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Being volunteers, we Americans are shown more than the ordinary consideration by the ever-generous French Government, which sees to it that we have the best of everything. On our arrival at Luxeuil we were met by Captain Thenault, the French commander of the American Escadrille officially known as No. 124, by the way and motored to the aviation field in one of the staff cars assigned to us.
Ireland is active in learning, and in the second half of the seventh century England, under Archbishop Theodore and Abbot Hadrian, produces schools which rival the Irish, and, in the person of Bede, has the greatest scholar of the time. Some of the great Irish monasteries, such as Bobbio, Luxeuil, St. Gall, are founded on the Continent.
He was killed just before the time set for the wedding. When the escadrille arrived at Luxeuil it found a great surprise in the form of a large British aviation contingent. This detachment from the Royal Navy Flying Corps numbered more than fifty pilots and a thousand men. New hangars harboured their fleet of bombardment machines.
We had never before been grouped with as many other fighting escadrilles, nor at a field so near the front. We sensed the war to better advantage than at Luxeuil or Bar-le-Duc. When there is activity on the lines the rumble of heavy artillery reaches us in a heavy volume of sound.
His brother, Paul, who had fought in the Legion with him, and who had been rendered unfit for service by a wound, was granted permission to attend the obsequies. Pilots from all near-by camps flew over to render homage to Rockwell's remains. Every Frenchman in the aviation at Luxeuil marched behind the bier.
The American Escadrille was sent to Luxeuil primarily to acquire the team work necessary to a flying unit. Then, too, the new pilots needed a taste of anti-aircraft artillery to familiarize them with the business of aviation over a battlefield. They shot well in that sector, too. Thaw's machine was hit at an altitude of 13,000 feet.
As badly battered as it was Prince succeeded in bringing it back from over Mulhouse, where the fight occurred, to his field at Luxeuil. The same day that Prince was so nearly brought down Lufbery missed death by a very small margin. He had taken on more gasoline and made another sortie. When over the lines again he encountered a German with whom he had a fighting acquaintance.
As a matter of fact the escadrille was to be sent to Luxeuil in the Vosges to take part in the Mauser raid.
The question of forming an Allied squadron to bomb German munition factories was first raised in 1915 at one of the monthly meetings between the French and British Aviation departments; and in February, 1916, a small squadron of Sopwith "1-1/2 Strutters" was formed at Detling for the purpose of bombing Essen and Dusseldorf from England, but the Army in France, being short of machines, asked that they should be sent to the front, and therefore the scheme did not mature; neither, for similar reasons, did one for the co-operation in 1916 of British and French bombing squadrons, operating from Luxeuil.
Every one knew some big bombardment was ahead but when it would be made or what place was to be attacked was a secret. Considering the number of machines that were continually roaring above the field at Luxeuil it is remarkable that only two fatal accidents occurred. One was when a British pilot tried diving at a target, for machine-gun practice, and was unable to redress his airplane.
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