begin climbing again, gulping to clear 
 your ears in the changing pressure. 
 Surveying the other machines, you 
 recognize the pilot of each by the 
 marks on its side — or by the way he 
 flies. The distinguishing marks of 
 the Nieuports are various and some- 
 times amusing. Bert Hall, for in- 
 stance, has Bert painted on the left 
 side of his plane and the same word 
 reversed (as if spelled backward with 
 the left hand) on the right — so an 
 aviator passing him on that side at 
 great speed will be able to read the 
 name without difficulty, he says! 
 51 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 The country below has changed 
 into a flat surface of varicoloured 
 figures. Woods are irregular blocks 
 of dark green, like daubs of ink spilled 
 on a table; fields are geometrical de- 
 signs of different shades of green and 
 brown, forming in composite an ultra- 
 cubist painting; roads are thin white 
 lines, each with its distinctive wind- 
 ings and crossings — from which you 
 determine your location. The higher 
 you are the easier it is to read. 
 
 In about ten minutes you see the 
 Meuse sparkling in the morning light, 
 and on either side the long line of 
 sausage-shaped observation balloons 
 far below you. Red-roofed Verdun 
 springs into view just beyond. There 
 are spots in it where no red shows and 
 you know what has happened there 
 In the green pasture land bordering 
 52 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 the town, round flecks of brown indi- 
 cate the shell holes. You cross the 
 Meuse. 
 
 VERDUN, SEEN FROM THE SKY 
 
 Immediately east and north of 
 Verdun there lies a broad, brown band. 
 From the Woevre plain it runs west- 
 ward to the "S" bend in the Meuse, 
 and on the left bank of that famous 
 stream continues on into the Argonne 
 Forest. Peaceful fields and farms 
 and villages adorned that landscape 
 a few months ago — when there was no 
 Battle of Verdun. Now there is only 
 that sinister brown belt, a strip of 
 murdered Nature. It seems to be- 
 long to another world. Every sign of 
 humanity has been swept away. The 
 woods and roads have vanished like 
 chalk wiped from a blackboard; of 
 53 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 the villages nothing remains but gray 
 smears where stone walls have tum- 
 bled together. The great forts of 
 Douaumont and Vaux are outlined 
 faintly, like the tracings of a finger in 
 wet sand. One cannot distinguish 
 any one shell crater, as one can on the 
 pockmarked fields on either side. On 
 the brown band the indentations are 
 so closely interlocked that they blend 
 into a confused mass of troubled earth. 
 Of the trenches only broken, half- 
 obliterated links are visible. 
 
 Columns of muddy smoke spurt up 
 continually as high explosives tear 
 deeper into this ulcered area. During 
 heavy bombardment and attacks I 
 have seen shells falling like rain. The 
 countless towers of smoke remind one 
 of Gustave D ore's picture of the 
 fiery tombs of the arch-heretics in 
 54 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 Dante's "Hell." A smoky pall covers 
 the sector under fire, rising so high 
 that at a height of 1,000 feet one is 
 enveloped in its mist-like fumes. Now 
 and then monster projectiles hurtling 
 through the air close by leave one's 
 plane rocking violently in their wake. 
 Airplanes have been cut in two by them. 
 
 THE ROAR OF BATTLE — UNHEARD 
 
 For us the battle passes in silence, 
 the noise of one's motor deadening 
 all other sounds. In the green patches 
 behind the brown belt myriads of 
 tiny flashes tell where the guns are 
 hidden; and those flashes, and the 
 smoke of bursting shells, are all we 
 see of the fighting. It is a weird 
 combination of stillness and havoc, 
 the Verdun conflict viewed from the 
 sky. 
 
 55 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 Far below us, the observation and 
 range-finding planes circle over the 
 trenches like gliding gulls . At a feeble 
 altitude they follow the attacking 
 infantrymen and flash back wireless 
 reports of the engagement. Only 
 through them can communication be 
 maintained when, under the barrier 
 fire, wires from the front lines are cut. 
 Sometimes it falls to our lot to guard 
 these machines from Germans eager 
 to swoop down on their backs. Sail- 
 ing about high above a busy flock of 
 them makes one feel like an old mother 
 hen protecting her chicks. 
 
 "navigating" in a sea of clouds 
 
 The pilot of an avion de chasse 
 
 must not concern himself with the 
 
 ground, which to him is useful only 
 
 for learning his whereabouts. The 
 
 56 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 earth is all-important to the men 
 in the observation, artillery-regulating, 
 and bombardment machines, but the 
 fighting aviator has an entirely dif- 
 ferent sphere. His domain is the 
 blue heavens, the glistening rolls of 
 clouds below the fleecy banks tower- 
 ing above, the vague aerial horizon, 
 and he must watch it as carefully 
 as a navigator watches the storm- 
 tossed sea. 
 
 On days when the clouds form 
 almost a solid flooring, one feels very 
 much at sea, and wonders if one is in 
 the navy instead of aviation. The 
 diminutive Nieuports skirt the white 
 expanse like torpedo boats in an 
 arctic sea, and sometimes, far across 
 the cloud-waves, one sights an enemy 
 escadrille, moving as a fleet. 
 
 Principally our work consists of 
 
 £7 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 keeping German airmen away from 
 our lines, and in attacking them when 
 opportunity offers. We traverse the 
 brown band and enter enemy territory 
 to the accompaniment of an anti- 
 aircraft cannonade . Most of the shots 
 are wild, however, and we pay little 
 attention to them. When the shrap- 
 nel comes uncomfortably close, one 
 shifts position slightly to evade the 
 range. One glances up to see if there 
 is another machine higher than one's 
 own. Low and far within the Ger- 
 man lines are several enemy planes, 
 a dull white in appearance, resembling 
 sand flies against the mottled earth. 
 High above them one glimpses the 
 mosquito-like forms of two Fokkers. 
 Away off to one side white shrapnel 
 puffs are vaguely visible, perhaps 
 directed against a German crossing 
 58 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 the lines. We approach the enemy 
 machines ahead, only to find them 
 slanting at a rapid rate into their own 
 country. High above them lurks a 
 protection plane. The man doing 
 the "ceiling work," as it is called, will 
 look after him for us. 
 
 TACTICS OF AN AIR BATTLE 
 
 Getting started is the -hardest part 
 of an attack. Once you have begun 
 diving you're all right. The pilot 
 just ahead turns tail up like a trout 
 dropping back to water, and swoops 
 down in irregular curves and circles. 
 You follow at an angle so steep your 
 feet seem to be holding you back in 
 your seat. Now the black Maltese 
 crosses on the German's wings stand 
 out clearly. You think of him as 
 some sort of big bug. Then you hear 
 59 
 
FLYING FO.R FRANCE 
 
 the rapid tut-tut-tut of his machine 
 gun. The man that dived ahead of 
 you becomes mixed up with the top- 
 most German. He is so close it looks 
 as if he had hit the enemy machine. 
 You hear the staccato barking of his 
 mitrailleuse and see him pass from 
 under the German's tail. 
 
 The rattle of the gun that is aimed 
 at you leaves you undisturbed. Only 
 when the bullets pierce the wings a few 
 feet off do you become uncomfortable. 
 You see the gunner crouched down 
 behind his weapon, but you aim at 
 Where the pilot ought to be — there are 
 two men aboard the German craft — 
 and press on the release hard. Your 
 mitrailleuse hammers out a stream of 
 bullets as you pass over and dive, 
 nose down, to get out of range. Then, 
 hopefully, you re-dress and look back 
 60 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 at the foe. He ought to be dropping 
 earthward at several miles a minute. 
 As a matter of fact, however, he is 
 sailing serenely on. They have an 
 annoying habit of doing that, these 
 Boches. 
 
 Rockwell, who attacked so often 
 that he has lost all count, and whc 
 shoves his machine gun fairly in the 
 faces of the Germans, used to swear 
 their planes were armoured. Lieu- 
 tenant de Laage, whose list of com- 
 bats is equally extensive, has brought 
 down only one. Hall, with three 
 machines to his credit, has had more 
 luck. Lufbery, who evidently has 
 evolved a secret formula, has dropped 
 four, according to official statistics, 
 since his arrival on the Verdun front. 
 Four "palms" — the record for the 
 escadrille, glitter upon the ribbon of 
 61 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 the Croix de Guerre accompanying 
 his Medaile Militaire. 1 
 
 A pilot seldom has the satisfaction 
 of beholding the result of his bull's-eye 
 bullet. Rarely — so difficult it is to 
 follow the turnings and twistings of 
 the dropping plane — does he see his 
 fallen foe strike the ground. Luf- 
 bery's last direct hit was an exception, 
 for he followed all that took place from 
 a balcony seat. I myself was in the 
 "nigger-heaven," so I know. We 
 had set out on a sortie together just 
 before noon, one August day, and for 
 the first time on such an occasion had 
 lost each other over the lines. Seeing 
 no Germans, I passed my time hover- 
 ing over the French observation ma- 
 chines. Lufbery found one, however, 
 
 x This book was written in the fall of 1915. Since that 
 time many additional machines have been credited to the 
 American flyers. 
 
 62 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 » 
 
 and promptly brought it down. Just 
 then I chanced to make a southward 
 turn, and caught sight of an airplane 
 falling out of the sky into the German 
 lines. 
 
 As it turned over, it showed its 
 white belly for an instant, then seemed 
 to straighten out, and planed down- 
 ward in big zigzags. The pilot must 
 have gripped his controls even in 
 death, for his craft did not tumble as 
 most do. It passed between my line 
 of vision and a wood, into which it dis- 
 appeared. Just as I was going down to 
 find out where it landed, I saw it 
 again skimming across a field, and 
 heading straight for the brown band 
 beneath me. It was outlined against 
 the shell-racked earth like a tiny in- 
 sect, until just northwest of Fort 
 Douaumont it crashed down upon the 
 63 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 battlefield. A sheet of flame and 
 smoke shot up from the tangled 
 wreckage. For a moment or two I 
 watched it burn; then I went back to 
 the observation machines. 
 
