A hug for each of you.
Georges.
P.S.—It could not be said now that I am not strong; I stop steel bullets with the end of my finger.
Is this a letter? At first, it is a bulletin of victory: two airplanes for five bullets, plus one passenger "couic." Then it becomes a recital of the golden legend—the golden legend of aviation: he stops the enemy's bullets with his fingers; Roland would write in that style to the beautiful Aude: "Met three Saracens, Durandal cleft two, the third tried to settle the affair with his bow, but the arrow broke on the cord." Young Paul Bailly was right: "The exploits of Guynemer are not a legend, like those of Roland; in telling them just as they happened we find them more beautiful than any we could invent." That is why it is better to let Guynemer himself relate them. He says only what is necessary, but the right accent is there, the rapidity and the "couic." The following letter is dated September 15, 1916.
From the same to the same
Some sport.
On the 16th, in a group of six, four of them squeezed at 25 meters.
In four days, six combats at 25 meters: filled a few Boches with holes, but they did not seem to tumble down, though some were hard hit all the same; then five boxing rounds up between 5100 and 5300 (altitude). To-day five combats, four of them at less than 25 meters, and the fifth at 50 meters. In the first, gun jammed at 50 meters. In the second, at 5200, the Boche in his excitement lost his wings, and descended on his aërodrome in a wingless coach; his ears must be humming (16th). The third was a nose-to-nose combat with a fighting Aviatik. Too much impetus: I failed to hammer him hollow. In the fourth, same joke with an L.V.G. in a group of three: I failed to hammer him, I lurched: pan, a bullet near my head. In the fifth, I cleaned up the passenger (that is the third this week), then knocked up the pilot very badly at 10 meters,—completely disabled, he landed evidently with great difficulty, and he must be in hospital....
Three lines to describe a victory, the sixteenth. And what boarding of the adversary, from above and from below! He springs upon the enemy, but fails to go through him. Both speeds combined, he does not make much less than 400 kilometers an hour when he dives on him. The meeting and shooting hardly last one second, after which the combat continues, with other maneuvers. Some savant should calculate the time allowed for sight and thought in fighting such duels!
This was the period of the great series of combats on the Somme. The Storks Escadrille, which was the first to arrive, waged battle uninterruptedly for eight months. Other escadrilles came to the rescue. Altogether they were divided into two groups, one under the command of Major Féquant, the other under that of Captain Brocard, appointed chief of battalion. It becomes impossible to enumerate all Guynemer's victories, and we can merely emphasize the days on which he surpassed himself. September 28 was a remarkable day, on which he brought down two enemies and had a fall from a height of 3000 meters. Little Paul Bailly would hardly have believed that; he would have said it was surely a legend, the golden legend of aviation. Nevertheless, here is Guynemer's statement, countersigned by the escadrille commandant: