On the 3d and 5th of February, 1916, new combats took place, always in the region of Roy and Chaulnes. On February 3 he met three enemies within forty minutes, on the same round: "Attacked at 11.10 an L.V.G., which replied with its machine-gun. Fired 47 shots at 100 meters; the enemy airplane dived swiftly down to its own lines, smoking. Lost to view at 500 meters from the ground. At 11.40 attacked an L.V.G. (with Parabellum) from behind, at 20 meters; it tacked and dived spirally, pursued neck to neck at 1300 meters. It fell three kilometers from its lines. I rose again and lost sight of it. (This airplane had wings of the usual yellow color, its body was blue like the N., and its outlines seemed similar to that of the monococques.) At 11.50 attacked an L.V.G., which immediately dived into the clouds and disappeared. Landed at Amiens." He cleared the sky of every Boche: one fallen and two put to flight is not a bad record. He always attacked. With his accurate eyes he tracked out the enemy in the mystery of space, and placing himself higher, tried to surprise him. On the 5th, near Frise, he closed the road to another L.V.G. which was returning to its lines, attacked it from above in front, tacked over it, reached its rear, and overwhelmed it like a thunder-clap. The Boche fell in flames between Assevillers and Herbécourt. One more victory, and this one had the honor of appearing in the official communiqué. Sometimes he got back with his machine and his clothes riddled with bullet-holes. He carried fire and massacre up into the sky. And all this was nothing as yet but the exercise of a knight-errant in his infancy. This became evident later when he had acquired complete mastery of his work.
February, 1916—the month in which began the longest, the most stubborn and cruel, and perhaps the most significant battle of the Great War. In this month began Verdun, and the menacing German advance on the right of the Meuse (February 21-26), to the wood of Haumont, the wood of the Caures and Herbebois, then to Samogneux, the wood of the Fosses, the Le Chaume wood and Ornes, and finally, on February 25, the attack on Louvemont and Douaumont. The escadrilles, little by little, headed in the same direction, and Guynemer was about to leave the Sixth Army. He would dart no more above the paternal mansion, announcing his victories by his caracoles in the air; nor watch over his own household during his patrol of the region beyond Compiègne, over Noyon, Chauny, Coucy, and Tracy-le-Val. The cord which still linked him with his infancy and youth was now to be strained, and on March 11 the Storks Escadrille received orders to depart next day, and to fly to the Verdun region.
The development of the German fighting airplanes had constantly progressed during 1915. Now, early in 1916, they appeared at Verdun, more homogeneous and better trained, and in possession of a series of new machines: small, one-seated biplanes (Albatros, Halberstadt, new Fokker, and Ago), with a fixed motor of 165-175 H.P. (Mercédès, and more rarely Benz and Argus), and two stationary machine-guns firing through the propeller. These chasing escadrilles (Jagdstaffeln) are essentially fighting units. Each Jagdstaffel comprises eighteen airplanes, and sometimes twenty-two, four of which are reserves. These airplanes do not generally travel alone, at least when they have to leave their lines, but fly in groups (Ketten) of five each, one of them serving as guide (Kettenfuhrer), and conducted by the most experienced pilot, regardless of rank. German aviation tactics seek more and more to avoid solitary combat and replace it by squadron fighting, or to surprise an isolated enemy by a squadron, like an attack of sparrow-hawks upon an eagle.
Ever since the establishment of our first autonomous group of fighting airplanes, which figured in the Artois offensives in May, 1915, but which did not take the offensive (having their cantonments in the barriers and limiting themselves to keeping off the enemy and cruising above our lines and often behind them), our fighting airplanes gradually overcame prejudice. They were not, it is true, so promptly brought to perfection as our army corps airplanes, which proved so useful in the Champagne campaign of September, 1915; but it was admitted that the aërial combat should not be regarded as a result of mere chance, but as inevitable, and that it constituted, first, a protection, and afterwards an effective obstruction to an enemy forbidden to make raids in our aërial domain. The next German offensive—against Verdun—had been foreseen. In consequence, the staff had organized a safety service to avoid all surprise by the enemy, to meet attacks, and prepare the way for the reinforcing troops. But the violence of the Verdun offensive exceeded all expectations.
