Canto III — At the Zenith
I On the 25th of May, 1917
The destiny of a Guynemer is to surpass himself. Part of his power, however, must lie in the perfection of his weapons. Why could he not forge them himself? In him, the mechanician and the gunsmith were impatient to serve the pilot and the fighter. Nothing in the science of aviation was unknown to him, and Guynemer in the factory was always the same Guynemer. He worked with the same nervous tension when he overhauled his machine-guns to avoid the too frequent and too troublesome jamming, or when he improved the arrangement of the instruments and tools in his airplane in accordance with his superior practical experience, as when he chased an enemy. He wanted to compel the obedience of matter, as he compelled the enemy to surrender.
In the Somme campaign he had forced down two airplanes in a single day, and then four in two days. In Lorraine he was to do even better. At that time, the beginning of 1917, the German aërial forces were very active in Lorraine, but the city of Nancy paid no attention to them. In 1914 Nancy had seen the invading army broken against the mountain of Saint Genevieve and the Grand Couronné; she had withstood a bombardment by gigantic shells and visits from air squadrons, and all without losing her good humor and her animation. She was one of those cities on the front who are accustomed to danger, and who find in it an inspiration for courage, for commerce, and even for pleasure which does not belong to cities behind the lines. Sometimes people who were dining on the Place Stanislas left their tables to watch some fine battle in the air, after which they resumed their seats and their appetites, merely replacing Rhenish by Moselle wines. Nevertheless, the frequency of raids, and the destruction caused by bombs, began to make the existence of both native and visiting Nancyites decidedly unpleasant. The Storks Escadrille, which arrived in February, very promptly punished these aërial brigands, by a police policy both rapid and severe. The enemy airplanes which flew over Nancy were vigorously chased, and less than a month later the framework of a good dozen of them, arranged in an orderly manner around the statue of Stanislas Leczinski, reassured the population and served as an interesting spectacle for the visitor who could no longer have the pleasure of admiring, behind Lamour’s gates, the two monumental fountains consecrated to Neptune and Amphitrite, by Guibal, and which were then covered by coarse sacks of earth.
Guynemer had contributed his share of these spolia opima. On March 16 he alone had forced down three Boches, and a fourth on the 17th. Three victories in one day constituted a novel exploit. Navarre had achieved a double victory on February 26, 1916, at Verdun, and Guynemer had the same success on the Somme; in this campaign Nungesser had burned a drachen and two airplanes in one morning; but three airplanes destroyed in one day had never been seen before.
On that same evening Guynemer wrote to his family, and I transcribe the letter just as it is, with neither heading nor final formula. The King of Spain, in Ruy Blas, talks of the weather before he tells of the six wolves he has killed; but the new Cid fought in all weathers and speaks of nothing but his chase:
9 o’clock.—Rose from the ground on hearing shell explosions. Forced down in flames a two-seated Albatros at 9.08.
9.20.—Attacked with Deuillin a group of three one-seated Albatros, famous on the Lorraine front. At 9.26 I brought one down almost intact: pilot wounded, Lieutenant von Hausen, nephew of the general. And Deullin brought down another in flames at the same time. About 9 o’clock Dorme and Auger had attacked and grilled a two-seated plane. These four Boches were in a quadrilateral, the sides of which measured five kilometers, four and a half kilometers, three kilometers and three kilometers. Those who were in the middle need not have bothered themselves, but they were completely distracted.
14.30.—Forced down a two-seated Albatros in flames.
Three Boches within our lines for my day’s work.... Ouf! G.G.
Guynemer, who had been promoted lieutenant in February and was to be made captain in March, treated this Lieutenant von Hausen humanely and courteously as soon as he had landed. In all his mentions up to that time Guynemer had been described as a “brilliant chasing pilot”; he was now mentioned as an “incomparable chasing pilot.”
Early in April the Storks left Lorraine and went to make their nests on a plateau on the left bank of the Aisne, back of Fismes. New events were in preparation. After the German retreat to the Hindenburg line, the French army in connection with the English army—which was to attack Vimy cliffs (April 9-10, 1917)—was about to undertake that vast offensive operation which, from Soissons to Auberive in Champagne, was to roll like an ocean wave over the slopes of the Chemin des Dames, the hills of Sapigneul and Brimont, and the Moronvillers mountain. Hearts were filled with hope, and the men were inspired by a sacred joy. Their sufferings and their wounds did not prevent the hearts of the soldiers in that spring of 1917 from flowering in sublime sacrifices for the cause of liberty.
