Part 25

“Soldiers carried him to shelter, and later he was taken to a field hospital, where he lingered for days between life and death. Ten fragments of the explosive bullet were removed from his stomach. He bore up bravely and became the favorite of the wounded officers in whose ward he lay. When we flew over to see him they would say: ‘Il est un brave petit gars, l’aviateur américain.’ [He’s a brave little fellow, the American aviator.] On a shelf by his bed, done up in a handkerchief, he kept the pieces of bullet taken out of him, and under them some sheets of paper on which he was trying to write to his mother, back in El Paso.

“Balsley was awarded the Médaille Militaire and the Croix de Guerre, but the honors scared him. He had seen them decorate officers in the ward before they died.

THE FIRST OF THEM TO DIE

“Then came Chapman’s last fight. Before leaving, he had put two bags of oranges in his machine to take to Balsley, who liked to suck them to relieve his terrible thirst, after the day’s flying was over. There was an 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.” The wings of his plane suddenly buckled and the machine dropped like a stone.

Chapman had only started the list of deaths. He was to be followed by perhaps the most beloved of all the section. Kiffin Rockwell had started off with Lufbery one morning. Just before he reached the lines he “spied a German machine under him flying at 11,000 feet.” Rockwell had fought more combats, than the rest of the Escadrille put together, says McConnell. “He had shot down many German machines that had fallen in their lines, but this was the first time he had had an opportunity of bringing down a Boche in our territory.”

Rockwell approached so close to the enemy plane that it seemed there would be a collision. The German aeroplane carried two machine guns. When Rockwell started his dive the enemy opened a rapid fire. “Rockwell plunged through the stream of lead and only when very close to his enemy did he begin shooting. For a moment it looked as if the German was falling, but then the French machine turned rapidly nose down, the wings of one side broke off and fluttered in the wake of the airplane, which hurtled earthward in a rapid drop. It crashed into the ground in a small field—a field of flowers—a few hundred yards back of the trenches. It was not more than two and a half miles from the spot where Rockwell, in the month of May, brought down his first enemy machine. The Germans immediately opened up on the wreck with artillery fire. In spite of the bursting shrapnel, gunners from a nearby battery rushed out and recovered poor Rockwell’s broken body.”

“Lufbery engaged a German craft but before he could get to close range two Fokkers swooped down from behind and filled his aeroplane full of holes. Exhausting his ammunition, he landed at Fontaine, an aviation field near the lines. There he learned of Rockwell’s death and was told that two other French machines had been brought down within the hour. He ordered his gasoline tank filled, procured a full band of cartridges and soared up into the air to avenge his comrade. He sped up and down the lines, and made a wide détour to Habsheim, where the Germans have an aviation field, but all to no avail. Not a Boche was in the air.”

No greater blow could have befallen the Escadrille than Rockwell’s death. “The bravest and best of us all is no more,” said the French Captain. “Kiffin was the soul of the Escadrille,” writes Jim McConnell. “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.”

“Rockwell had been given the Médaille Militaire and the Croix de Guerre, on the ribbon of which he wore four palms, representing the four magnificent citations he had received in the order of the army.”

Kiffin 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 nearby camps flew over to render homage to Rockwell’s remains. Every Frenchman in the aviation at Luxeuil marched behind the bier. The British pilots, followed by a detachment of five hundred of their men, were in line, and a battalion of French troops brought up the rear. As the slow moving procession of blue and khaki-clad men passed from the church to the graveyard, airplanes circled at a feeble height above and showered down myriads of flowers.”

The fates seemed to be envious of the American section in France. Rockwell had fallen September 23. On the 15th of October Norman Prince died. “It was hard to realize that poor old Norman had gone, but I do not think he minded going,” writes McConnell. “He wanted to do his part before being killed, and he had more than done it.”

JIM’S TURN CAME

Thus did Jim McConnell—honest, tender, courageous Jim, Irish Jim—glory in the glory of his friends and mourn their loss. His good humor and native wit remained to the last, but the deaths of those so dear to him were deepening his character. There are touches of tense seriousness in the book—a tragic note at times. It was hard to see those brave fellows go one by one, and so steadily. And you never could tell which of your remaining friends was to go next. Then of a sudden came Jim’s turn. There are a few letters which describe Jim’s death as tenderly as Jim wrote about Chapman and Rockwell and Prince. The affection, loyalty, and undying gallantry of the group is quite evident. In one of these letters, dated March 21, 1917, to Paul Rockwell, Edmond Genet tells of the last flight:

“On Monday morning, Mac, Parsons, and myself went out at nine o’clock on the third patrol of the Escadrille. We had orders to protect observation machines along the new lines around the region of Ham. Mac was leader, I came second and Parsons followed me. Before we had gone very far Parsons was forced to go back on account of motor trouble.