 I thought Lufbery would show up 
 and point to where the German had 
 fallen. He failed to appear, and I be- 
 gan to be afraid it was he whom I had 
 seen come down, instead of an enemy. 
 I spent a worried hour before my re- 
 turn homeward. After getting back 
 I learned that Lufbery was quite safe, 
 having hurried in after the fight to re- 
 port the destruction of his adversary 
 before somebody else claimed him, 
 which is only too frequently the case. 
 Observation posts, however, con- 
 firmed Lufbery' s story, and he was of 
 course very much delighted. Never- 
 theless, at luncheon, I heard him 
 64 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 murmuring, half to himself: "Those 
 poor fellows." 
 
 The German machine gun operator, 
 having probably escaped death in the 
 air, must have had a hideous descent. 
 Lufbery told us he had seen the whole 
 thing, spiralling down after the Ger- 
 man. He said he thought the Ger- 
 man pilot must be a novice, judging 
 from his manoeuvres. It occurred to 
 me that he might have been making 
 his first flight over the lines, doubtless 
 full of enthusiasm about his career. 
 Perhaps, dreaming of the Iron Cross 
 and his Gretchen, he took a chance — 
 and then swift death and a grave in 
 the shell-strewn soil of Douaumont. 
 
 Generally the escadrille is relieved 
 by another fighting unit after two 
 hours over the lines. We turn home- 
 ward, and soon the hangars of our 
 65 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 field loom up in the distance. Some- 
 times I've been mighty glad to see 
 them and not infrequently I've con- 
 cluded the pleasantest part of flying 
 is just after a good landing. Getting 
 home after a sortie, we usually go into 
 the rest tent, and talk over the morn- 
 ing's work. Then some of us lie down 
 for a nap, while others play cards or 
 read. After luncheon we go to the 
 field again, and the man on guard gets 
 his chance to eat. If the morning 
 sortie has been an early one, we go up 
 again about one o'clock in the after- 
 noon. We are home again in two 
 hours and after that two or three 
 energetic pilots may make a third trip 
 over the lines. The rest wait around 
 ready to take the air if an enemy 
 bombardment group ventures to visit 
 our territory — as it has done more 
 66 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 than once over Bar-le-Duc. False 
 alarms are plentiful, and we spend 
 many hours aloft squinting at an 
 empty sky. 
 
 prince's aerial fireworks 
 
 Now and then one of us will get 
 ambitious to do something on his own 
 account. Not long ago Norman 
 Prince became obsessed with the idea 
 of bringing down a German "saus- 
 age," as observation balloons are 
 called. He had a special device 
 mounted on his Nieuport for setting 
 fire to the aerial frankfurters. Thus 
 equipped he resembled an advance 
 agent for Payne's fireworks more than 
 an aviateur de chasse. Having care- 
 fully mapped the enemy "sausages," 
 he would sally forth in hot pursuit 
 whenever one was signalled at a re- 
 67 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 spectable height. Poor Norman had 
 a terrible time of it! Sometimes the 
 reported "sausages" were not there 
 when he arrived, and sometimes there 
 was a super-abundancy of German 
 airplanes on guard. 
 
 He stuck to it, however, and finally 
 his appetite for "sausage" was satis- 
 fied. He found one just where it 
 ought to be, swooped down upon it, 
 and let off his fireworks with all the 
 gusto of an American boy on the 
 Fourth of July. When he looked 
 again, the balloon had vanished. 
 Prince's performance isn't so easy as 
 it sounds, by the way. If, after the 
 long dive necessary to turn the trick 
 successfully, his motor had failed to 
 retake, he would have fallen into the 
 hands of the Germans. 
 
 After dark, when flying is over for 
 68 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 the day, we go down to the villa for 
 dinner. Usually we have two or 
 three French officers dining with us 
 besides our own captain and lieu- 
 tenant, and so the table talk is a 
 mixture of French and English. It's 
 seldom we discuss the war in general. 
 Mostly the conversation revolves 
 about our own sphere, for just as in 
 the navy the sea is the favourite 
 topic, and in the army the trenches, so 
 with us it is aviation. Our knowledge 
 about the military operations is scant. 
 We haven't the remotest idea as to 
 what has taken place on the battle- 
 field — even though we've been flying 
 over it during an attack — until we 
 read the papers ; and they don't tell us 
 much. 
 
 Frequently pilots from other esca- 
 drilles will be our guests in passing 
 69 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 through our sector, and through these 
 visitations we keep in touch with the 
 aerial news of the day, and with our 
 friends along the front. Gradually 
 we have come to know a great number 
 of pilotes de chasse. We hear that 
 so-&-so has been killed, that some one 
 else has brought down a Boche and 
 that still another is a prisoner. 
 
 We don't always talk aviation, 
 however. In the course of dinner 
 almost any subject may be touched 
 upon, and with our cosmopolitan 
 crowd one can readily imagine the 
 scope of the conversation. A Burton 
 Holmes lecture is weak and watery 
 compared to the travel stories we 
 listen to. Were 0. Henry alive, he 
 could find material for a hundred new 
 yarns, and William James numerous 
 pointers for another work on psy- 
 70 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 chology, while De Quincey might 
 multiply his dreams ad infinitum. 
 Doubtless alienists as well as fiction 
 writers would find us worth studying. 
 In France there's a saying that 
 to be an aviator one must be a bit 
 "off." 
 
 After dinner the same scene in- 
 variably repeats itself, over the coffee 
 in the "next room." At the big table 
 several sportive souls start a poker 
 game, while at a smaller one two se- 
 date spirits wrap themselves in the 
 intricacies of chess. Captain The- 
 nault labours away at the messroom 
 piano, or in lighter mood plays with 
 Fram, his police dog. A phonograph 
 grinds out the ancient query "Who 
 Paid the Rent for Mrs. Rip Van 
 Winkle?" or some other ragtime ditty. 
 It is barely nine, however, when the 
 71 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 movement in the direction of bed 
 begins. 
 
 A few of us remain behind a little 
 while, and the talk becomes more 
 personal and more sincere. Only on 
 such intimate occasions, I think, have 
 I ever heard death discussed. Cer- 
 tainly we are not indifferent to it. 
 Not many nights ago one of the pilots 
 remarked in a tired way : 
 
 "Know what I want? Just six 
 months of freedom to go where and 
 do what I like. In that time I'd get 
 everything I wanted out of life, and 
 be perfectly willing to come back and 
 be killed." 
 
 Then another, who was about to 
 receive 2,000 francs from the Ameri- 
 can committee that aids us, as a 
 reward for his many citations, chimed 
 in. 
 
 72 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 "Well, I didn't care much before," 
 he confessed, "but now with this 
 money coming in I don't want to die 
 until I've had the fun of spending it." 
 
 So saying, he yawned and went up 
 to bed. 
 
 73 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 VERDUN TO THE SOMME 
 
 On the 12th of October, twenty 
 small airplanes flying in a V formation, 
 at such a height they resembled a 
 flock of geese, crossed the river Rhine, 
 where it skirts the plains of Alsace, 
 and, turning north, headed for the 
 famous Mauser works at Oberndorf. 
 Following in their wake was an equal 
 number of larger machines, and above 
 these darted and circled swift fighting 
 planes. The first group of aircraft 
 was flown by British pilots, the second 
 by French and three of the fighting 
 planes by Americans in the French 
 Aviation Division. It was a cos- 
 74 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 mopolitan collection that effected that 
 successful raid. 
 
 We American pilots, who are 
 grouped into one escadrille, had been 
 fighting above the battlefield of Ver- 
 dun from the 20th of May until orders 
 came the middle of September for us 
 to leave our airplanes, for a unit that 
 would replace us, and to report at Le 
 Bourget, the great Paris aviation 
 centre. 
 
 The mechanics and the rest of the 
 personnel left, as usual, in the esca- 
 drille's trucks with the material. For 
 once the pilots did not take the aerial 
 route but they boarded the Paris ex- 
 press at Bar-le-Duc with all the en- 
 thusiasm of schoolboys off for a va- 
 cation. They were to have a week in 
 the capital! Where they were to go 
 after that they did not know, but pre- 
 75 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 sumed it would be the Somme. As a 
 matter of fact the escadrille was to be 
 sent to Luxeuil in the Vosges to take 
 part in the Mauser raid. 
 
 Besides Captain Thenault and Lieu- 
 tenant de Laage de Mieux, our French 
 officers, the following American pilots 
 were in the escadrille at this time: 
 Lieutenant Thaw, who had returned 
 to the front, even though his wounded 
 arm had not entirely healed; Adju- 
 tants Norman Prince, Hall, Lufbery, 
 and Masson; and Sergeants Kiflin. 
 Rockwell, Hill, Pavelka, Johnson, and 
 Rumsey. I had been sent to a hos- 
 pital at the end of August, because of 
 a lame back resulting from a smash up 
 in landing, and couldn't follow the 
 escadrille until later. 
 
