Chapter XVIII: Introduction: Bravery (12)

Immediately he began to feel something more than the mere bond of common danger drawing him to the members of the Escadrille. They were like brothers who had managed to grow up friends as well as kinsmen. They were a picked lot. There was William Thaw, of Pittsburgh, the pioneer of them all; Norman Prince, of Boston; Elliot Cowdin, of New York; Bert Hall, of Texas, and his chum James Bach—the first to fall into German hands. Bach had smashed into a tree in going to the assistance of a companion who had broken down in landing a spy in the German lines. Both he and his French companion had been captured. The last of the original six was Didier Masson. Soon Lufbery came, and Kiffin Rockwell of Asheville, N. C., and Victor Chapman of New York. Rockwell and Chapman had both been wounded in other branches of the service.

It was Rockwell who brought down the Escadrille’s first plane in his initial aerial combat. “He was flying alone, when, over Thann, he came upon a German on reconnaissance. He dived and the German turned toward his own lines, opening fire from a long distance. Rockwell kept straight after him. Then, closing to within thirty yards, he pressed on the release of his machine gun, and saw the enemy gunner fall backward and the pilot crumple up sideways in his seat. The plane flopped downward and crashed to earth just behind the German trenches. Swooping close to the ground Rockwell saw its débris burning away brightly. He had turned the trick with but four shots and only one German bullet had struck his Nieuport.”

The section was soon transferred to more dangerous territory. They were needed at Verdun. Fighting there came thick and fast. McConnell describes the activity of almost every one there. And every one was active. “Hall brought down a German observation craft. Thaw dropped a Fokker in the morning, and on the afternoon of the same day there was a big combat far behind the German trenches. Thaw was wounded in the arm, and an explosive bullet detonating on Rockwell’s wind-shield tore several gashes in his face. Despite the blood which was blinding him Rockwell managed to reach an aviation 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 insisted on flying again almost immediately.”

HOW CHAPMAN FOUGHT

“A week or so later Chapman was wounded. Considering the number of fights he had been in and the courage with which he attacked it was a 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 gasoline was giving out. His machine was a sieve of patched-up bullet holes. His nerve was almost superhuman and his devotion 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 machine with the other, and succeeded in landing on a nearby aviation field. His wound was dressed, his machine repaired, and he immediately took the air in pursuit of some more enemies. He would take no rest, and with bandaged head continued to fly and fight.”

© _Underwood & Underwood._

Distinguished Aviators of the Lafayette Escadrille.

From the left: Lufbery, Hinkle, Thenault, Bigelow, and Thaw.]

Balsley, a newcomer, managed to get wounded in the meantime. He had started out with a party of four that had met a German squadron. Balsley attacked the nearest German, “only to receive an explosive bullet in his thigh. Extra cartridge rollers, dislodged from their case, hit his arms. He was tumbling straight toward the trenches, but by an effort he regained control, righted the plane, and landed without disaster.

“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.”

General Neville decorating the Colors of the 6th Regiment with the Croix de Guerre at Coblenz, Germany.]

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

© _International News._

A Few Members of the Lafayette Escadrille]

Painting by Joseph Cummings Chase.

Corporal Walter E. Gaultney

He was selected by his commander as an example of his finest type of soldier, being “alert, ingenious, speedy,” and “heedless of personal danger.”]

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.”

© _Underwood & Underwood._

Captain James Norman Hall,

An American ace who was captured and made a prisoner of war by the Germans.]

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.

© _Underwood & Underwood._

Captain Guynemer, France’s immortal knight of the air.]

“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.

© _International Film Service._

A Duel Above the Clouds

A German plane falling in flames after a fight with a French plane.]

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

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.”

