He was learning, and when he saw his way clear, he wanted to begin flying. New Year's Day arrived--that sad New Year's Day of the first year of the war. What gifts would he ask of his father? He would ask for help to win his diploma as pilot. "Don't you know somebody in your class at Saint-Cyr who could help me?" He always associated his father with every step he took in advance. The child had no fear of creating a conflict between his father's love for him and the service due to France: he knew very well that he would never receive from his father any counsel against his honor, and without pity he compelled him to facilitate his son's progress toward mortal danger. Certain former classmates of M. Guynemer's at Saint-Cyr had, in fact, reached the rank of general, and the influence of one of them hastened Guynemer's promotion from student mechanician to student pilot (January 26, 1915). On this same date, Guynemer, soldier of the 2d Class, began his first journal of flights. The first page is as follows: _Wednesday_, January 27: Doing camp chores. _Thursday_, " 28: ib. _Friday_, " 29: Lecture and camp chores. _Saturday_, " 30: Lecture at the Bleriot aerodrome. _Sunday_, " 31: ib. aerodrome. _Monday_, February 1: Went out twenty minutes on Bleriot "roller." The Bleriot "roller," called the Penguin because of its abbreviated wings, and which did not leave the ground, was followed on Wednesday, February 17, by a three-cylinder 25 H.P. Bleriot, which rose only thirty or forty meters. These were the first ascensions before launching into space. Then came a six-cylinder Bleriot, and ascensions became more numerous. Finally, on Wednesday, March 10, the journal records two flights of twenty minutes each on a Bleriot six-cylinder 50 H.P., one at a height of 600 meters, the other at 800, with tacking and volplaning descents. This time the child sailed into the sky. Guynemer's first flight, then, was on March 10, 1915. This journal, with its fifty pages, ends on July 28, 1916, with the following statement: _Friday_, July 28.--Round at the front. Attacked a group of four enemy airplanes and forced down one of them. Attacked a second group of four airplanes, which immediately dispersed. Chased one of the airplanes and fired about 250 cartridges: the Boche dived, and seemed to be hit. When I shot the last cartridges from the Vickers, one blade of the screw was perforated with bullet-holes, the dislocated motor struck the machine violently and seriously injured it. Volplaned down to the aerodrome of Chipilly without accident.