 Every aviation unit boasts several 
 mascots. Dogs of every description 
 76 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 are to be seen around the camps, but 
 the Americans managed, during their 
 stay in Paris, to add to their men- 
 agerie by the acquisition of a lion cub 
 named "Whiskey." The little chap 
 had been born on a boat crossing from 
 Africa and was advertised for sale in 
 France. Some of the American pilots 
 chipped in and bought him. He was 
 a cute, bright-eyed baby lion who 
 tried to roar in a most threatening 
 manner but who was blissfully con- 
 tent the moment one gave him one's 
 finger to suck. "Whiskey" got a 
 good view of Paris during the few days 
 he was there, for some one in the 
 crowd was always borrowing him to 
 take him some place. He, like most 
 lions in captivity, became acquainted 
 with bars, but the sort "Whiskey" saw 
 were not for purposes of confinement. 
 77 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 The orders came directing the es- 
 cadrille to Luxeuil and bidding fare- 
 well to gay "Paree" the men boarded 
 the Belfort train with bag and bag- 
 gage — and the lion. Lions, it de- 
 veloped, were not allowed in passenger 
 coaches. The conductor was assured 
 that "Whiskey" was quite harmless 
 and was going to overlook the rules 
 when the cub began to roar and tried 
 to get at the railwayman's finger. 
 That settled it, so two of the men had 
 to stay behind in order to crate up 
 "Whiskey" and take him along the 
 next day. 
 
 The escadrille was joined in Paris by 
 Robert Rockwell, of Cincinnati, who 
 had finished his training as a pilot, and 
 was waiting at the Reserve (Robert 
 Rockwell had gone to France to work 
 as a surgeon in one of the American 
 78 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 war hospitals. He disliked remaining 
 in the rear and eventually enlisted in 
 aviation). 
 
 The period of training for a pilot, 
 especially for one who is to fly a fight- 
 ing machine at the front, has been 
 very much prolonged. It is no longer 
 sufficient that he learns to fly and to 
 master various types of machines. He 
 now completes his training in schools 
 where aerial shooting is taught, and in 
 others where he practises combat, 
 group manoeuvres, and acrobatic 
 stunts such as looping the loop and 
 the more difficult tricks. In all 
 it requires from seven to nine 
 months. 
 
 Dennis Dowd, of Brooklyn, N. Y., 
 
 is so far the only American volunteer 
 
 aviator killed while in training. 
 
 Dowd, who had joined the Foreign 
 
 79 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 Legion, shortly after the war broke 
 out, was painfully wounded during 
 the offensive in Champagne. After 
 his recovery he was transferred, at his 
 request, into aviation. At the Buc 
 school he stood at the head of the 
 fifteen Americans who were learning 
 to be aviators, and was considered one 
 of the most promising pilots in the 
 training camp. On August 11, 1916, 
 while making a flight preliminary to 
 his brevet, Dowd fell from a height of 
 only 260 feet and was instantly killed. 
 Either he had fainted or a control 
 had broken. 
 
 While a patient at the hospital 
 Dowd had been sent packages by a 
 young French girl of Neuilly. A cor- 
 respondence ensued, and when Dowd 
 went to Paris on convalescent leave 
 he and the young lady became en- 
 80 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 gaged. He was killed just before the 
 time set for the wedding. 
 
 When the escadrille arrived at 
 Luxeuil it found a great surprise in the 
 form of a large British aviation con- 
 tingent. This detachment from the 
 Royal Navy Flying Corps numbered 
 more than fifty pilots and a thousand 
 men. New hangars harboured their 
 fleet of bombardment machines. 
 Their own anti-aircraft batteries were 
 in emplacements near the field. 
 Though detached from the British 
 forces and under French command 
 this unit followed the rule of His 
 Majesty's armies in France by re- 
 ceiving all of its food and supplies 
 from England. It had its own trans- 
 port service. 
 
 Our escadrille had been in Luxeuil 
 during the months of April and May. 
 81 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 We had made many friends amongst 
 the townspeople and the French pilots 
 stationed there, so the older members 
 of the American unit were welcomed 
 with open arms and their new com- 
 rades made to feel at home in the 
 quaint Vosges town. It wasn't long, 
 however, before the Americans and 
 the British got together. At first 
 there was a feeling of reserve on both 
 sides but once acquainted they be- 
 came fast friends. The naval pilots 
 were quite representative of the 
 United Kingdom hailing as they did 
 from England, Canada, New South 
 Wales, South Africa, and other parts 
 of the Empire. Most of them were 
 soldiers by profession. All were 
 officers, but they were as democratic 
 as it is possible to be. As a result 
 there was a continuous exchange of 
 82 
 
"WHISKEY" 
 
 The lion and mascot of the American flying squadron in 
 France 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 dinners. In a few days every one in 
 this Anglo-American alliance was cal- 
 ling each other by some nickname and 
 swearing lifelong friendship. 
 
 "We didn't know what you Yanks 
 would be like," remarked one of the 
 Englishmen one day. "Thought you 
 might be snobby on account of being 
 volunteers, but I swear you're a 
 bloody human lot." That, I will ex- 
 plain, is a very fine compliment. 
 
 There was trouble getting new air- 
 planes for every one in the escadrille. 
 Only five arrived. They were the 
 new model Nieuport fighting machine. 
 Instead of having only 140 square feet 
 of supporting surface, they had 160, 
 and the forty-seven shot Lewis 
 machine gun had been replaced by the 
 Vickers, which fires five hundred 
 rounds. This gun is mounted on the 
 83 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 hood and by means of a timing gear 
 shoots through the propeller. The 
 160 foot Nieuport mounts at a ter- 
 rific rate, rising to 7,000 feet in six 
 minutes. It will go to 20,000 feet 
 handled by a skillful pilot. 
 
 It was some time before these air- 
 planes arrived and every one was idle. 
 There was nothing to do but loaf 
 around the hotel, where the American 
 pilots were quartered, visit the British 
 in their barracks at the field, or go 
 walking. It was about as much like 
 war as a Bryan lecture. While I was 
 in the hospital I received a letter 
 written at this time from one of the 
 boys. I opened it expecting to read 
 of an air combat. It informed me 
 that Thaw had caught a trout three 
 feet long, and that Lufbery had 
 picked two baskets of mushrooms. 
 84 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 Day after day the British planes 
 practised formation flying. The reg- 
 ularity with which the squadron's 
 machines would leave the ground was 
 remarkable. The twenty Sopwiths 
 took the air at precise intervals, flew 
 together in a V formation while ex- 
 ecuting difficult manoeuvres, and 
 landed one after the other with the 
 exactness of clockwork. The French 
 pilots flew the Farman and Breguet 
 bombardment machines whenever the 
 weather permitted. Every one knew 
 some big bombardment was ahead but 
 when it would be made or what place 
 was to be attacked was a secret. 
 
 Considering the number of ma- 
 chines that were continually roaring 
 above the field at Luxeuil it is re- 
 markable that only two fatal accidents 
 occurred. One was when a British 
 85 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 pilot tried diving at a target, for 
 machine-gun practice, and was unable 
 to redress his airplane. Both he and 
 his gunner were killed. In the second 
 accident I lost a good friend — a young 
 Frenchman. He took up his gunner 
 in a two-seated Nieuport. A young 
 Canadian pilot accompanied by a 
 French officer followed in a Sopwith. 
 When at about a thousand feet they 
 began to manoeuvre about one an- 
 other. In making a turn too close the 
 tips of their wings touched. The 
 Nieuport turned downward, its wings 
 folded, and it fell like a stone. The 
 Sopwith fluttered a second or two, 
 then its wings buckled and it dropped 
 in the wake of the Nieuport. The two 
 men in each of the planes were killed 
 outright. 
 Next to falling in flames a drop in a 
 86 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 wrecked machine is the worst death 
 an aviator can meet. I know of no 
 sound more horrible than that made 
 by an airplane crashing to earth. 
 Breathless one has watched the un- 
 controlled apparatus tumble through 
 the air. The agony felt by the pilot 
 and passenger seems to transmit itself 
 to you. You are helpless to avert the 
 certain death. You cannot even turn 
 your eyes away at the moment of im- 
 pact. In the dull, grinding crash 
 there is the sound of breaking bones. 
 Luxeuil was an excellent place to 
 observe the difference that exists be- 
 tween the French, English, and Amer- 
 ican aviatior, but when all is said and 
 done there is but little difference. 
 The Frenchman is the most natural 
 pilot and the most adroit. Flying 
 comes easier to him than to an 
 87 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 Englishman or American, but once 
 accustomed to an airplane and the air 
 they all accomplish the same amount 
 of work. A Frenchman goes about it 
 with a little more dash than the 
 others, and puts on a few extra frills, 
 but the Englishman calmly carries out 
 his mission and obtains the same re- 
 sults. An American is a combination 
 of the two, but neither better nor 
 worse. Though there is a large num- 
 ber of expert German airmen I do not 
 believe the average Teuton makes as 
 good a flier as a Frenchman, English- 
 man, or American. 
 
 In spite of their bombardment of 
 open towns and the use of explosive 
 bullets in their aerial machine guns, 
 the Boches have shown up in a better 
 light in aviation than in any other 
 arm. A few of the Hun pilots have 
 88 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 evinced certain elements of honor and 
 decency. I remember one chap that 
 was the right sort. 
 
 He was a young man but a pilot of 
 long standing. An old infantry cap- 
 tain stationed near his aviation field 
 at Etain, east of Verdun, prevailed 
 upon this German pilot to take him on 
 a flight. There was a new machine to 
 test out and he told the captain to 
 climb aboard. Foolishly he crossed 
 the trench lines and, actuated by a de- 
 sire to give his passenger an interest- 
 ing trip, proceeded to fly over the 
 French aviation headquarters. Un- 
 fortunately for him he encountered 
 three French fighting planes which 
 promptly opened fire. The German 
 pilot was wounded in the leg and the gas- 
 oline tank of his airplane was pierced. 
 Under him was an aviation field. He 
 89 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 decided to land. The machine was 
 captured before the Germans had 
 time to burn it up. Explosive bullets 
 were discovered in the machine gun. 
 A French officer turned to the German 
 captain and informed him that he 
 would probably be shot for using ex- 
 plosive bullets. The captain did not 
 understand. 
 
 "Don't shoot him," said the pilot, 
 using excellent French, "if you're 
 going to shoot any one take me. The 
 captain has nothing to do with the 
 bullets. He doesn't even know how 
 to work a machine gun. It's his first 
 trip in an airplane." 
 