WORTHY CITATION

A Distinguished Service on the Battle Front for Which No Honors Provision Has Been Made

There is a kind of heroism that never gets tagged. Many would not think it heroism. But when you come to analyze heroism into its elemental parts you find that it is a spiritual energy with myriad forms of expression, though these forms always have the character of self-dedication to an altruistic service. By that definition Capt. E. W. Zinn takes place in the ranks of war heroes; but if you have not seen what _The Stars and Stripes_—the official newspaper of the A. E. F., published in France—has said about him you probably never have heard of Capt. Zinn and his self-appointed mission. It is well to know about him; so here is the story as it appeared in the official organ:

“It was Captain Zinn, a veteran of the French Foreign Legion and the Lafayette Escadrille, who, when eager young American aviators, fresh from their training-camps, reported for duty where the fighting was, assigned them to squadrons and each to a particular airplane. Thus it was that he came to know them all. He sent them to their stations. He knew what ships they would pilot in combat in the air, on bombing expeditions, on reconnaissances over the lines.

“And now he seeks for those he sent out and who never returned. He asked that he might do it. If you talk to Captain Zinn about it, you know why he made the request. You know how he feels about that which he is doing. There is no mawkish sentiment about Captain Zinn.

“But deep down within him Captain Zinn feels that he and no other should go out on the mission that now engages him. He has an interest that is intimate and personal.

© _International News._

Athletes Among French Airmen

Georges Carpentier, heavyweight boxer (the second figure from the left).]

“Already, Captain Zinn’s quest has led him over the greater part of northern France and into Belgium and Germany. Through the torn fields and woods in the Verdun, Château-Thierry, St. Mihiel, and Meuse sectors he has gone. He has tramped through the Argonne to Sedan and sought in the mountains that encircle Metz and hide the valley of the Moselle. Wherever there was fighting in which the American Air Service participated, there has gone, or will go, Zinn.

“Out of 150 missing American aviators, Captain Zinn already has definitely located and identified the spots where seventy fell and were buried. It has required many days of painstaking search and inquiry to attain this result.

“Captain Zinn has found that in a great many cases American fliers were buried either by the Germans or by civilians with no mark of identification left on them.

THE UNIDENTIFIED

“Many times he has come upon a grave with a rude cross on which was scrawled: ‘Unidentified American Aviator’ or ‘Two Unidentified American Aviators.’ He has had to obtain positive identification by careful examination of air-service records, questioning of peasants and civilians who saw American machines brought down and deductions based on the information he gathered. In some instances it has been necessary to open graves to make sure.

“To start out with, Captain Zinn has the records of squadrons, which show, for instance, on what date a missing pilot went out, what his mission was, over what country he naturally would go, and what kind of machine he had. Perhaps an attack by an overwhelming force or an accident or other circumstances forced the pilot off the course marked out for him. When he failed to return, only speculation as to where he fell could be indulged in. Unless the Germans notified his squadron of his death and the location of his grave, he became one of the men for whom Captain Zinn now seeks.

“There was the case of young Kenyon Roper, of the 91st Aero Squadron. By a process of elimination of facts gathered, it was fairly definitely established that Roper had come down in the night between the lines. Captain Zinn questions scores of peasant folk. But the search appeared to be hopeless. And then Captain Zinn heard that a small boy had a handkerchief that the dead flier had possessed. He found the boy and the handkerchief. And written in indelible ink on the little piece of linen was the name ‘Kenyon Roper.’ It was easy then to learn from the boy where the grave was and to be sure that Kenyon Roper lay sleeping there.”

A LAST AUTOGRAPH

“Then there was the case of Lester Harter, of the 11th Squadron. He went out and his machine caught fire. Harter jumped, just as Major Lufbery did and as other aviators have done, and fell many thousand feet to his death. When awe-stricken peasants ran from the fields to his crushed body they found in his hand a scrap of paper, and on it was written in hurried, jerky letters, ‘Lester Harter.’

“Fearing lost identity among the dead, Lester Harter must have written his name on that piece of paper before he jumped from his machine.

“Then there were Kinne and McElroy, of the 99th Aero Squadron. Only a piece of the tail of their machine was found. Their plane came down in flames between Cunel and Nantillois. Both jumped. One day their squadron commander joined in the search for their bodies. He hunted for hours in a thick wood. And he gave up. He was standing on the edge of a covered shell-hole, discouraged. Some impulse caused him to stir the earth in the shell-hole with his foot. And there he found the body of young McElroy. Near by they later found Kinne.

