V The Magic Machine
As a tiny boy who had invented an enchanted bed for his sisters’ dolls, as a boy who, at Collège Stanislas, had rigged up a telephone to send messages to the last forms in the schoolroom, or manufactured miniature airplanes, as a recruit who, at Pau, had gladly accepted the work of cleaning, burnishing, and overhauling engines, Guynemer had always shown a passion for mechanics. Becoming a pilot, and later on a chaser, he exhibited in the study and perfecting of his airplanes the same enthusiasm and perseverance as in his flights. He was everlastingly calling for swifter or more powerful machines, and not only strove to communicate his own fervor to technicians, but went into minute details, suggested improvements, and whenever he had a chance visited the workshops and assisted at trials. Such trials are sometimes dangerous. One of his friends, Edouard de Layens, was killed in this kind of accident, and Guynemer was enraged that a gallant airman should perish otherwise than in battle. He was in reality an inventor, though this statement may cause surprise, and though it may not be wise at present to bear it out by facts.
Every part of his machine or of his gun was familiar to him. He had handled them all, taking them apart and putting them together again. There are practical improvements in modern airplanes which would not be there had it not been for him. And there is a “Guynemer visor.”
Confidence and authoritativeness had not come to him along with glory, for from the first he talked as one engrossed by his ideas, and it is because he was thus engrossed that he found persuasive words to bring others round to his views. But, naturally enough, he had not at first the prestige which he possessed when he became Captain Guynemer, had high rank in the Legion of Honor, and enjoyed world-wide fame. In his ’prentice days when, in workshops or in the presence of well-known builders, he would make confident statements, inveigh against errors, or demand modifications, people thought him flippant and saucy. Once somebody called him a raw lad. The answer came with crushing rapidity: “When you blunder, raw lads like myself pay for your mistakes.”
It must be admitted that, like most people brought up with wealth, he was apt to be unduly impatient. Delays or objections irritated him. He wanted to force his will upon Time, which never admits compulsion, and tried to over-ride obstacles. His peculiar fascination gradually won its way even in workshops, and his appearance there was greeted with acclamation, not only because the men were curious to see him, but because they were in sympathy with him and had put his ideas to a successful test. The workmen liked to see him sit in a half-finished machine, and explain in his short, decisive style what he wanted and what was sure to give superiority to French aviation. The men stopped work, came round, and listened eagerly. This, too, was a triumph for him. What he told them on such occasions he had probably whispered to himself many times before when, on rainy days, he would sit in his airplane under the hangar, and think and talk to himself, while strangers wondered if he was not crazy.
However, he had made friends with well-known engineers, especially Major Garnier of Puteaux and M. Béchereau of the Spad works. These two, instead of dismissing him as a snappish airman continually at variance with the builder, took his inventions seriously and strove to meet his requirements. When M. Béchereau, after long delays, was at last decorated for his eminent services, the Secretary of Aëronautics, M. Daniel Vincent, came to the works and was going to place the medal and red ribbon on the engineer’s breast, when he saw Guynemer standing near. He graciously handed the medal over to the airman, saying:
“Give M Béchereau his decoration; it is only fair you should.”
In September, 1916, Guynemer had tried at the front one of the first two Spads. On the 8th he wrote to M. Béchereau: “Well, the Spad has had her baptême du feu. The others were six: an Aviatik at 2800, an L.V.G. at 2900, and four Rumplers jostling one another with barely 25 meters in between at 3000 meters. When the four saw me coming (at 1800 on the speedometer) they no doubt took me for a meteorite and funked, and when they got over it and back to their shooting (fine popping, though) it was too late. My gun never jammed once.” Here he went into technicalities about his new machine-gun, but further on reverted to the Spad: “She loops wonderfully. Her spin is a bit lazy and irregular, but deliciously soft.” The letter concludes with many suggestions for minor improvements.
His correspondence with M. Béchereau was entirely devoted to a study of airplanes: he never wandered from the subject. Thus he collaborated with the engineer by constantly communicating to him the results of his experience. His machine-gun was the great difficulty. “Yesterday,” he wrote on October 21, 1916, “five Boches, three of them above our lines, came within ten meters of the muzzle of my gun, and impossible to shoot. Four days ago I had to let two others get away. Sickening.... The weather is wonderful. Perhaps the gun will work now.” In fact, a few days later he wrote exultingly, having discovered that the jamming was due to cold and having found an ingenious remedy.