 "Well, if you'll give us some good 
 information, we won't shoot you," 
 said the French officer. 
 
 "Information," replied the Ger- 
 man, "I can't give you any. I come 
 90 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 from Etain, and you know where that 
 is as well as I do." 
 
 "No, you must give us some worth- 
 while information, or I'm afraid 
 you'll be shot," insisted the French- 
 man. 
 
 " If I give you worth-while informa- 
 tion," answered the pilot, "you'll go 
 over and kill a lot of soldiers, and if I 
 don't you'll only kill one — so go 
 ahead." 
 
 The last time I heard of the Boche 
 he was being well taken care of. 
 
 Kiffin Rockwell and Lufbery were 
 the first to get their new machines 
 ready and on the 23rd of September 
 went out for the first flight since the 
 escadrille had arrived at Luxeuil. 
 They became separated in the air but 
 each flew on alone, which was a 
 dangerous thing to do in the Alsace 
 91 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 sector. There is but little fighting in 
 the trenches there, but great air 
 activity. Due to the British and 
 French squadrons at Luxeuil, and the 
 threat their presence implied, the Ger- 
 mans had to oppose them by a large 
 fleet of fighting machines. I believe 
 there were more than forty Fokkers 
 alone in the camps of Colmar and 
 Habsheim. Observation machines 
 protected by two or three fighting 
 planes would venture far into our 
 lines. It is something the Germans 
 dare not do on any other part of the 
 front. They had a special trick that 
 consisted in sending a large, slow ob- 
 servation machine into our lines to in- 
 vite attack. When a French plane 
 would dive after it, two Fokkers, that 
 had been hovering high overhead, 
 would drop on the tail of the French- 
 92 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 man and he stood but small chance if 
 caught in the trap. 
 
 Just before Kiffin Rockwell reached 
 the lines he spied a German machine 
 under him flying at 11,000 feet. I 
 can imagine the satisfaction he felt in 
 at last catching an enemy plane in our 
 lines. Rockwell had fought more 
 combats than the rest of us put to- 
 gether, and had shot down many Ger- 
 man machines that had fallen in their 
 lines, but this was the first time he had 
 had an opportunity of bringing down 
 a Boche in our territory. 
 
 A captain, the commandant of an 
 Alsatian village, watched the aerial 
 battle through his field glasses. He 
 said that Rockwell approached so 
 close to the enemy that he thought 
 there would be a collision. The Ger- 
 man craft, which carried two machine 
 93 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 guns, had opened a rapid fire when 
 Rockwell started his dive. He 
 plunged through the stream of lead 
 and only when very close to his 
 enemy did he begin shooting. For a 
 second it looked as though the Ger- 
 man was falling, so the captain said, 
 but then he saw the French machine 
 turn rapidly nose down, the wings of 
 one side broke off and fluttered in the 
 wake of the airplane, which hurtled 
 earthward in a rapid drop. It crashed 
 into the ground in a small field — a field 
 of flowers — a few hundred yards back 
 of the trenches. It was not more than 
 two and a half miles from the spot 
 where Rockwell, in the month of May, 
 brought down his first enemy ma- 
 chine. The Germans immediately 
 opened up on the wreck with artillery 
 fire. In spite of the bursting shrap- 
 94 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 nel, gunners from a near-by battery 
 rushed out and recovered poor Rock- 
 well's broken body. There was a 
 hideous wound in his breast where an 
 explosive bullet had torn through. A 
 surgeon who examined the body, 
 testified that if it had been an ordi- 
 nary bullet Rockwell would have had 
 an even chance of landing with only a 
 bad wound. As it was he was killed 
 the instant the unlawful missile ex- 
 ploded. 
 
 Lufbery engaged a German craft 
 but before he could get to close range 
 two Fokkers swooped down from be- 
 hind and filled his aeroplane full of 
 holes. Exhausting his ammunition 
 he landed at Fontaine, an aviation 
 field near the lines. There he learned 
 of Rockwell's death and was told that 
 two other French machines had been 
 95 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 brought down within the hour. He 
 ordered his gasoline tank filled, pro- 
 cured a full band of cartridges and 
 soared up into the air to avenge his 
 comrade. He sped up and down the 
 lines, and made a wide detour to 
 Habsheim where the Germans have an 
 aviation field, but all to no avail. Not 
 a Boche was in the air. 
 
 The news of Rockwell's death was 
 telephoned to the escadrille. The 
 captain, lieutenant, and a couple of 
 men jumped in a staff car and 
 hastened to where he had fallen. On 
 their return the American pilots were 
 convened in a room of the hotel and 
 the news was broken to them. With 
 tears in his eyes the captain said: 
 "The best and bravest of us all is no 
 more." 
 
 No greater blow could have befallen 
 96 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 the escadrille. KifFin was its soul. 
 He was loved and looked up to by not 
 only every man in our flying corps but 
 by every one who knew him. Kiffin 
 was imbued with the spirit of the 
 cause for which he fought and gave his 
 heart and soul to the performance of 
 his duty. He said: "I pay my part 
 for Lafayette and Rochambeau," and 
 he gave the fullest measure. The old 
 flame of chivalry burned brightly in 
 this boy's fine and sensitive being. 
 With his death France lost one of her 
 most valuable pilots. When he was 
 over the lines the Germans did not 
 pass — and he was over them most of 
 the time. . He brought down four 
 enemy planes that were credited to 
 him officially, and Lieutenant de 
 Laage, who was his fighting partner, 
 says he is convinced that Rockwell 
 97 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 accounted for many others which fell 
 too far within the German lines to be 
 observed. Rockwell had been given 
 the Medaille Militaire and the Croix 
 de Guerre, on the ribbon of which he 
 wore four palms, representing the four 
 magnificent citations he had received 
 in the order of the army. As a fur- 
 ther reward for his excellent work he 
 had been proposed for promotion from 
 the grade of sergeant to that of second 
 lieutenant. Unfortunately the official 
 order did not arrive until a few days 
 following his death. 
 
 The night before Rockwell was 
 killed he had stated that if he were 
 brought down he would like to be 
 buried where he fell. It was im- 
 possible, however, to place him in a 
 grave so near the trenches. His body 
 was draped in a French flag and 
 98 
 
KIFFIN ROCKWELL, OF ASHEVILLE, N. C. 
 Who was killed in an air duel over Verdun 
 
 " Kiffin was imbued with the spirit of the cause for which 
 he fought. He said: 'I pay my part for Lafayette and 
 Rochambeau ' " (See page 97) 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 brought back to Luxeuil. He was 
 given a funeral worthy of a general. 
 His brother, Paul, who had fought in 
 the Legion with him, and who had 
 been rendered unfit for service by a 
 wound, was granted permission to 
 attend the obsequies. Pilots from all 
 near-by camps flew over to render 
 homage to Rockwell's remains. 
 Every Frenchman in the aviation at 
 Luxeuil marched behind the bier. 
 The British pilots, followed by a de- 
 tachment of five hundred of their men, 
 were in line, and a battalion of French 
 troops brought up the rear. As the 
 slow moving procession of blue and 
 khaki-clad men passed from the 
 church to the graveyard, airplanes 
 circled at a feeble height above and 
 showered down myriads of flowers. 
 Rockwell's death urged the rest of 
 99 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 the men to greater action, and the few 
 who had machines were constantly 
 after the Boches. Prince brought 
 one down. Lufbery, the most skillful 
 and successful fighter in the escadrille, 
 would venture far into the enemy's 
 lines and spiral down over a German 
 aviation camp, daring the pilots to 
 venture forth. One day he stirred 
 them up, but as he was short of fuel 
 he had to make for home before they 
 took to the air. Prince was out in 
 search of a combat at this time. He 
 got it. He ran into the crowd Luf- 
 bery had aroused. Bullets cut into 
 his machine and one exploding on the 
 front edge of a lower wing broke it. 
 Another shattered a supporting mast. 
 It was a miracle that the machine did 
 not give way. As badly battered as 
 it was Prince succeeded in bringing it 
 100 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 back from over Mulhouse, where the 
 fight occurred, to his field at Luxeuil. 
 The same day that Prince was so 
 nearly brought down Lufbery missed 
 death by a very small margin. He 
 had taken on more gasoline and made 
 another sortie. When over the lines 
 again he encountered a German with 
 whom he had a fighting acquaintance. 
 That is he and the Boche, who was an 
 excellent pilot, had tried to kill each 
 other on one or two occasions before. 
 Each was too good for the other. Luf- 
 bery manoeuvred for position but, be- 
 fore he could shoot, the Teuton would 
 evade him by a clever turn. They 
 kept after one another, the Boche re- 
 treating into his lines. When they 
 were nearing Habsheim, Lufbery 
 glanced back and saw French shrapnel 
 bursting over the trenches. It meant 
 101 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 a German plane was over French 
 territory and it was his duty to drive 
 it off. Swooping down near his ad- 
 versary he waved good-bye, the enemy 
 pilot did likewise, and Lufbery 
 whirred off to chase the other repre- 
 sentative of Kultur. He caught up 
 with him and dove to the attack, but 
 he was surprised by a German he had 
 not seen. Before he could escape 
 three bullets entered his motor, two 
 passed through the fur-lined combina- 
 tion he wore, another ripped open one 
 of his woolen flying boots, his air- 
 plane was riddled from wing tip to 
 wing tip, and other bullets cut the 
 elevating plane. Had he not been an 
 exceptional aviator he never would 
 have brought safely to earth so badly 
 damaged a machine. It was so 
 thoroughly shot up that it was junked 
 102 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 as being beyond repairs. Fortunately 
 Lufbery was over French territory or 
 his forced descent would have resulted 
 in his being made prisoner. 
 