As at the battle of the Somme, so at the battle of the Aisne our aërial escadrilles were in close touch with the general staff and the other arms of the service. Their success was no doubt dependent upon the quality of the airplanes, and the factory output, and limited by the enemy’s power in the air. But though they were unable to achieve the mastery of the air from the very first, they continued obstinately to increase their force, and little by little their successes increased. They had to oppose an enemy who had just accomplished an immense improvement in his aviation corps.
In September, 1916, the German staff, profiting by the lessons of the Somme campaign during which its aviation forces had been so terribly scourged, resolved upon an almost complete reorganization of its aëronautical service. Hindenburg’s program arranged for a rehandling of both the direction and the technical services. A decree dating from November, 1916, announced the separation from the other services of the Air Fight Forces (Luftstreitkräfte), which were to be placed under a staff officer, the Kommandeur der Luftstreitkräfte. This new Kommandeur, who was to superintend the building of the machines as well as the training of the pilots, was Lieutenant General von Hoeppner, with Lieutenant Colonel Tjomsen as an assistant. The squadrons, numbering more than 270, were divided into bombing, chasing, patrolling and field escadrilles, these last being intrusted with scouting, photographing, and artillery work, in constant touch with the infantry. Most of these novelties were servilely copied from French aviation. The Germans had borrowed the details of liaison service, as well as those for the regulation of artillery fire, from the French regulations. The commander of the aëronautical section of the Fifth German Army (Verdun) said in a report that “a conscientious aviator was the only reliable informant in action.” And his supreme chief, the Kronprinz, commenting upon this sentence, drew the following conclusions: “All this shows once more that through methodical use of Infantry Aviation, the command can be kept informed of developments through the whole battle. But the necessary condition for fruitful work in the field lies in a previous training carried on with the infantry, machine-guns, artillery, and liaison units. The task of the Infantry Flyer is apt to become more difficult as the weather grows worse, and ground more deeply plowed up, the enemy more pressing, or our own troops yielding ground. When all these unfavorable circumstances are united, the Infantry Aviator can only be effective if he has perfect training. So he must be in constant contact with the other services, and the Infantry must know him personally. At a pinch he ought to make himself understood by the troops, even without any of the usual signals.”
But these airplanes, while doing this special work, must be protected by patrolling escadrilles. The best protection is afforded by the chasing units, fitted to spread terror and death far afield, or to stop enemy escadrilles bound on a similar errand. Here again, copying the French services, Germany strengthened her chasing escadrilles during the whole winter of 1916-1917, and by the following spring she possessed no less than forty. Before the war she had given her attention almost exclusively to heavy airplanes. French types were plagiarized: as the Morane had been altered into the Fokker, the Nieuport became an Albatros. Their one-seated 160 H.P. Albatros, with a Benz or Mercédès fixed engine and two Maxim guns shooting through the propeller, was henceforth the typical chasing machine. However, the powerful two-engine Gothas (520 H.P.) and the Friedrichshafen and A.E.G. (450 H.P.) soon made their appearance in bombing escadrilles.
At the same time, the defensive attitude adopted at the beginning of the Somme campaign was repudiated. The order of the day became strong concentration, likely to secure, at least in one sector, decided superiority in the air, even if other sectors must be left destitute or battle shirked. The flying men were never to be over-worked, so as to be fresh in an emergency. The subordination of aviation to the other services was evidently an inspiration from the French regulation saying: “The aviation forces shall be always ready to attack, but in perfect subordination to the orders of the commanding officers.”
In spite of this readiness to attack, the enemy recommended prudence in scouting and patrolling work. The airman was not to engage in a fight without special orders. He seldom cruises by himself, and most often is one of five. To one Boelcke, fond of high altitudes and given to pouncing falconlike on his prey, like Guynemer, there are scores of Richtofens who, under careful protection from other airplanes, circle round and round trying to attract the enemy, and unexpectedly getting behind him by a spiral or a loop. It should be said here that the German controlling boards take the pilot’s word concerning the number of his victories instead of requiring, as the French do, the evidence of eye witnesses. The high figures generously allowed to a Richtofen or a Werner Voss are less creditable than the strictly controlled record of a Guynemer, a Nungesser, or a Dorme.