“Mac and I kept on, and up to ten o’clock were circling around the region of Ham, watching out for the heavier machines doing reconnoitering work below us. We went higher than a thousand meters. About ten, for some reason or other of his own, Mac suddenly headed into the German lines toward Saint Quentin—perhaps for observation purposes—and I naturally followed close to his rear and above him. At any rate we had gotten north of Ham and quite inside the hostile lines, when I saw two Boche machines crossing toward us from the region of Saint Quentin at an altitude higher than ours—we were then about 1,600 meters up. I supposed Mac saw them too. One Boche was far ahead of the other, and was in position to dive at any moment on Mac. I saw the direction Mac was taking, and pulled back climbing up, in order to gain an advantageous height over the nearest Boche. It was cloudy and misty and I had to keep my eyes on him all the time, so naturally I lost track of Mac.”

The letter goes on to tell how the writer got back—to find Mac had not returned.

“The one hope that we have is that some news of Mac will be brought by civilians who might have witnessed his flight over the lines north of Ham. We likewise hope that Mac was merely forced to land inside the enemy lines on account of a badly damaged machine, or a bad wound, and is well, but a prisoner. I wish, Paul, that I had been able to help Mac during his combat. The mists were thick, and consequently seeing any distance was difficult. I would have gone out that afternoon to look for him, but my machine was so damaged it took until yesterday afternoon to be repaired. Lieutenant de Laage and Lufbery did go out with their Spads, around the region north of Ham, toward Saint Quentin, but saw nothing of a Nieuport grounded or anything else to give news of what had occurred.”

Four days later Genet wrote:

“The evening before last definite news was brought to us that a badly smashed Nieuport had been found by French troops. Beside it was the body of a sergeant-pilot which had been there at least three days and had been stripped of all identification papers, flying clothes and even the boots. They got the number of the machine, which proved without further question that it was poor Mac.

“Mac has been buried right there beside the road, and we will see that the grave is decently marked with a cross. The Captain brought back a square piece of canvas cut from one of the wings, and we are going to get a good picture we have of Mac enlarged and placed on this with a frame. I suppose that Thaw or Johnson will attend to his belongings which he had asked to be sent to you. In the letter which he had left in case of his death he concludes with the following words: ‘Good luck to the rest of you. Vive la France!’

“All honor to him, Paul. The world, as well as France, will look up to him just as it is looking up to your fine brother and the rest who have given their lives so freely and gladly for this big cause.

“The Captain has already put in a proposal for a citation for Mac, and also one for me. Mac surely deserved it, and lots more, too.”

McConnell was awarded the Croix de Guerre with palm.

A “LEGENDARY HERO”

The Place in Fame to Which the French Assign Their Miracle “Ace”

In that charming French style of which he is a known master, Henry Bordeaux tells the story of a frail little boy, delicate as a girl and having the general appearance of one, with his long curls, his too pretty face, his pale complexion, his gentle manners. Because he was so frail of body and so uncertain of health he was closely looked after by the women of the household, which means, among other things, that he was quite thoroughly spoiled. The child looked like a little princess, as though adapted more to a future of effeminate surroundings, not like a boy in whose infant breast waited a great spirit.

One day, when the child was about six years old, it suddenly occurred to the father that they were taking a wrong course with the boy. After reflection he took the boy on his knee and said to him:

“I’ve a great mind to take you with me where I am going.”

“Where are you going, papa?”

“Where I am going only men go.”

“I wish to go with you.”

The father hesitated, but finally said:

“After all, it is better to be too soon than too late. Get your hat. I’ll take you.”

He took him to the hair-cutter’s.

“I’m going to have my hair cut,” said the father. “How about yours?”

“I wish to do as the men do,” the boy answered. And the beautiful curls were shorn.

There were tears when the mother folded her transformed darling to her breast, but the child stiffening proudly declared: “Je suis un homme!”

Bordeaux says here: “Il sera un homme, mais il restera longtemps un gamin aussi. Longtemps? Presque jusqu’à la fin—à ses heurs, jusqu’à la fin.”

It was Georges Guynemer, who not so very long after flamed out a boy hero of France, doing deeds that struck the world with wonderment, and while the world marveled vanished mysteriously, leaving no trace behind.