 I know of only one other airplane 
 that was safely landed after receiving 
 as heavy punishment as did Lufbery's. 
 It was a two-place Nieuport piloted 
 by a young Frenchman named Fon- 
 taine with whom I trained. He and 
 his gunner attacked a German over 
 the Bois le Pretre who dove rapidly 
 far into his lines. Fontaine followed 
 and in turn was attacked by three 
 other Boches. He dropped to escape, 
 they plunged after him forcing him 
 lower. He looked and saw a German 
 aviation field under him. He was by 
 this time only 2,000 feet above the 
 ground. Fontaine saw the mechanics 
 rush out to grasp him, thinking he 
 103 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 would land. The attacking airplanes 
 had stopped shooting. Fontaine 
 pulled on full power and headed for 
 the lines. The German planes 
 dropped down on him and again 
 opened fire. They were on his level, 
 behind and on his sides. Bullets 
 whistled by him in streams. The 
 rapid-fire gun on Fontaine's machine 
 had jammed and he was helpless. His 
 gunner fell forward on him, dead. 
 The trenches were just ahead, but as 
 he was slanting downward to gain 
 speed he had lost a good deal of 
 height, 3 and was at only six hundred feet 
 when he crossed the lines, from which 
 he received a ground fire. The Ger- 
 mans gave up the chase and Fontaine 
 landed with his dead gunner. His 
 wings were so full of holes that they 
 barely supported the machine in the air. 
 104 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 The uncertain wait at Luxeuil 
 finally came to an end on the 12th of 
 October. The afternoon of that day 
 the British did not say: "Come on 
 Yanks, let's call off the war and have 
 tea," as was their wont, for the bom- 
 bardment of Oberndorf was on. The 
 British and French machines had been 
 prepared. Just before climbing into 
 their airplanes the pilots were given 
 their orders. The English in their 
 single-seated Sopwiths, which carried 
 four bombs each, were the first to 
 leave. The big French Brequets and 
 Farmans then soared aloft with their 
 tons of explosive destined for the 
 Mauser works. The fighting ma- 
 chines, which were to convoy them as 
 far as the Rhine, rapidly gained their 
 height and circled above their charges. 
 Four of the battleplanes were from 
 105 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 the American eseadrille. They were 
 piloted respectively by Lieutenant de 
 Laage, Lufbery, Norman Prince, and 
 Masson. 
 
 The Germans were taken by sur- 
 prise and as a result few of their ma- 
 chines were in the air. The bombard- 
 ment fleet was attacked, however, and 
 six of its planes shot down, some of 
 them falling in flames. Baron, the 
 famous French night bombarder, lost 
 hislifeinoneoftheFarmans. Two Ger- 
 mans were brought down by machines 
 they attacked and the four pilots from 
 the American eseadrille accounted for 
 one each. Lieutenant de Laage shot 
 down his Boche as it was attacking an- 
 other French machine and Masson did 
 likewise. Explaining it afterward he 
 said: "All of a sudden I saw a Boche 
 •some in between me and a Breguet, 
 106 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 I was following. I just began to 
 shoot, and darned if he didn't 
 fall." 
 
 As the fuel capacity of a Nieuport 
 allows but little more than two hours 
 in the air the avions de chasse were 
 forced to return to their own lines to 
 take on more gasoline, while the bom- 
 bardment planes continued on into 
 Germany. The Sopwiths arrived 
 first at Oberndorf. Dropping low 
 over the Mauser works they dis- 
 charged their bombs and headed 
 homeward. All arrived, save one, 
 whose pilot lost his way and came to 
 earth in Switzerland. When the big 
 machines got to Oberndorf they saw 
 only flames and smoke where once the 
 rifle factory stood. They unloaded 
 their explosives on the burning mass. 
 
 The Nieuports having refilled their 
 107 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 tanks went up to clear the air of Ger- 
 mans that might be hovering in wait 
 for the returning raiders. Prince 
 found one and promptly shot it down. 
 Lufbery came upon three. He drove 
 for one, making it drop below the 
 others, then forcing a second to de- 
 scend, attacked the one remaining 
 above. The combat was short and at 
 the end of it the German tumbled to 
 earth. This made the fifth enemy 
 machine which was officially credited 
 to Lufbery. When a pilot has ac- 
 counted for five Boches he is men- 
 tioned by name in the official com- 
 munication, and is spoken of as an 
 "Ace," which in French aerial slang 
 means a super-pilot. Papers are al- 
 lowed to call an "ace" by name, print 
 his picture and give him a write-up. 
 The successful aviator becomes a 
 108 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 national hero. When Lufbery worked 
 into this category the French papers 
 made him a head liner. The Ameri- 
 can "Ace," with his string of medals, 
 then came in for the ennuis of a mati- 
 nee idol. The choicest bit in the col- 
 lection was a letter from Wallingford, 
 Conn., his home town, thanking him 
 for putting it on the map. 
 
 Darkness was coming rapidly on 
 but Prince and Lufbery remained in 
 the air to protect the bombardment 
 fleet. Just at nightfall Lufbery made 
 for a small aviation field near the lines, 
 known as Corcieux. Slow-moving 
 machines, with great planing cap- 
 acity, can be landed in the dark, but 
 to try and feel for the ground in a 
 Nieuport, which comes down at about 
 a hundred miles an hour, is to court 
 disaster. Ten minutes after Lufbery 
 109 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 landed Prince decided to make for the 
 field. He spiraled down through the 
 night air and skimmed rapidly over 
 the trees bordering the Gorcieux field. 
 In the dark he did not see a high- 
 tension electric cable that was 
 stretched just above the tree tops. 
 The landing gear of his airplane struck 
 it. The machine snapped forward 
 and hit the ground on its nose. It 
 turned over and over. The belt hold- 
 ing Prince broke and he was thrown 
 far from the wrecked plane. Both of 
 his legs were broken and he naturally 
 suffered internal injuries. In spite 
 of the terrific shock and his intense 
 pain Prince did not lose consciousness. 
 He even kept his presence of mind and 
 gave orders to the men who had run to 
 pick him up. Hearing the hum of a 
 motor, and realizing a machine was in 
 110 
 
FLYING FOR FR AN G E 
 
 the air, Prince told them to light 
 gasoline fires on the field. "You don't 
 want another fellow to come down 
 and break himself up the way I've 
 done," he said. 
 
 Lufbery went with Prince to the 
 hospital in Gerardmer. As the am- 
 bulance rolled along Prince sang to 
 keep up his spirits. He spoke of get- 
 ting well soon and returning to ser- 
 vice. It was like Norman. He was 
 always energetic about his flying. 
 Even when he passed through the 
 harrowing experience of having a 
 wing shattered, the first thing he did 
 on landing was to busy himself about 
 getting another fitted in place and 
 the next morning he was in the air 
 again. 
 
 No one thought that Prince was 
 mortally injured but the next day he 
 111 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 went into a coma. A blood clot had 
 formed on his brain. Captain Haff in 
 command of the aviation groups of 
 Luxeuil, accompanied by our officers, 
 hastened to Gerardmer. Prince lying 
 unconscious on his bed, was named a 
 second lieutenant and decorated with 
 the Legion of Honor. He already 
 held the Medaille Militaire and Croix 
 de Guerre. Norman Prince died on 
 the 15th of October. He was brought 
 back to Luxeuil and given a funeral 
 similar to Rockwell's. It was hard to 
 realize that poor old Norman had 
 gone. He was the founder of the 
 American escadrille and every one in 
 it had come to rely on him. He never 
 let his own spirits drop, and was al- 
 ways on hand with encouragement for 
 the others. I do not think Prince 
 minded going. He wanted to do his 
 112 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 part before being killed, and he had 
 more than done it. He had, day after 
 day, freed the line of Germans, mak- 
 ing it impossible for them to do their 
 work, and three of them he had shot 
 to earth. 
 
 Two days after Prince's death the 
 escadrille received orders to leave for 
 the Somme. The night before the de- 
 parture the British gave the American 
 pilots a farewell banquet and toasted 
 them as their "Guardian Angels." 
 They keenly appreciated the fact that 
 four men from the American escadrille 
 had brought down four Germans, and 
 had cleared the way for their squad- 
 ron returning from Oberndorf . When 
 the train pulled out the next day the 
 station platform was packed by khaki- 
 clad pilots waving good-bye to their 
 friends the "Yanks." 
 113 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 The escadrille passed through Paris 
 on its way to the Somme front. The 
 few members who had machines flew 
 from Luxeuil to their new post. At 
 Paris the pilots were reenforced by 
 three other American boys who had 
 completed their training. They were : 
 Fred Prince, who ten months before 
 had come over from Boston to serve 
 in aviation with his brother Norman ; 
 Willis Haviland, of Chicago, who left 
 the American Ambulance for the life 
 of a birdman, and Bob Soubrian, of 
 New York, who had been transferred 
 from the Foreign Legion to the flying 
 corps after being wounded in the 
 Champagne offensive. 
 
 Before its arrival in the Somme the 
 
 escadrille had always been quartered 
 
 in towns and the life of the pilots was 
 
 all that could be desired in the way of 
 
 114 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 comforts. We had, as a result, come 
 to believe that we would wage only a 
 de luxe war, and were unprepared for 
 any other sort of campaign. The in- 
 troduction to the Somme was a rude 
 awakening. Instead of being quar- 
 tered in a villa or hotel, the pilots were 
 directed to a portable barracks newly 
 erected in a sea of mud. 
 
