The Flight Into the Unknown
But after he had brought down his fiftieth, for some unaccountable reason a change came over Guynemer. He became nervous and irritable. He lost his old vivacity, nerve, dash, and with them his instincts of the air seemed to desert him. Friends urged him to rest, to give over fighting and direct his genius to teaching others to fly. But he answered: “They would say I would fight no more because France has no more decorations to give me”; and he had a jealous pride to work harder than ever, do even more valiant deeds. And he did work harder. He did take greater risks. He engaged in combats but was unable to win. Luck had turned and his chums, his comrades, knew him to be a sick man in no condition to fly. They ’phoned to their commanding officer in Paris begging him to come and take Guynemer away for a recuperative rest. Captain Brocard responded promptly. He arrived at the Dunkerque aerodrome at nine o’clock the next morning. But Guynemer had ordered his machine and taken flight half an hour before, accompanied, in another machine, by Lieut. Bozon-Verduras.
It was Sept. 11, 1918. It was Guynemer’s last flight. All that is known of it Bozon-Verduras tells. Somewhat northeast of Ypres, at an altitude of 12,000 feet, a two-seater enemy machine was discovered. Directing Lieut. Bozon-Verduras to take a position above to guard against rescue, Guynemer rushed to the attack. While on guard the Lieutenant detected a distant enemy formation and drove forward to intercept its course. But without seeing him the formation changed its course and the Lieutenant returned to position. He did not, however, see Guynemer’s machine, nor did several hours of extended search lead to any trace above or below of the vanished aviator. His fuel exhausted, the Lieutenant returned to the aerodrome hoping Guynemer might be there. But he was not. All day they waited for his return. He never returned. “Undoubtedly,” said some one of the men, “he has been taken prisoner.”
Says M. Bordeaux:
“Guynemer a prisoner! He had said one day, laughingly, ‘The Boche will never have me alive’—but his laugh was terrible. No one believed Guynemer to be a prisoner. What then?”
Nothing more is known. The Germans made contradictory and unreliable reports about his death. The simple minded among the French believe their hero an immortal, taken up into his native heaven. The lofty minded French name him “Héros légendaire, tombé en plein ciel de gloire, après trois ans de lutte ardente,” and this they have inscribed on a marble plaque in the crypt of the Panthéon, that temple which the French hold sacred as the “Sepulcher of Great Men.”