Small and feminine, educated chiefly by governesses and his sisters, later a day student at the Lyceum, afterwards for a time at Stanislas, he was not the stuff for a soldier, yet soldier he wished to be when France set out to repel the German horde. He was twenty years old then. He hastened to his father.

“I’m going to enlist.”

“You are in luck.”

“Ah! you authorize me!”

“I envy you.”

“Then as an old soldier you can help me. You can speak for me.”

“I will.”

But it was to no avail. He was not able to carry the equipment and endure the fatigue of a private, and the effects of a childhood’s illness made it impossible for him to serve in the cavalry. He was rejected—laughed at by some, be it said.

He made a second attempt to enlist with no better result. Says M. Bordeaux: “He returned with his father to Biaritz, pale, silent, mournful, in such a state of rage and bitterness that his face was distorted.” He wrote to his old preceptor at Stanislas: “If I have to lie at the bottom of an auto-camion I wish to go to the front; and I will go. I mean to serve, it doesn’t matter where nor how, it doesn’t matter in what branch, but go to the front, serve I will.”

That sort of spirit is not to be denied. Fate and circumstances make way for it.

He met the pilot of an airplane one day and in conversation with him asked: “How can one get into the air service?”

“See the Captain; you’ll find him at Pau.”

A SMALL BEGINNING

His parents, or rather his father, consenting, he was on his way to Pau next morning. He rushed to Captain Bernard-Thierry with his plea. The Captain objected. Georges pleaded, passionately, tearfully, begging even as a child for a desired object. The troubled captain made the only practicable concession—he would receive the youth as a mechanician student. The heavens opened. “That’s the thing! That’s the thing! I know automobiles.” And so it began, with hard work to the like of which he had never been accustomed, his endurance of which was problematical. But January 26, 1915, he was named as pilot student; March 10, 1915, he made his veritable first flight. In a letter to his father about this time he said: “I believe I am not making a reputation for prudence, but I hope this will come. I shall know soon.”

That reputation never came, on the contrary it was said of him: “Returning almost daily from his chases with his aeroplane and often his clothing riddled with bullets, hurling himself with absolute abandon against three, ten, fifteen or twenty enemy machines in formation, among which he usually succeeded in bringing down one or more; exulting in the number of wounds which his faithful planes brought home as if to bear witness to his charmed life, and encircling them with red paint to make them more conspicuous; on two occasions shooting down an enemy plane with a single bullet; on May 25, 1917, bringing down four enemy aeroplanes in one day—these extraordinary exploits coupled with the very extraordinary energy of this slim boy soon placed him upon a pedestal which raised him high above his comrades; and by reason of his many miraculous escapes from certain death, eventually surrounded him with a halo of fame unknown to the French populace since the day of Jeanne d’Arc.

“Conqueror in fifty-three aerial combats wherein the result was officially established by the verification of three or more eye-witnesses, Guynemer brought down as many more German aeroplanes quite as effectively if less officially. His comrades in the escadrille knew this and respected their chief accordingly.

“Possessed of every decoration that a grateful nation could officially bestow upon him, conscious of a position in the public esteem that, tinctured as it was with the legendary, illumined him with more glory and worship than was accorded even to a Joffre or a Foch, Georges Guynemer fulfilled the expectations of his fellow-countrymen, when on September 11, 1917, he disappeared from the eyes of the world while in the full exercise of his duty. The heavens swallowed him up, and to this day no reliable clue to his disappearance has been discovered. Small wonder then that the people of France in contemplation of this last exploit of their adored hero place his memory with one acclaim alongside the niche so long occupied by the heroic Jeanne d’Arc!”

MIRACULOUS ESCAPES

His fellows and the soldiers in general were devoted to him; and that their devotion was something profounder than lip-service one incident of his career, one of his narrow escapes, will attest. It was in September, 1916. He was far within the enemy lines combating seven machines when a shot penetrated the radiator of his engine and the motor stopped. He was then quite fifteen miles distant from his own lines and about twelve thousand feet in the air. There was nothing for it but to point his machine for home, with the least practicable slant, and trust to the glide sustaining him until he could reach home lines. The turn made, he gave all his attention to his pursuers, who, not suspecting his plight and having a lively respect for the generalship of the redoubtable “Ace,” seemed to think discretion the better part of valor, did not continue the chase but dived for their own quarters. The machine on its glide fell lower and lower as he approached the trenches and finally the German gunners recognized the craft as that of the dreaded young champion and the guns were leveled at him, and he was gliding through a veritable shower of bursting shrapnel. His machine was riddled and it was a grave question if it could reach the French lines. It crossed the German trenches a scant fifty feet above the heads of the enemy who stood up in the trenches in their eagerness to send a shot into the tattered plane that would bring it down.

