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The groups belonging to our fighting escadrilles on both banks of the Somme achieved this result.
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.
Each corps of an army has one of these escadrilles or teams of aeroplanes, and the army as a whole has an extra one, so that, if an army consists of eight corps, it possesses fifty-four aeroplanes. I am speaking now of the particular type of aeroplane employed for regulating artillery fire.
The group which he had attacked was composed of five airplanes, flying in échelon, three above, two below. The two which flew lowest were assaulted by one of our escadrilles, and the pilots, seeing a machine fall in flames, thought at first it was their own victory. "It was my first one, falling from the upper story," Guynemer explained drolly, in his Stanislas-student manner.
The French distributed their "Escadrilles," which were approximately of the size of our "flight," from the beginning, and it is probable that one cause of failure in the German air service during the same period lay in the initial dispersion of units and lack of unified control by the higher command.
But these airplanes, while doing this special work, must be protected by patrolling escadrilles. The best protection is afforded by the chasing units, fitted to spread terror and death far afield, or to stop enemy escadrilles bound on a similar errand.
It was necessary to protect the airplanes attached to army corps, and to clean up the air for their free circulation. This rôle devolved upon the most rapid airplanes, which were then the Morane-Saunier-Parasols, and in the spring of 1915 these formed the first escadrilles de chasse, one for each army.
These are handled by escadrilles equipped with bigger machines. I mount at daybreak over the lines; stay at from 11,000 to 15,000 feet and wait for the sight of an enemy plane. It may be a bombardment machine, a regulator of fire, an observer, or an avion de chasse looking for me. Whatever she is I make for her and manoeuvre for position.
The aviators operating in the early engagements have undoubtedly flown down from Brussels and are in temporary camp at Liege. There are probably not more than four Belgian escadrilles, or little fleets of four machines each, on the scene, while Germany's force is supposedly greater."
As at the battle of the Somme, so at the battle of the Aisne our aërial escadrilles were in close touch with the general staff and the other arms of the service. Their success was no doubt dependent upon the quality of the airplanes, and the factory output, and limited by the enemy's power in the air.
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