Georges Guynemer: Knight of the AirBordeaux, Henry
History
Georges Guynemer: Knight of the Air
Bordeaux, Henry
Air pilots -- France -- Biography; Guynemer, Georges, 1894-1917; World War, 1914-1918 -- Aerial operations
After July 1 there was a combat almost every day. Would Guynemer be put
out of action from the beginning, as at Verdun? Returning on the 6th,
after having put to flight an L.V.G., he surprised another Boche
airplane which was diving down on one of our artillery-regulating
machines. He immediately drew the enemy's attention to himself; but the
enemy (Guynemer pays him this homage in his flight notebook) was keen
and supple. His well-aimed shots passed through the propeller of the
Nieuport and cut two cables in the right cell. Guynemer was obliged to
land. He was forced down eight times during his flying career, once
under fantastic conditions. He passed through every form of danger
without ever losing the self-possession, the quickness of eye, and
rapidity of decision which his passion for conquest had developed.
What battles he fought in the air! On July 9 his journal notes a combat
of five against five; on the 10th a combat of three against seven, in
which Guynemer disengaged Deullin, who was followed by an Aviatik at a
distance of a hundred meters. On the 11th, at 10 o'clock, he attacked an
L.V.G. and cut its cable; the enemy dived but appeared to be in control
of the machine. A few moments later he and Deullin attacked an Aviatik
and an L.V.G., Guynemer damaging the Aviatik, and Deullin forcing down
the L.V.G.; and before returning to their base, the two comrades
attacked a group of seven machines and dispersed them. On the 16th
Guynemer forced down, with Heurtaux, an L.V.G., which fell with its
wheels in the air. After a short absence, during which he got a more
powerful machine for his own use, he began on the 25th a repetition of
his former program. On the 26th he waged five combats with enemy groups
consisting of from five to eleven airplanes. On the 27th he fought three
L.V.G.'s, and then groups of from three to ten machines. On the 28th he
successively attacked two airplanes within their own lines, then a
drachen which was obliged to land, then a group of four airplanes one of
which was forced down, and then a second group of four which were
dispersed, Guynemer pursuing one of the fugitives and bringing him down.
One blade of his own propeller was riddled with bullets, and he was
compelled to land. Such was his work for three days, taken at random
from the notebook.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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