 It was set in a cluster of similar 
 barns nine miles from the near- 
 est town. A sieve was a water- 
 tight compartment in comparison 
 with that elongated shed. The damp 
 cold penetrated through every crack, 
 chilling one to the bone. There were 
 no blankets and until they were pro- 
 cured the pilots had to curl up in their 
 flying clothes. There were no arrange- 
 ments for cooking and the Americans 
 depended on the other escadrilles for 
 115 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 food. Eight fighting units were lo- 
 cated at the same field and our ever- 
 generous French comrades saw to it 
 that no one went hungry. The thick 
 mist, for which the Somme is famous, 
 hung like a pall over the birdmen's 
 nest dampening both the clothes and 
 spirits of the men. 
 
 Something had to be done, so Thaw 
 and Masson, who is our Chef de Popote 
 (President of the Mess) obtained per- 
 mission to go to Paris in one of our 
 light trucks. They returned with 
 cooking utensils, a stove, and other 
 necessary things. All hands set to 
 work and as a result life was made 
 bearable. In fact I was surprised to 
 find the quarters as good as they were 
 when I rejoined the escadrille a couple 
 of weeks after its arrival in the 
 Somme. Outside of the cold, mud, 
 116 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 and dampness it wasn't so bad. The 
 barracks had been partitioned off into 
 little rooms leaving a large space for a 
 dining hall. The stove is set up there 
 and all animate life from the lion cub 
 to the pilots centre around its warm- 
 ing glow. 
 
 The eight escadrilles of fighting 
 machines form a rather interesting 
 colony. The large canvas hangars 
 are surrounded by the house tents of 
 their respective escadrilles; wooden 
 barracks for the men and pilots are in 
 close proximity, and sandwiched in 
 between the encampments of the 
 various units are the tents where the 
 commanding officers hold forth. In 
 addition there is a bath house where 
 one may go and freeze while a tiny 
 stream of hot water trickles down 
 one's shivering form. Another shack 
 117 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 houses the power plant which gen- 
 erates electric light for the tents and 
 barracks, and in one very popular 
 canvas is located the community bar, 
 the profits from which go to the Red 
 Cross. 
 
 We had never before been grouped 
 with as many other fighting esca- 
 drilles, nor at a field so near the front. 
 We sensed the war to better advan- 
 tage than at Luxeuil or Bar-le-Duc. 
 When there is activity on the lines the 
 rumble of heavy artillery reaches us 
 in a heavy volume of sound. From 
 the field one can see the line of sau- 
 sage-shaped observation balloons, 
 which delineate the front, and beyond 
 them the high-flying airplanes, dart- 
 ing like swallows in the shrapnel puffs 
 of anti-air-craft fire. The roar of 
 motors that are being tested, is punc- 
 118 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 tuated by the staccato barking of 
 machine guns, and at intervals the 
 hollow whistling sound of a fast plane 
 diving to earth is added to this 
 symphony of war notes. 
 
 119 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 PERSONAL LETTERS FROM SERGEANT 
 McGONNELL — AT THE FRONT 
 
 We're still waiting for our machines. 
 In the meantime the Boches sail gaily 
 over and drop bombs. One of our 
 drivers has been killed and five wound- 
 ed so far but we'll put a stop to it soon. 
 The machines have left and are due 
 to-day. 
 
 You ask me what my work will be 
 and how my machine is armed. First 
 of all I mount an avion de chasse and 
 am supposed to shoot down Boches 
 or keep them away from over our 
 lines. I do not do observation, or 
 regulating of artillery fire. These are 
 120 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 handled by escadrilles equipped with 
 bigger machines. I mount at day- 
 break over the lines; stay at from 
 11,000 to 15,000 feet and wait for the 
 sight of an enemy plane. It may be 
 a bombardment machine, a regulator 
 of fire, an observer, or an avion de 
 chasse looking for me. Whatever she 
 is I make for her and manoeuvre for 
 position. All the machines carry dif- 
 ferent gun positions and one seeks 
 the blind side. Having obtained the 
 proper position one turns down or up, 
 whichever the case may be, and, when 
 within fifty yards, opens up with the 
 machine gun. That is on the upper 
 plane and it is sighted by a series of 
 holes and cross webs. As one is 
 passing at a terrific rate there is not 
 time for many shots, so, unless 
 wounded or one's machine is injured 
 121 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 by the first try — for the enemy plane 
 shoots, too — one tries it again and 
 again until there's nothing doing or 
 the other fellow is dropped. Apart 
 from work over the lines, which is 
 comparatively calm, there is the job 
 of convoying bombardment machines. 
 That is the rotten task. The captain 
 has called on us to act as guards on 
 the next trip. You see we are like 
 torpedo boats of the air with our swift 
 machines. 
 
 We have the honour of being at- 
 tached to a bombardment squadron 
 that is the most famous in the French 
 Army. The captain of the unit once 
 lost his whole escadrille, and on the last 
 trip eight lost their lives. It was a 
 wonderful fight. The squadron was 
 attacked by thirty-three Boches. Two 
 French planes crashed to earth — then 
 122 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 two German ; another German was set 
 on fire and streaked down, followed by 
 a streaming column of smoke. An- 
 other Frenchman fell; another Ger- 
 man; and then a French lieutenant, 
 mortally wounded and realizing that 
 he was dying, plunged his airplane 
 into a German below him and both 
 fell to earth like stones. 
 
 The tours of Alsace and the Vosges 
 that we have made, to look over 
 possible landing places, were wonder- 
 ful. I've never seen such ravishing 
 sights, and in regarding the beauty of 
 the country I have missed noting the 
 landing places. The valleys are mar- 
 vellous. On each side the mountain 
 slopes are a solid mass of giant pines 
 and down these avenues of green 
 tumble myriads of glittering cascades 
 which form into sparkling streams 
 123 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 beneath. It is a pleasant feeling to 
 go into Alsace and realize that one is 
 touring over country we have taken 
 from the Germans. It's a treat to go 
 by auto that way. In the air, you 
 know, one feels detached from all 
 below. It's a different world, that 
 has no particular meaning, and be- 
 sides, it all looks flat and of a weary 
 pattern. 
 
 THE FIRST TRIP 
 
 Well, I've made my first trip over 
 the lines and proved a few things to 
 myself. First, I can stand high alti- 
 tudes. I had never been higher than 
 7,000 feet before, nor had I flown 
 more than an hour. On my trip 
 to Germany I went to 14,000 feet and 
 was in the air for two hours. I wore 
 the fur head-to-foot combination they 
 124 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 give one and paper gloves under the 
 fur ones you sent me. I was not cold. 
 In a way it seemed amusing to be 
 going out knowing as little as I do. 
 My mitrailleuse had been mounted 
 the night before. I had never fired it, 
 nor did I know the country at all even 
 though I'd motored along our lines. 
 I followed the others or I surely should 
 have been lost. I shall have to make 
 special trips to study the land and 
 be able to make it out from my map 
 which I carry on board. For one 
 thing the weather was hazy and 
 clouds obscured the view. 
 
 We left en escadrille, at 30-second 
 intervals, at 6:30 a.m. I'd been on 
 guard since three, waiting for an 
 enemy plane. I climbed to 3,500 
 feet in four minutes and so started off 
 higher than the rest. I lost them 
 125 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 immediately but took a compass course 
 in the direction we were headed. 
 Clouds were below me and I could 
 see the earth only in spots. Ahead 
 was a great barrier of clouds and fog. 
 It seemed like a limitless ocean. To 
 the south the Alps jutted up through 
 the clouds and glistened like icebergs 
 in the morning sun. I began to feel 
 completely lost. I was at 7,000 feet 
 and that was all I knew. Suddenly 
 I saw a little black speck pop out of a 
 cloud to my left — then two others. 
 They were our machines and from 
 then on I never let them get out of 
 my sight. I went to 14,000 in order 
 to be able to keep them well in view 
 below me. We went over Belfort 
 which I recognized, and, turning, went 
 toward the lines. The clouds had 
 dispersed by this time. Alsace was 
 126 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 below us and in the distance I could 
 see the straight course of the Rhine. 
 It looked very small. I looked down 
 and saw the trenches and when I next 
 looked for our machines I saw clusters 
 of smoke puffs. We were being fired 
 at. One machine just under me 
 seemed to be in the centre of a lot 
 of shrapnel. The puffs were white, or 
 black, or green, depending on the size 
 of the shell used. It struck me as 
 more amusing than anything else to 
 watch the explosions and smoke. I 
 thought of what a lot of money we 
 were making the Germans spend. 
 It is not often that they hit. The day 
 before one of our machines had a part 
 of the tail shot away and the pro- 
 peller nicked, but that's just bum 
 luck. Two shells went off just at 
 my height and in a way that led me 
 127 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 to think that the third one would 
 get me; but it didn't. It's hard even 
 for the aviator to tell how far off they 
 are. We went over Mulhouse and 
 to the north. Then we sailed south 
 and turned over the lines on the 
 way home. I was very tired after 
 the flight but it was because I was not 
 used to it and it was a strain on me 
 keeping a look-out for the others. 
 
 AT VERDUN 
 
 To-day the army moving picture 
 outfit took pictures of us. We had 
 a big show. Thirty bombardment 
 planes went off like clock-work and 
 we followed. We circled and swooped 
 down by the camera. We were taken 
 in groups, then individually, in flying 
 togs, and God knows what-all. They 
 will be shown in the States. 
 128 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 If you happen to see them you will 
 recognize my machine by the Mag, 
 painted on the side. 
 
 Seems quite an important thing to 
 have one's own airplane with two 
 mechanics to take care of it, to help 
 one dress for flights, and to obey 
 orders. A pilot of no matter what 
 grade is like an officer in any other arm. 
 
 We didn't see any Boche planes on 
 our trip. We were too many. The 
 only way to do is to sneak up on them. 
 
