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Such was his work for three days, taken at random from the notebook. Open his journal at any page, and it reads the same. On August 7 Guynemer got back with seven shell fragments in his machine: he had been cannonaded from the ground while in chase of four enemy airplanes.
A fourth companion in captivity was unfortunately too large to pass through the vent-hole of the prison, and was shot by the English. It was August 31, 1813, after the passage of the Bidassoa, that Lieutenant Achille Guynemer was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honor. He was then twenty-one years of age.
Yet he pounced upon his three opponents, who promptly turned back. 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.
M. Guynemer no longer hesitated to speak, adding that the period of rest he advised was in the very interest of his son's service. "You need strengthening; you have done too much. If you should go on, you would be in great danger of falling below yourself, or not really being yourself." "Father, war is nothing else. One must pull on, even if the rope should threaten to snap."
These are flat regions, and there would be no beauty in them if the light radiating from the vapors rising from the fields or the sea did not lend brilliance and relief to the yellow stone villages, the straggling woods or copses, the well-to-do farms, the low hedges, or the tall calvaries at the crossroads. Guynemer was in splendid condition.
Many years before Georges Guynemer was a student at Stanislas, a professor, who was also destined to become famous, taught rhetoric there. His name was Frédéric Ozanam. He too had been a precocious child, prematurely sure of his vocation for literature. When only fifteen he had composed in Latin verse an epitaph in honor of Gaston de Foix, dead at Ravenna.
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.
I count the American people fortunate in reading any book of yours; I count them fortunate in reading any biography of that great hero of the air, Guynemer; and thrice over I count them fortunate to have such a book written by you on such a subject.
Every time Guynemer had used his father's influence in the army, it had been to bring himself nearer to danger. "No man has the right to get away from the front as long as the war lasts," he said. "I see very well what you are thinking, but you know that self-sacrifice is never wasted. Don't let us talk any more about it...."
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.
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