November 4, 1916. Day before yesterday I bagged a Fokker one-seater biplane. It was two meters off, but as it tumbled into a group of our Nieuports, the controlling board would not give the victory to anybody. Yesterday got an Aviatik ten meters off; passenger shot dead by the first bullet; the plane, all in rags, went down in slow spirals and must have been knocked flat somewhere near Berlincourt. Heurtaux, who had seen it beginning to fall, brought one down himself ten minutes later, like a regular ball.
On November 18 next, after going into particulars concerning his engine which he wanted made stronger, he told M. Béchereau of his 21st and 22d victories:
As for the 21st, it was a one-seater I murdered as it twirled in elegant spirals down to its own landing ground. No. 22 was a 220 H.P., one of three above our lines. I came upon it unawares in a somersault. Passenger stood up, but fell down again in his seat before even setting his gun going. I put some two hundred or two hundred and fifty bullets into him twenty meters away from me. He had taken an invariable angle of 45° on the first volley. When I let him go, Adjutant Bucquet took him in hand—which would have helped if he hadn’t already been as full of holes as a strainer. He kept his angle of 45° till about 500 meters, when he adopted the vertical, and blazed up on crashing to the ground....
The Spad ravished him. It was the heyday of wonderful flights on the Somme. Yet he wanted something even better; but before pestering M. Béchereau he began with an inspiring narrative.
December 28, 1916. I can’t grumble; yet yesterday I missed my camera badly. I had a high-class round with an Albatros, a fine, clever fellow, between two and ten meters away from me. We only exchanged fifteen shots, and he snapped my right fore-cable—just a few threads still held—while I shot him in the small of his back. A fine spill! (No. 25).
Now, to speak of serious things, I must tell you that the Spad 150 H.P. is not much ahead of the Halberstadt. The latter is not faster, I admit, but it climbs so much more quickly that it amounts to the same thing. However, our latest model knocks them all out....
The letter adds only some recommendations as to the necessity for more speed and a better propeller.
But much more important improvements were already filling his mind. He had conceived plans for a magic airplane that would simply annihilate the enemy, and as he would doggedly carry on a fight, so he ruminated, begged, and urged until his idea was realized. But he was forced to practice exhausting perseverance, and on several occasions the lack of comprehension or sympathy which he encountered infuriated him. Yet he never gave up. It was not his way in a workshop, any more than in the air; and when, after some ten months’ struggling, trying, and frequent beginning over again, he saw himself at last in possession of the wonderful machine, he rejoiced as a warrior may after forging his own weapons.
In January, 1917, he wrote to M. Béchereau urging him to make all dispatch: “Spring will soon be here, and the Germans are working like niggers. If we go to sleep, it will be ‘couic’ for us.” Henceforth his correspondence, sometimes rather dictatorial, with the engineer was entirely devoted to the magic airplane,—its size, controls, wing-tips, tank, weight, etc. The margins of his letters were covered with drawings, and every detail was minutely discussed. In February he wrote to his father as if he had been a builder: “My machine surpasses all expectations, and will soon be at work. In Paris I go to bed early and rise ditto, spending all day at Spad’s. I have no other thought or occupation. It is a fixed idea, and if it goes on I shall become a perfect idiot. When peace is signed, let nobody dare to mention a weapon of any kind in my presence for six months.”
He thought himself within reach of his goal; but unexpected obstacles would come in his way, and it was not till July 5, 1917—the same day on which he received the rosette of the Legion of Honor from General Franchet d’Esperey at the Aisne Aviation Camp—that he could at last try the long-dreamed-of, long-hoped-for airplane. But in a fight against three D.F.W.’s, the splendid new machine got riddled with bullets, he had to land, and everything had to be begun over again. But Guynemer was not afraid of beginning over again, and in fact he was to give the airplane another chance in Flanders, and to see all his expectations fulfilled. The 49th, 50th, 51st and 52d victories of Guynemer were due to the magic airplane.
He managed to impose his will on matter, and on those who adapt it to the warlike conceptions of man, as he imposed it on the enemy. Then, spreading out his wings on high, he might well think himself invincible.