 I do not get a chance to see much 
 of the biggest battle in the world 
 which is being fought here, for I'm 
 on a fighting machine and the sky 
 is my province. We fly so high that 
 ground details are lacking. Where 
 the battle has raged there is a broad, 
 browned band. It is a great strip of 
 murdered Nature. Trees, houses, and 
 129 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 even roads have been blasted com- 
 pletely away. The shell holes are so 
 numerous that they blend into one 
 another and cannot be separately seen. 
 It looks as if shells fell by the thousand 
 every second. There are spurts of 
 smoke at nearly every foot of the 
 brown areas and a thick pall of mist 
 covers it all. There are but holes 
 where the trenches ran, and when 
 one thinks of the poor devils crouch- 
 ing in their inadequate shelters under 
 such a hurricane of flying metal, it 
 increases one's respect for the staying 
 powers of modern man. It's terrible 
 to watch, and I feel sad every time I 
 look down. The only shooting we 
 hear is the tut-tut-tut of our own or 
 enemy plane's machine guns when 
 fighting is at close quarters. The 
 Germans shoot explosive bullets from 
 130 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 theirs. I must admit that they have 
 an excellent air fleet even if they do 
 not fight decently. 
 
 I'm a sergeant now — sergent in 
 French — and I get about two francs 
 more a day and wear a gold band on 
 my cap, which makes old territorials 
 think I'm an officer and occasions 
 salutes which are some bother. 
 
 A SORTIE 
 
 We made a foolish sortie this morn 
 ing. Only five of us went, the others 
 remaining in bed thinking the weather 
 was too bad. It was. When at 
 only 3,000 feet we hit a solid layer 
 of clouds, and when we had passed 
 through, we couldn't see anything 
 but a shimmering field of white. 
 Above were the bright sun and the 
 blue sky, but how we were in re- 
 131 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 gard to the earth no one knew. 
 Fortunately the clouds had a big 
 hole in them at one point and the 
 whole mass was moving toward the 
 lines. By circling, climbing, and 
 dropping we stayed above the hole, 
 and, when over the trenches, worked 
 into it, ready to fall on the Boches. 
 It's a stunt they use, too. We finally 
 found ourselves 20 kilometres in the 
 German lines. In coming back I 
 steered by compass and then when I 
 thought I was near the field I dived 
 and found myself not so far off, hav- 
 ing the field in view. In the clouds 
 it shakes terribly and one feels as if 
 one were in a canoe on a rough sea. 
 
 VICTOR CHAPMAN 
 
 I was mighty sorry to see old Victor 
 Chapman go. He was one of the 
 132 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 finest men I've ever known. He was 
 too brave if anything. He was ex- 
 ceptionally well educated, had a fine 
 brain, and a heart as big as a house. 
 Why, on the day of his fatal trip, he 
 had put oranges in his machine to take 
 to Balsley who was lying wounded 
 with an explosive bullet. He was 
 going to land near the hospital after 
 the sortie. 
 
 Received letter inclosing note from 
 Chapman's father. I'm glad you 
 wrote him. I feel sure that some of 
 my letters never reach you. I never 
 let more than a week go by without 
 writing. Maybe I do not get all 
 yours, either. 
 
 A SMASH-UP 
 
 Weather has been fine and we've 
 been doing a lot of work. Our Lieu- 
 133 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 tenant de Laage de Mieux, brought 
 down a Boche. I had another beau- 
 tiful smash-up. Prince and I had 
 stayed too long over the lines. Im- 
 portant day as an attack was going 
 on. It was getting dark and we 
 could see the tiny balls of fire the 
 infantry light to show the low-flying 
 observation machines their new posi- 
 tions. On my return, when I was over 
 another aviation field, my motor 
 broke. I made for field. In the dark- 
 ness I couldn't judge my distance 
 well, and went too far. At the edge of 
 the field there were trees, and beyond, 
 a deep cut where a road ran. I was 
 skimming ground at a hundred miles 
 an hour and heading for the trees. I 
 saw soldiers running to be in at the fin- 
 ish and I thought to myself that 
 James's hash was cooked, but I went 
 134 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 between two trees and ended up head 
 on against the opposite bank of the 
 road. My motor took the shock and 
 my belt held me. As my tail went up 
 it was cut in two by some very low 
 'phone wires. I wasn't even bruised. 
 Took dinner with the officers there who 
 gave me a car to go home in afterward. 
 
 FIGHTING A BOGHE 
 
 To-day I shared another chap's 
 machine (Hill of Peekskill), and got 
 it shot up for him. De Laage (our 
 lieutenant) and I made a sortie at 
 noon. When over the German lines, 
 near Cote 304, I saw two Boches under 
 me. I picked out the rear chap and 
 dived. Fired a few shots and then 
 tried to get under his tail and hit him 
 from there. I missed, and bobbed 
 up alongside of him. Fine for the 
 135 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 Boche, but rotten for me ! I could see 
 his gunner working the mitrailleuse 
 for fair, and felt his bullets darn close. 
 I dived, for I could not shoot from 
 that position, and beat it. He kept 
 plunking away and altogether put 
 seven holes in my machine. One was 
 only ten inches in from me. De 
 Laage was too far off to get to the 
 Boche and ruin him while I was 
 amusing him. 
 
 Yesterday I motored up to an avia- 
 tion camp to see a Boche machine 
 that had been forced to land and was 
 captured. On the way up I passed 
 a cantonment of Senegalese. About 
 twenty of 'em jumped up from the 
 bench they were sitting on and gave 
 me the hell of a salute. Thought I 
 was a general because I was riding in 
 a car, I guess. They're the blackest 
 136 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 niggers you ever saw. Good-looking 
 soldiers. Can't stand shelling but 
 they're good on the cold steel end of 
 the game. The Boche machine was a 
 beauty. Its motor is excellent and 
 she carries a machine gun aft and one 
 forward. Same kind of machine I 
 attacked to-day. The German pilots 
 must be mighty cold-footed, for if 
 the Frenchmen had airplanes like 
 that they surely would raise the devil 
 with the Boches. 
 
 As it is the Boches keep well within 
 their lines, save occasionally, and we 
 have to go over and fight them there. 
 
 KIFFIN ROCKWELL 
 
 Poor Kiffen Rockwell has been killed. 
 He was known and admired far 
 and wide, and he was accorded ex- 
 traordinary honours. Fifty English 
 137 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 pilots and eight hundred aviation men 
 from the British unit in the Vosges 
 marched at his funeral. There was a 
 regiment of Territorials and a battalion 
 of Colonial troops in addition to the 
 hundreds of French pilots and aviation 
 men. Captain Thenault of the Amer- 
 ican Escadrille delivered an exception- 
 ally eulogistic funeral oration. He 
 spoke at length of Rockwell's ideals 
 and his magnificent work. He told of 
 his combats. "When Rockwell was 
 on the lines," he said, "no German 
 passed, but on the contrary was forced 
 to seek a refuge on the ground." 
 
 Rockwell made the esprit of the 
 escadrille, and the Captain voiced the 
 sentiments of us all when, in announc- 
 ing his death, he said: "The best and 
 bravest of us all is no more." 
 
 How does the war look to you — as 
 138 
 
FLYING FOE FRANCE 
 
 regards duration? We are figuring 
 on about ten more months, but then 
 it may be ten more years. Of late 
 things are much brighter and one can 
 feel a certain elation in the air. Vic- 
 tory, before, was a sort of academic 
 certainty; now, it's felt. 
 
 139 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 HOW FRANCE TRAINS PILOT AVIATORS 
 
 France now has thousands of men 
 training to become military aviators, 
 and the flying schools, of which there 
 is a very great number, are turning 
 out pilots at an astounding rate. 
 
 The process of training a man to be 
 a pilot aviator naturally varies in 
 accordance with the type of machine 
 on which he takes his first instruction, 
 and so the methods of the various 
 schools depend on the apparatus upon 
 which they teach an eleve pilote — as 
 an embryonic aviator is called — to fly. 
 
 In the case of the larger biplanes, a 
 student goes up in a dual-control 
 140 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 airplane, accompanied by an old 
 pilot, who, after first taking him on 
 many short trips, then allows him 
 part, and later full, control, and who 
 immediately corrects any false moves 
 made by him. After that, short, 
 straight, line flights are made alone in 
 a smaller-powered machine by the 
 student, and, following that, the train- 
 ing goes on by degrees to the point 
 where a certain mastery of the ap- 
 paratus is attained. Then follows 
 the prescribed "stunts" and voyages 
 necessary to obtain the military 
 brevet. 
 
 TRAINING FOR PURSUIT AIRPLANES 
 
 The method of training a pilot for a 
 
 small, fast avion de chasse, as a fighting 
 
 airplane is termed, is quite different, 
 
 and as it is the most thorough and in- 
 
 141 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 teresting I will take that course up in 
 greater detail. 
 
 The man who trains for one of these 
 machines never has the advantage of 
 going first into the air in a double-con- 
 trol airplane. He is alone when he 
 first leaves the earth, and so the train- 
 ing preparatory to that stage is very 
 carefully planned to teach a man the 
 habit of control in such a way that all 
 the essential movements will come 
 naturally when he first finds himself 
 face to face with the new problems the 
 air has set for him. In this prepara- 
 tory training a great deal of weeding 
 out is effected, for a man's aptitude 
 for the work shows up, and unless he is 
 by nature especially well fitted he is 
 transferred to the division which 
 teaches one to fly the larger and safer 
 machines. 
 
 142 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 First of all, the student is put on 
 what is called a roller. It is a low- 
 powered machine with very small 
 wings. It is strongly built to stand 
 the rough wear it gets, and no matter 
 how much one might try it could 
 not leave the ground. The ap- 
 paratus is jokingly and universally 
 known as a Penguin, both because of 
 its humorous resemblance to the 
 quaint arctic birds and its inability in 
 common with them to do any flying. 
 A student makes a few trips up and 
 down the field in a double-control 
 Penguin, and learns how to steer with 
 his feet. Then he gets into a single- 
 seated one and, while the rapidly 
 whirling propeller is pulling him along, 
 tries to keep the Penguin in a straight 
 line. The slightest mistake or de- 
 layed movement will send the machine 
 143 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 skidding off to the right or left, and 
 sometimes, if the motor is not stopped 
 in time, over on its side or back. 
 Something is always being broken on a 
 Penguin, and so a reserve flock is kept 
 at the side of the field in order that no 
 time may be lost. 
 
