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Updated: May 28, 2025
Four of the battleplanes were from the American escadrille. They were piloted respectively by Lieutenant de Laage, Lufbery, Norman Prince, and Masson. The Germans were taken by surprise and as a result few of their machines were in the air. The bombardment fleet was attacked, however, and six of its planes shot down, some of them falling in flames.
In the short period from June 10 to 16, 1917, they made fifty-four patrol flights and fought nine air battles, of which Adjutant Raoul Lufbery, Edwin Parsons, and Sergeant Robert Soubiran each fought two, and Stephen Bigelow, Sergeant Walter Lowell and Thomas Hewitt each fought one. Unfortunately death claimed two American flyers.
That is he and the Boche, who was an excellent pilot, had tried to kill each other on one or two occasions before. Each was too good for the other. Lufbery manoeuvred for position but, before he could shoot, the Teuton would evade him by a clever turn. They kept after one another, the Boche retreating into his lines.
Of the other members of the escadrille Sergeant Givas Lufbery, American citizen and soldier, but dweller in the world at large, was among the earliest to wear the French airman's wings. Exhibition work with a French pilot in the Far East prepared him efficiently for the task of patiently unloading explosives on to German military centres from a slow-moving Voisin which was his first mount.
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.
Upon the heels of Lufbery came two more graduates of the Foreign Legion Kiffin Rockwell, of Asheville, N.C., who had been wounded at Carency; Victor Chapman, of New York, who after recovering from his wounds became an airplane bomb-dropper and so caught the craving to become a pilot.
This made the fifth enemy machine which was officially credited to Lufbery. When a pilot has accounted for five Boches he is mentioned by name in the official communication, and is spoken of as an "Ace," which in French aerial slang means a super-pilot. Papers are allowed to call an "ace" by name, print his picture and give him a write-up. The successful aviator becomes a national hero.
This afternoon Lieut. de Laage and Lufbery landed at Ham, where the advance infantry were, and made a lot of inquiries. It was near this place where the fight started. Nobody had seen any machine come down. You may be sure I will keep you informed of everything that turns up. Genet is going to write you in a day or so. Sincerely,
A sheet of flame and smoke shot up from the tangled wreckage. For a moment or two I watched it burn; then I went back to the observation machines. I thought Lufbery would show up and point to where the German had fallen. He failed to appear, and I began to be afraid it was he whom I had seen come down, instead of an enemy. I spent a worried hour before my return homeward.
Perhaps the best description of an idealized aviator was given by Lieutenant Lufbery, of the Lafayette Escadrille, who came to the United States to assist in training the new corps of American flying men. Lufbery himself was a most successful air fighter an "ace" several times over. Though French by lineage, he was an American citizen and had been a soldier in the United States Army.
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