Albert Ball, probably the most brilliant air fighter of the war, was the individualist _in excelsis_. His deeds were the outcome partly of pluck--certainly not of luck--but mostly of thought, insight, experiment, and constant practice. His knowledge of how to use sun, wind, and clouds, coupled with an instinct for the "blind side" of whatever Hun machine he had in view, made him a master in the art of approaching unobserved. Arrived at close quarters, he usually took up his favourite position under the German's tail before opening fire. His experience then taught him to anticipate any move that an unprepared enemy might make, and his quick wits how to take advantage of it. Last autumn, whenever the weather kept scout machines from their patrols but was not too bad for joy-flying, he would fly near the aerodrome and practise his pet manoeuvres for hours at a time. In the early days of Ball's dazzling exploits his patrol leader once complained, after an uneventful trip, that he left the formation immediately it crossed the lines, and stayed away until the return journey. Ball's explanation was that throughout the show he remained less than two hundred feet below the leader's machine, "practising concealment." The outstanding pilots of my old squadron were all individualists in attack, and it was one of my hobbies to contrast their tactics. C., with his blind fatalism and utter disregard of risk, would dive a machine among any number of Huns, so that he usually opened a fight with an advantage of startling audacity. S., another very successful leader, worked more in co-operation with the machines behind him, and took care to give his observer every chance for effective fire. His close watch on the remainder of the formation saved many a machine in difficulties from disaster. V., my pilot and flight-commander, was given to a quick dive at the enemy, a swerve aside, a recul pour mieux sauter, a vertical turn or two, and another dash to close grips from an unexpected direction, while I guarded the tail-end. But writing reminiscences of Umpty Squadron's early days is a melancholy business. When it was first formed all the pilots were picked men, for the machines were the best British two-seaters then in existence, and their work throughout the autumn push was to be more dangerous than that of any squadron along the British front. The price we paid was that nine weeks from our arrival on the Somme only nine of the original thirty-six pilots and observers remained. Twelve officers flew to France with the flight to which I belonged. Six weeks after their first job over the lines I was one of the only two survivors. Three of the twenty-five who dropped out returned to England with wounds or other disabilities; the rest, closely followed by twenty of those who replaced them, went to Valhalla, which is half-way to heaven; or to Karlsruhe, which is between hell and Freiburg-im-Brisgau.