The enemy expected in April, 1917, a massive attack from the French air forces in the Aisne, and had taken measures to evade it. An order from the staff of the Seventh Army says that all flying units shall be given the alarm whenever a large number of French airplanes are sighted. The German machines must return to camp at once, refusing combat except on equal terms; and balloons must be lowered, or even pulled down to the ground. If, on the contrary, the German machines took the offensive, the order was that, at the hour determined upon, all available machines must rise together to a low altitude, and divide into two distinct fleets, the chasing units flying above the rest. These two fleets must then make for the point of attack, gaining height as they go, and must engage the enemy above the lines with the utmost energy, never giving up the pursuit until they reach the French lines, when the danger from anti-aircraft batteries becomes too great.
From this it is evident that the preference of German Aviation for taking the offensive was not sufficient to induce it to offer battle above the enemy lines, and the tendency of the staff was to group squadrons into overpowering masses. The French had preceded their opponents in the way of technical progress, but the Germans made up for the inferiority, as usual, by method and system. The French were unrivaled for technical improvements, and the training of their pilots. Their new machine, the Spad, was a first-rate instrument, superior in strength, speed, and ease of control to the best Albatros, and the Germans knew that this inferiority must be obviated. All modern battles are thus preceded by technical rivalry. The preparation in factories, week after week, and month after month, ultimately results in living machinery which the staff uses as it pleases.
Living machinery it is, but it is in appearance only that it seems to be independent of man. A battle is a collective work, to which each participant, from the General-in-chief to the road-mender behind the lines, brings his contribution. Colossal though the whole seems, perfect as the enormous machine seems to be, it would not work if there were not behind it a weak man made of poor flesh. A humble gunner, the anonymous defenders of a trench, a pilot who purges the air of the hostile presence, an observer who secures information in good time, some poor soldier who has no idea that his individual action was connected with the great drama, has occasionally brought about wonderful results—as a stone falling into a pool makes its presence felt to the remotest banks.
Amidst the fighters on the Aisne, Guynemer was at his post in the Storks Escadrille. “All right! (sic) they tumble down,” he wrote laconically to his family. There were indeed some five tumbling down: on May 25 he had surpassed all that had been done so far in aërial fights, bringing down four German machines in that one day. His notebook states the fact briefly:
8.30.—Downed a two-seater, which lost a wing as it fell and was smashed on the trees 1200 meters NNE. of Corbeny.
8.31.—Another two-seater downed, in flames, above Juvincourt.—With Captain Auger, forced another two-seater to dive down to 600 meters, one kilometer from our lines.
Downed a D.F.W.22 in flames above Courlandon.
Downed a two-seater in flames between Guignicourt and Condé-sur-Suippes. Dispersed with Captain Auger a squadron of six one-seaters.
Now, his Excellency, Lieutenant General von Hoeppner, Kommandeur der Luftstreitkräfte, being interviewed two days later by newspaper men he had summoned for the purpose, told them and through them told Germany and, if possible, the whole world, that the German airplanes and the German airmen were unrivaled. “As for the French aviators,” he went on to say remarkably apropos, “they only engage our men when they are sure of victory. When they have doubts about their own superiority, they prefer to desist rather than take any risks.” This solemn lie the newspaper men repeated at once in their issues of May 28.
A few months later one of these same reporters, reverting to the subject of French aviation, took Guynemer himself to task in the Badische Presse for August 8, 1917, as follows: “The airman you see flying so high is the famous Guynemer. He is the rival of the most daring German aviators, an as, as the French call their champions. He is undoubtedly to be reckoned with, for he handles his machine with absolute mastery, and he is an excellent shot. But he only accepts an air fight when every chance is on his side. He flies above the German lines at altitudes between 6000 and 7000 meters, quite out of range of our anti-aircraft artillery. He cannot make any observations, for from that height he sees nothing clearly, not even troops on the march. He is exclusively a chasing flyer bent on destroying our own machines. He has been often successful, though he cannot be compared to our own Richtofen. He is very prudent; always flying, as I said above, at an altitude of at least 6000 meters, he waits till an airplane rises from the German lines or appears on its way home. Then he pounces upon it as a falcon might, and opens fire with his machine-gun. When he only wounds the pilot, or if our airman seems to show fight, Guynemer flies back to his own lines at the incredible speed of 250 kilometers an hour, which his very powerful machine makes possible. He never accepts a fair fight. Every man chases as he can.”