 After one is able to keep a fairly 
 straight line, he is put on a Penguin 
 that moves at a faster rate, and after 
 being able to handle it successfully 
 passes to a very speedy one, known as 
 the "rapid." Here one learns to keep 
 the tail of the machine at a proper 
 angle by means of the elevating lever, 
 and to make a perfectly straight line. 
 When this has been accomplished and 
 the monitor is thoroughly convinced 
 that the student is absolutely certain 
 of making no mistakes in guiding with 
 his feet, the young aviator is passed 
 144 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 on to the class which teaches him how 
 to leave the ground. As one passes 
 from one machine to another one 
 finds that the foot movements must 
 be made smaller and smaller. The in- 
 creased speed makes the machine 
 more and more responsive to the 
 rudder, and as a result the foot move- 
 ments become so gentle when one gets 
 into the air that they must come in- 
 stinctively. 
 
 FIRST FLIGHTS ALONE 
 
 The class where one will leave the 
 ground has now been reached, and an 
 outfit of leather clothes and casque 
 is given to the would-be pilot. The 
 machines used at this stage are low- 
 powered monoplanes of the Bleriot 
 type, which, though being capable of 
 leaving the ground, cannot rise more 
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FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 than a few feet. They do not run 
 when the wind is blowing or when 
 there are any movements of air from 
 the ground, for though a great deal of 
 balancing is done by correcting with 
 the rudder, the student knows nothing 
 of maintaining the lateral stability, 
 and if caught in the air by a bad 
 movement would be apt to sustain a 
 severe accident. He has now only to 
 learn how to take the machine off the 
 ground and hold it at a low line of 
 flight for a few moments. 
 
 For the first time one is strapped 
 into the seat of the machine, and this 
 continues to be the case from this 
 point on. The motor is started, and 
 one begins to roll swiftly along the 
 ground. The tail is brought to an 
 angle slightly above a straight line. 
 Then one sits tight and waits. Sud- 
 146 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 denly the motion seems softer, the 
 motor does not roar so loudly, and the 
 ground is slipping away. The class 
 standing at the end of the line looks 
 far below; the individuals are very 
 small, but though you imagine you are 
 going too high, you must not push 
 to go down more than the smallest 
 fraction, or the machine will dive and 
 smash. The small push has brought 
 you down with a bump from a seem- 
 ingly great height. In reality you 
 have been but three feet off the 
 ground. Little by little the student 
 becomes accustomed to leaving the 
 ground, for these short hop-skip-and- 
 jump flights, and has learned how to 
 steer in the air. 
 
 If he has no bad smash-ups he is 
 passed on to a class where he rises 
 higher, and is taught the rudiments of 
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FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 landing. If, after a few days, that act 
 is reasonably performed and the 
 young pilot does not land too hard, he 
 is passed to the class where he goes 
 about sixty feet high, maintains his 
 line of flight for five or six minutes and 
 learns to make a good landing from 
 that height. He must by this time be 
 able to keep his machine on the line 
 of flight without dipping and rising, 
 and the landings must be uniformly 
 good. The instructor takes a great 
 deal of time showing the student the 
 proper line of descent, for the landings 
 must be perfect before he can pass on. 
 Now comes the class where the pilot 
 rises three or four hundred feet high 
 and travels for more than two miles in 
 a straight line. Here he is taught how 
 to combat air movements and main- 
 tain lateral stability. All the flying 
 148 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 up to this point has been done in a 
 straight line, but now comes the class 
 where one is taught to turn. Ma- 
 chines in this division are almost as 
 high powered as a regular flying 
 machine, and can easily climb to two 
 thousand feet. The turn is at first 
 very wide, and then, as the student 
 becomes more confident, it is done 
 more quickly, and while the machine 
 leans at an angle that would frighten 
 one if the training in turning had not 
 been gradual. When the pilot can 
 make reasonably close right and left 
 turns, he is told to make figure eights. 
 After doing this well he is sent to the 
 real flying machines. 
 
 There is nothing in the way of a 
 
 radical step from the turns and figure 
 
 eights to the real flying machines. It 
 
 is a question of becoming at ease in 
 
 149 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 the better and faster airplanes tak~ 
 ing greater altitudes, making little 
 trips, perfecting landings, and master- 
 ing all the movements of correction 
 that one is forced to make. Finally 
 one is taught how to shut off and start 
 one's motor again in the air, and then 
 to go to a certain height, shut off the 
 motor, make a half-turn while drop- 
 ping and start the motor again. After 
 this, one climbs to about two thou- 
 sand feet and, shutting off the motor, 
 spirals down to within five hundred 
 feet of the ground. When that has 
 been practised sufficiently, a register- 
 ing altitude meter is strapped to the 
 pilot's back and he essays the official 
 spiral, in which one must spiral all 
 the way to earth with the motor off, 
 and come to a stop within a few yards 
 of a fixed point on the aviation 
 150 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 grounds. After this, the student 
 passes to the voyage machines, which 
 are of almost twice the power of the 
 maehine used for the short trips and 
 spirals. 
 
 TESTS FOR THE MILITARY BREVET 
 
 There are three voyages to make. 
 Two consist in going to designated 
 towns an hour or so distant and re- 
 turning. The third voyage is a tri- 
 angle. A landing is made at one 
 point and the other two points are 
 only necessary to cross. In addition, 
 there are two altitudes of about seven 
 thousand feet each that one has to 
 attain either while on the voyages or 
 afterward. 
 
 The young pilot has not, up to this 
 point, had any experience on trips, 
 151 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 and there is always a sense of adven- 
 ture in starting out over unknown 
 country with only a roller map to 
 guide one and the gauges and controls, 
 which need constant attention, to 
 distract one from the reading of the 
 chart. Then, too, it is the first time 
 that the student has flown free and 
 at a great height over the earth, and 
 his sense of exultation at navigating 
 at will the boundless sky causes him 
 to imagine he is a real pilot. True it 
 is that when the voyages and altitudes 
 are over, and his examinations in 
 aeronautical sciences passed, the stu- 
 dent becomes officially a pilote- 
 aviateur, and he can wear two little 
 gold-woven wings on his collar to 
 designate his capacity, and carry a 
 winged propeller emblem on his arm, 
 but he is not ready for the difficult 
 152 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 work of the front, and before he has 
 time to enjoy more than a few days' 
 rest he is sent to a school of perfec- 
 tionnement. There the real, serious 
 and thorough training begins. 
 
 Schools where the pilots are trained 
 on the modern machines — ecoles de 
 perfedionnement as they are called — 
 are usually an annex to the centres 
 where the soldiers are taught to fly, 
 though there are one or two camps 
 that are devoted exclusively to giving 
 advanced instruction to aviators who 
 are to fly the avions de chasse, or 
 fighting machines. When the aviator 
 enters one of these schools he is a 
 breveted pilot, and he is allowed a 
 little more freedom than he enjoyed 
 during the time he was learning to fly. 
 
 He now takes up the Morane mono- 
 plane. It is interesting to note that 
 153 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 the German Fokker is practically a 
 copy of this machine. After flying 
 for a while on a low-powered Morane 
 and having mastered the landing, the 
 pilot is put on a new, higher-powered 
 model of the same make. He has a 
 good many hours of flying, but his 
 trips are very short, for the whole 
 idea is to familiarize one with the 
 method of landing. The Bleriot has 
 a landing gear that is elastic in action, 
 and it is easy to bring to earth. The 
 Nieuport and other makes of small, 
 fast machines for which the pilot is 
 training have a solid wheel base, and 
 good landings are much more difficult 
 to make. The Morane pilot has the 
 same practices climbing to small alti- 
 tudes around eight thousand feet and 
 picking his landing from that height 
 with motor off. When he becomes 
 154 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 proficient in flying the single- and 
 double-plane types he leaves the school 
 for another, where shooting with ma- 
 chine guns is taught. 
 
 This course in shooting familiarizes 
 one with various makes of machine 
 guns used on airplanes, and one 
 learns to shoot at targets from the air. 
 After two or three weeks the pilot is 
 sent to another school of combat. 
 
 TRICK FLYING AND DOING STUNTS 
 
 These schools of combat are con*- 
 nected with the ecoles de perfectionne^- 
 ment with which the pilot has finished. 
 In the combat school he learns battle 
 tactics, how to fight singly and in 
 fleet formation, and how to extract 
 himself from a too dangerous position. 
 Trips are made in squadron formation 
 and sham battles are effected with 
 155 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 other escadrilles, as the smallest unit 
 of an aerial fleet is called. For the 
 first time the pilot is allowed to do 
 fancy flying. He is taught how to 
 loop the loop, slide on his wings or 
 tail, go into corkscrews and, more 
 important, to get out of them, and is 
 encouraged to try new stunts. 
 
 Finally the pilot is considered well 
 enough trained to be sent to the re- 
 serve, where he waits his call to the 
 front. At the reserve he flies to keep 
 his hand in, practises on any new 
 make of machine that happens to 
 come out or that he may be put on in 
 place of the Nieuport, and receives 
 information regarding old and new 
 makes of enemy airplanes. 
 
 At last the pilot receives his call 
 to the front, where he takes his place 
 in some established or newly formed 
 156 
 
FLYING FOR FRANCE 
 
 escadrille. He is given a new machine 
 from the nearest airplane reserve 
 centre, and he then begins his active 
 service in the war, which, if he sur- 
 vives the course, is the best school of 
 them all. 
 
 THE END 
 
 167