“There are many such stories that Captain Zinn can tell.

“From the information he gathers, Captain Zinn writes personal letters to the relatives of the dead aviators, telling in simple words how and where they went to their deaths. His letters usually give the first true account of the manner in which the fighters of the air met their ends. Sometimes those letters destroy cherished hopes that the aviators reported as ‘missing’ by the War Department might some time, somehow, turn up. But it is better so, says Captain Zinn.”

A CHALLENGE DUEL

The Guns of Both Armies Suspend Fire as Captains Ball and Immelman Fight in Air

It was often said in the early months of the war that the air combats revived the spirit of ancient chivalry. It was true for a time, but German treachery and ruthlessness soon changed the character of the upper warfare. When the raider and the dastard entered, gallantry necessarily gave way to grim and merciless antagonism.

There were many, though, on both sides who felt that no glory came to aviation from methods of frightfulness and reprisals for such frightfulness and to the last there were instances of clean, brave fights. One of the last duels on the knightly lines of conduct was that in which Captain Immelman, “The Falcon” of the German army, met Captain Ball, one of the most brilliant airmen of the British Royal Flying Corps. Immelman had a record of some fifty-one British airplanes downed. Captain Ball wanted to wipe out this record, and the daring German at the same time; so one day he flew over the German lines and dropped the following note:

“Captain Immelman:

I challenge you to a man-to-man fight to take place this afternoon at two o’clock. I will meet you over the German lines. Have your anti-aircraft guns withhold their fire, while we decide which is the better man. The British guns will be silent.

“Ball.”

Ball was by that time quite renowned. The Germans were aware of his official record. He had taken part in twenty-six combats, had destroyed eleven hostile machines, driven two out of control, and forced several others to land.

In these combats Captain Ball had gone up alone. On one occasion he had fought six hostile machines, twice he had fought five machines, and once four. When leading two other British aeroplanes he had attacked an enemy formation of eight. On each of these occasions he had brought down at least one enemy.

The Germans knew all that, but evidently Ball had picked an opponent worthy of him not only in skill but in courage and chivalry, for that day the answer to the note was dropped from a German machine:

“Captain Ball:

Your challenge is accepted. The guns will not interfere. I will meet you promptly at two.

“Immelman.”

CHEERS FROM OPPOSING TRENCHES

Far and wide along the trenches the word was spread. Firing stopped as though a flag of truce had been hoisted. Germans and English left covers and sought positions of vantage from which to watch the battle royal. At the appointed time both flyers rose promptly and made their way over “No Man’s Land.”

“Cheering arose,” relates an eye-witness.

“There were wild cheers for Ball. The Germans yelled just as vigorously for Immelman.

“The cheers from the trenches continued; the Germans’ increased in volume; ours changed into cries of alarm.”

Immelman was known to have a method of attack peculiar to himself. Instead of approaching his adversary from the side, he maneuvered to get squarely behind him. His study was to hold the nose of his machine almost on the tail of the aircraft he was pursuing. This gave him, Abbot points out, what used to be called in the Navy a raking position, for his shots would rake the whole body of the enemy airplane from tail to nose with a fair chance of hitting either the fuel tank, the engine, or the pilot. Failing to secure the position he coveted, this daring German would surrender it with apparent unconcern to the enemy, who usually fell into a trap. For just as the foeman’s machine came up to the tail of Immelman’s craft the latter would suddenly turn his nose straight to earth, drop like a stone, execute a backward loop and come up behind his surprised adversary, who thus found the tables suddenly turned....”

_Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._

1st Lieut. Philip Benson

Volunteered for night bombing and was particularly efficient in “chassi” work. He gave the Germans a taste of their own medicine—by dropping bombs on German towns and firing upon German supply trains.]

We have left the description of the duel with the English in alarm.

“Ball,” continues the eye-witness, “thousands of feet above us and only a speck in the sky, was doing the craziest things imaginable. He was below Immelman and was apparently making no effort to get above him and thus gaining the advantage of position. Rather he was swinging around, this way and that, attempting, it seemed, to postpone the inevitable.

“We saw the German’s machine dip over preparatory to starting the nose-dive.