Our escadrilles had done their duty as scouts before the attack. After it began, they were overwhelmed and numerically unable to perform all the aërial missions required. The fighting enemy escadrilles, with their new series of machines and their improvements, won for a few days the complete mastery of the air. Our own airplanes were forced off the battle-field, and driven from their landing-places by cannon. Meanwhile the Verdun battle was changing its character. General Pétain, who took command on February 26, restored the order which had been compromised by the bending of the front, and established the new front against which the Germans hurled their forces. It was also necessary for him to reconquer the mastery of the air. He asked for and obtained a rapid concentration of all the available escadrilles, and demanded of them vigorous offensive tactics. To economize and coördinate strength, all the fighting escadrilles at Verdun were grouped under the sole command of Major de Rose. They operated by patrols, sometimes following very distant itineraries, and attacking all the airplanes they met. In a short time we regained our air supremacy, and our airplanes which were engaged in regulating artillery fire and in taking aërial photographs could work in safety. Their protection was assured by raids even into the German lines.
The Storks Escadrille, then, flew in the direction of Verdun. In the course of the voyage, Guynemer brought down his eighth airplane, which fell vertically in flames. This was a good augury. Hardly had he arrived on March 15 when he began to explore the battle-field with his conqueror's eyes. The enemy at that time still thought himself master, and dared to venture within the French lines. Guynemer chased, over Revigny, a group of five airplanes, drove another out of Argonne, and while returning met two others, almost face to face. He engaged the first one, tacking under it and firing from a distance of ten meters. But the adversary answered his fire, and Guynemer's machine was hit: the right-hand rear longitudinal spar was cut, the cable injured, the right forward strut also cut, and the wind-shield shattered. The airman himself was wounded in the face by fragments of aluminum and iron, one lodging in the jaw, from which it could never be extracted, one in the right cheek, one in the left eyelid, miraculously leaving the eye unhurt, while smaller fragments peppered him generally, causing hemorrhages which clogged his mask and made it adhere to the flesh. In addition, he had two bullets in his left arm. Though blinded by blood, he did not lose his sang-froid, and hastily dived, while the second airplane continued firing, and a third, furnished with a turret, which had come to the rescue of its comrades, descended after him and fired down upon his machine. Nevertheless, he had escaped by his maneuver, and in spite of his injuries made a good landing at Brocourt. On the 14th he was evacuated to Paris, to the Japanese ambulance in the Hotel Astoria, and with despair in his soul was obliged to let his comrades fight their battle of Verdun without his help.
III. "LA TERRE A VU JADIS ERRER DES PALADINS...."[19]
At Verdun our aërial as well as our land forces underwent sudden and almost prodigious reverses. Within a few days the Storks Escadrille had been decimated: its chief, Captain Brocard, had been wounded in the face by a bullet and compelled to land; Lieutenant Perretti had been killed, Lieutenant Deullin wounded, Guynemer wounded and nearly all its best pilots put hors de combat. The lost air-mastery was only regained by the tenacity of Major de Rose, Chief of Aviation of the Second Army, and by a rapid reconcentration of forces.
[19] "Once knightly heroes wandered over earth...."
Major de Rose ordered enemy-chasing, and electrified and inspired his escadrilles. The part he played during those terrible Verdun months can never be sufficiently praised. Guynemer's comrades held the sky under fire, as their brothers, the infantrymen, held the shifting ground which protected the ancient citadel. Chaput brought down seven airplanes, Nungesser six, and a drachen, Navarre four, Lenoir four, Auger and Pelletier d'Oisy three, Puple, Chainat, and Lesort two. The observation airplanes rivaled the fighting machines, often defending themselves, and not infrequently forcing down their assailants in flames. Twice Sergeant Fedoroff rid himself in this manner of troublesome adversaries. But other pilots deserve to be mentioned, pilots such as Stribick and Houtt, Captain Vuillemin, Lieutenant de Laage, Sergeants de Ridder, Viallet and Buisse, and such observers as Lieutenant Liebmann, who was killed, and Mutel, Naudeau, Campion, Moulines, Dumas, Robbe, Travers, sous-lieutenant Boillot, Captain Verdurand—admirable squadron chief—and Major Roisin, expert in bombardments. The lists of names are always too short, but these, at least, should be loudly acclaimed.