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Updated: May 23, 2025
The whole Storks Escadrille had received from General Duchêne the following citation: "Escadrille No. 3. Commander: Captain Heurtaux. A brilliant chasing escadrille which for the past two years has fought in every sector of the front with wonderful spirit and admirable self-sacrifice.
I shall have to make special trips to study the land and be able to make it out from my map which I carry on board. For one thing the weather was hazy and clouds obscured the view. We left en escadrille, at 30-second intervals, at 6:30 A.M. I'd been on guard since three, waiting for an enemy plane. I climbed to 3,500 feet in four minutes and so started off higher than the rest.
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. Each Jagdstaffel comprises eighteen airplanes, and sometimes twenty-two, four of which are reserves.
The recital of events became, however, more and more brief: the fighting pilot had not time enough to write details; nobody had any time in the Storks Escadrille, constantly engaged as it was in its triumphant flights.
The news flew from one air escadrille to another, from the aviation camps to the troops, from the advance to the rear zones of the army; and a shock of pain passed from soul to soul in that vast army, and throughout all France, as if, among so many soldiers menaced with death, this one alone should have been immortal.
The orders came directing the escadrille to Luxeuil and bidding farewell to gay "Paree" the men boarded the Belfort train with bag and baggage and the lion. Lions, it developed, were not allowed in passenger coaches. The conductor was assured that "Whiskey" was quite harmless and was going to overlook the rules when the cub began to roar and tried to get at the railwayman's finger.
But these excessive exertions brought on nervous fatigue. The escadrille had only just reached its new station, when Guynemer had to go into hospital, whence he wrote his father on July 18 as follows: Dear Father: Knocked out again. Hospital. But this time I'm flourishing. No more wooden barracks, but a farmhouse right in the fields. I have a room all to myself.
Kiffin Rockwell and Lufbery were the first to get their new machines ready and on the 23rd of September went out for the first flight since the escadrille had arrived at Luxeuil. They became separated in the air but each flew on alone, which was a dangerous thing to do in the Alsace sector. There is but little fighting in the trenches there, but great air activity.
He received the following letter, dated July 20, 1915: Lieutenant-colonel Maillard, commanding the 238th Infantry, to Corporal Pilot Guynemer and Mechanician Guerder of Escadrille M.S. 3, at Vauciennes. The Lieutenant-colonel, The Officers, The whole Regiment,
Amidst the fighters on the Aisne, Guynemer was at his post in the Storks Escadrille. "All right! There were indeed some five tumbling down: on May 25 he had surpassed all that had been done so far in aërial fights, bringing down four German machines in that one day. His notebook states the fact briefly: 8.30.
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