“‘He’s gone now,’ sobbed a young soldier at my side, for he knew Immelman’s gun would start its raking fire once it was being driven straight down.

“Then in a fraction of a second the tables were turned. Before Immelman’s plane could get into firing position, Ball drove his machine into a loop, getting above his adversary and cutting loose with his gun and smashing Immelman by a hail of bullets as he swept by.

A WREATH FOR HIS VICTIM

“Immelman’s airplane burst into flames and dropped. Ball from above followed for a few hundred feet and then straightened out and raced for home. He settled down, rose again, hurried back, and released a huge wreath of flowers, almost directly over the spot where Immelman’s charred body was being lifted from a tangled mass of metal.

“Four days later Ball too was killed.”

Shortly before his death Ball wrote to a friend: “You will be pleased to hear that I have ten more Huns, and that my total is now 40—two in front of my French rival. Oh, I’m having a topping time! To-day or to-morrow I’m being presented to Sir Douglas Haig. Am very pleased. I just want to get a few more if I can.”

Ball’s wish was gratified. He got more than a few more and then—died as he had so often lived—fighting against great odds, for when last seen, on the evening of May 7, 1917, he was high above the enemy’s lines engaging three German machines at once.

What slender hope had been left for him was shattered by the War Office intimation that Ball had been killed. The brave young officer lost his life at a village 5½ miles east of La Bassée.

AN AMERICAN WONDER

The Brief but Greatly Achieving Career of Lieut. Frank Luke, Jr.—His Mysterious End

Innumerable are the instances, never to be reckoned, of the sudden meteoric flame of splendid daring—the sudden flash of the courageous soul in achievement, and the equally sudden extinction—that a thousand attested circumstances assure us characterized the terrible passing of the Great War. Happily for the world, always the better for new evidence that “divinity still lives in the hearts of men,” very many of those deeds of devoted heroism have been written into history for the inspiration of high-minded youth.

There was no experience more aptly described as meteoric than that of Frank Luke, Jr., who joined the 27th Aero Squadron near Château-Thierry late in July, 1918, did brilliant service in that connection, and before the end of September had utterly disappeared from the knowledge of men—one of the missing never definitely accounted for.

Frank was a Phoenix, Arizona, boy, barely twenty when he entered the service. After a period of training in Texas he was sent to France and had further training at Issoudun and was then sent to join the squadron near Château-Thierry. He was an enthusiast for flying, never getting enough of it. It was like second nature to him, and he adhered to no rules but his own, apparently indifferent to safety regulations when in the air, and so impatient of restrictions that he almost invariably got lost from his flight when it went out in formation. This gave rise among his fellows to the belief that he was afraid to follow, his getting lost being the deliberate result of “funk.” In course of time, however, they came to understand that Frank Luke held no acquaintance with fear. He simply had a method—method and initiative—and put his abilities to their most effective use. It was so good a method, so wisely reasoned and so admirably executed that in the space of seventeen days he shot down eighteen enemy balloons and planes.

He joined an Aero Squadron near Château-Thierry, late in July, 1918, and before the end of September he disappeared without being heard from again.]

Lieut. Col. Harold E. Hartney, Chief of Gunnery in the Air Service, at that time Commander of the Squadron to which Luke belonged, gave an account of the young aviator’s first exploit. August 6, 1918, the First Pursuit Group, which included the 27th Squadron, was operating on the Château-Thierry sector. The work was seriously interfered with by heavy barrages of pursuit planes maintained by the enemy to prevent Allied reconnaissance over the territory being evacuated. Col. Hartney says:

HIS FIRST EXPLOIT

“Lieut. Luke believed that if he could get across the opposing lines unobserved and far enough, he would be able to take the enemy formations unaware and swoop down upon the unsuspecting rear man, shoot him down and get away in safety. Accordingly one day he went off on his own at great altitude and crossed over into enemy territory. Far below him he spied an enemy formation of six machines dropping down to land on their own aerodrome. Perfectly aware of the odds against him, he swooped from 15,000 feet to 3,000 feet in one long dive, speeding at approximately 200 miles an hour, closed in on the rear man, and from a distance of no more than twenty yards sent him crashing down.