“Every man chases as he can.” Quite so. To revert to that 25th of May, the “very prudent” Guynemer, on his morning patrol, met three German airplanes flying towards the French lines. They were two-seaters, less nimble, no doubt, than one-seaters, but provided with so much more dangerous arms. Naturally he could not think of attacking them, “not feeling sure of victory,” and “always avoiding a risky contest!” Yet he pounced upon his three opponents, who promptly turned back. However, he overtook one, began making evolutions around him, succeeded in getting slightly below him, fired, and with his first volley succeeded in bringing him down in flames north of Corbeny (northeast of Craonne).
The danger for a one-seater is to be surprised from behind. Just as Guynemer veered round, he saw another machine flying after him. He again fired upwards, and the airplane fell in flames, like the first, only a few seconds having elapsed between the two fights. Guynemer then returned to camp.
But he was excited by these two fights; his nerves were strained and his will was tense. He soon started again. Towards noon a German machine appeared above the camp itself. How had it been able to get there? This is what the airmen down below were asking themselves. It was useless to chase it, for it would take any of them longer to rise than the German to escape. So they had to content themselves with looking up, some of them searching the sky with binoculars. Everybody was back except Guynemer, when somebody suddenly cried:
“Here comes Guynemer!”
“Then the Boche is done for.”
Guynemer, in fact, was coming down upon his prey like lightning, and the instant he was behind and slightly beneath him, he fired. Only one shot from the machine-gun was heard, but the enemy airplane was already spinning down, its engine going full speed, and was dashed into the earth at Courlandon near Fismes. The pilot had been shot through the head.
In the afternoon the very prudent Guynemer started for the third time, and towards seven o’clock, above the Guignicourt market gardens (that is to say, in the enemy lines), he brought down another machine in flames.
“Very prudent” is the last epithet one could have expected to see in connection with the name of Guynemer. For he rarely came home without bullet-holes in his wings or even in his clothes. The Boche, being the Boche, had shown his usual respect for truth and generosity towards an adversary.
Guynemer, when returning to camp after a victory, generally announced his success by making his engine work to some tune. This time the cadence was the tune of the Lampions. All the neighboring airplane sheds understood, also the cantonments, parks, depots, dugouts, field hospitals and railway stations; in a word, all the communities scattered behind the lines of an army. This time the motor was singing so insistently that everybody, with faces upturned, concluded that their Guynemer had been “getting them.”
In fact, the news was already spreading like wildfire, as news has the mysterious capacity for doing. No, it was not simply one airplane he had set ablaze; it was two, one above Corbeny, the other above Juvincourt. And people had hardly realized the wonderful fact before the third machine was seen falling in flames near Fismes. It was seen by hundreds of men who thought it was about to fall upon them, and ran for shelter. Meanwhile, Guynemer’s engine was singing.
And for the fourth time it was heard again at twilight. Could it be possible? Had Guynemer really succeeded four times? Four machines brought down in one day by one pilot was what no infantryman, gunner, pioneer, territorial, Anamite or Senegalese had ever seen. And from the stations, field hospitals, dugouts, depots, parks and cantonments, while the setting sun lingered in the sky on this May evening, whoever handled a shovel, a pickaxe or a rifle, whoever laid down rails, unloaded trucks, piled up cases, or broke stones on the road, whoever dressed wounds, gave medicine or carried dead men, whoever worked, rested, ate or drank—whoever was alive, in a word—stepped out, ran, jostled along, arrived at the camp, got helterskelter over the fences, broke into the sheds, searched the airplanes, and called to the mechanicians in their wild desire to see Guynemer. There they were, a whole town of them, knocking at every door and peeping into every tent.
Somebody said: “Guynemer is asleep.”
Whereupon, without a word of protest, without a sound, the crowd streamed out and scattered in the darkening fields, threading its way back to the quiet dells behind the lines.
So ended the day of the greatest aërial victory.
Notes
22 The D.F.W. (Deutsche Flugzeug Werke) is a scouting machine provided with two machine-guns, one shooting through the propeller, the other mounted on a turret aft. It is thirty-nine feet across the wings, and twenty-four in length. One Benz six-cylinder engine of 200/225 H.P. Its speed at an altitude of 3000 meters supposed to be 150 kilometers an hour. One of these machines has been on view at the Invalides since July, 1917.