We were supposed to begin work on the following day, just as in actual battle, for we were simulating a real, active battle move. Our trucks left in the afternoon about three o’clock and without mishap, should have arrived there about midnight. The planes were to wait until the next morning and fly down. The truck train got there all right, and got busy fixing up quarters and getting ready for immediate operations. We expected to see our famous eighteen planes arrive in a well organized, close formation at about eleven o’clock that morning, but at eleven they did not arrive and we heard nothing from them until about three o’clock, when one of our young pilots came from somewhere out of the sky and landed. We asked about the other seventeen, to which question he showed the greatest surprise, and explained that he had been detained by motor trouble and had been unable to get off with the main formation which had taken off four or five hours before him. Immediately Dame Rumor stepped forth, and the absence of the other planes was attributed to everything from being lost in Germany to being shot down by a German plane. While we were discussing the matter some one noticed two planes very high in the air. We thought, of course, that they were our planes and were probably lost. Ideas were rampant as to how we were going to signal them to get them down, when suddenly we heard the splutter-splut-splut, intermittently, of machine guns way up in the sky. This was new to us. We thought, of course, that some one was merely trying out his guns. These ideas were soon dispelled for following this short, intermittent sound we heard one, steady, singing stream of sound—then we knew that an air fight was on. We did not have time to realize exactly what was happening for the steady stream of fire suddenly ceased and we saw one of the planes falling, out of control. It was swaying back and forth like a falling leaf, and filling the air with a miserable swish-swish sound. The horrible speed of the fall caused both wings to collapse and fold, and the compact mass soon came diving toward earth like a huge torpedo. It crashed with a terrible thud on the very edge of our own field. When the awful horror of the moment passed, we all started to run to see the Boche that had been shot down.