“The enemy formation had been taken completely by surprise. Before they could realize what had happened or engage Luke in combat the latter dropped to an elevation of less than 400 feet, and, zigzagging, made his way home, dodging anti-aircraft fire and machine-gun nests until he crossed the lines. By then he was completely out of gasoline and was compelled to make a forced landing near the front line. He had seen the enemy machine crash to earth, but was unable to give the location, and therefore he could not get from eye-witnesses on the ground the confirmation required to make the victory official.”

That feat indicated the man. It was very soon apparent that on the occasions when he was “lost” he was off on adventures of his own, planning actions and studying the means to execute them,—qualifying himself for what he conceived to be his most valuable and effective service. He was a veritable hunter.

The morning set for the opening of the St. Mihiel offensive, Sept. 12, 1918, the clouds hung low and the weather was such that ordinarily it would have been regarded as altogether unfit for flying. But Luke was not to be deterred by it. He was off at dawn in quest of enemy planes or balloons and after many vain explorations he finally discovered a German balloon at the extreme right of the American sector, but operated against a portion of the line allotted to other flyers. He returned to his aerodrome, and on reporting the balloon learned that it had been doing great damage by an enfilading fire, but that it had been attacked repeatedly without success both by American and French aviators. Luke offered to destroy the balloon and set off with Lieut. Fritz Wehner, his flying partner. The statement of eye-witnesses from the ground was that Luke dived suddenly out of the clouds taking the balloon wholly by surprise, but the balloon-gun which he was handling for the first time jammed when he attempted to discharge it. He rose into the clouds, got the gun free, immediately dived again and fired the heavy incendiary bullet that sent the balloon down in flames.

DOWNED THREE BALLOONS IN ONE DAY

Two days later he sent another balloon flaming down in somewhat more exciting circumstances. While he was speeding with an escort of other pilots, to attack three enemy balloons operating at an unusually low altitude, his escort became engaged with a formation of Fokkers. This would have made it seem to many pilots unwise to proceed with the attack; but Luke took advantage of the fight above to dive down and begin the assault on one of the balloons which, after several attempts, he succeeded in shooting down, though machine bullets and anti-aircraft shells and flaming onions were showered about him. As the balloon fell burning, Luke flew down to close range and turned loose his machine gun on the Huns on the ground with the desired result of many casualties. When he got back home he found that his machine was so full of bullet holes that a very few more taps would have weakened it enough to bring it down in collapse. But within five minutes he was in another machine and begging leave to go on a further quest.

At 5 o’clock that afternoon he sent down the second balloon in flames. Later he discovered attempts being made to send up another balloon north of Verdun; he hastened back to his squadron and asked to be ordered out at dusk to surprise and destroy the big bag.

He left with instructions not to descend on the balloon until 7.50 (that being for the benefit of his protective escort who would follow him down a few moments later). Precisely at 7.50 the watchers on the aerodrome saw the balloon flare in the darkness and fall to the ground.

And so the story runs; each new adventure a companion thriller to the others, every machine in which he flew being more or less riddled with bullets, and the miracle is that the daring youth passed so many hazards unscathed. Col. Hartney is authority for the statement that balloon strafing is in reality “the most dangerous exploit any man in any branch of the service can undertake.”

Frank Luke in seventeen days accounted for eighteen enemy balloons and planes. He was the first American flyer to win the Congressional Medal of Honor.

HIS END A MYSTERY

But there is an end to successful adventures as to other things, and the brilliant career of this Arizona lad came to abrupt conclusion, leaving the shadow of mystery as to just how the hero passed on. Here is the story of the last exploit as Col. Hartley tells it:

“His next official victory was on Sept. 28, when he shot down a German Hanoveraner airplane which was being escorted by a single-seater Fokker.

“That evening he did not return to his own aerodrome, but remained all night with the French squadron and went out the next day for the express purpose of destroying three balloons. The wonderful story of his exciting fight against hopeless odds and of his glorious death need not be dwelt upon. For his work on Sept. 29 he was awarded the Medal of Honor.