The French soldiers, who had watched the coming of the Cigogne through the rain of bullets and realized the helplessness of their idol, were recklessly and excitedly hanging over their trenches raging that they were powerless to help. Almost simultaneously with Guynemer’s consciousness of his inability to reach his lines the poilus perceived the fact and with yells they leaped to the rescue, scrambling from their trenches in a wild charge against the Huns.

The aeroplane fell into a shell hole some forty yards short of the French lines and was smashed to pieces, but the charmed pilot was thrown free of the wreck and was absolutely without injury when his rescuing comrades picked him up and surrounding him carried him hurriedly to their protecting trenches. He is credited with saying, when they marveled at his escape, “I was born on Christmas Eve. They cannot hurt me.”

M. Bordeaux, who is a loving biographer, devotes over three hundred pages to the events and deeds of the amazing hero, and there is not with it all an event recorded that is not worthy the record. Among them is an instance of the irony of fate that occasionally turns intended service into serious hurt. It was in September, 1916, in the Somme battle. Guynemer had shot down two Boche machines and was after a third at an altitude of 10,000 feet when a foolishly fired French shell meant for the enemy machine caught him in full flight, breaking a wing and taking off part of his radiator. Of course the machine began falling to the earth. By energetic efforts with the controls and the swing of his body Guynemer succeeded in checking the fall and establishing a glide, but he could not lessen the velocity with which he was approaching the ground. The catastrophe was witnessed by the troops and when the Spad crashed head first they ran to take up the remains of the doomed pilot. But when they reached the spot there stood Guynemer unharmed regarding mournfully the wreck of his machine. An idea of the force of the impact may be had from the fact that the nose of the machine was driven so deep that it could not be budged.

The jubilant soldiers lifted Guynemer to their shoulders and bore him to the General’s quarters. The General embraced him and ordered the troops to form for review. Then the adored aviator was led by the General down the lines. One can imagine the enthusiasm, the emotions of the French.

WON WITHOUT ARMS

Guynemer kept a diary of all his doings day by day, and his biographer makes free use of it. His method of entry was laconic. He never stressed a point. Take as an example of the style and as a character sketch of the man his entry of January 26, 1917, when he did that incredible thing, brought down and captured a two-seater enemy machine when he himself was without offensive arms. He went up in a borrowed machine of which he was sufficiently contemptuous. The day before he had not gone up. His only diary entry for that day was “Je regarde voler les autres et ronge.”

The translation of his entry for the 26th is as follows:

“Bucquet lends me his taxi. Gun sights nothing, simply an emptiness. What a layout! Line of aim worse than pitiful.

“12 o’clock saw a Boche at 12,000 feet. Up went the lift. Arrived in the sun. In tacking about was caught in nasty tail spin. Descending, I see the Boche 400 yards behind, firing at me. Recovering I fire ten shots. Gun jams completely. But the Boche seemed to feel some emotion and dived away full south with his motor wide open. Let’s follow him!

“But I do not get too close to him, for fear he will see that I can’t shoot. Altimeter drops to 5,000 feet above Estrées-Saint-Denis. I maneuver my Boche as nicely as I can, and suddenly he redresses and sets off towards Rheims.

“I essay a bluff. I mount to 2,000 feet over him and drop on to him like a stone. Made an impression on him but was beginning to believe it did not take when he suddenly began to descend. I put myself 10 yards behind him; but every time I showed my nose around the edge of his tail the gunner took aim at me.

“We take the road towards Compiègne—3,000 feet—2,000 feet again I show my nose, and this time the gunner stands up, takes his hands from his machine gun and motions to me that he surrenders. _All Right!_

“I see underneath his machine the four bombs in their resting place. 1,500 feet. The Boche slows down his windmill. 600 feet. 300 feet. I swerve over him while he lands. I make a round or two at 300 feet and see that I am over an airdrome. But not having any gun or cartridges I cannot prevent them from setting fire to their taxi, a 200 H. P. Albatross, magnificent.

“When I see they are surrounded I come down and show the two Boches my disabled machine gun. Some headpiece!

“They had fired 200 shots at me. My ten bullets that I fired before I jammed had struck their altimeter and the revolution counter, hence their emotion! The pilot told me that my aeroplane I shot down day before yesterday at Goyancourt had gunner killed and pilot wounded in the knee. Hope this unique confirmation will be accepted by authorities. It will make my 30th.”

THE FLIGHT INTO THE UNKNOWN