[Illustration: THE VILLAGE OF VAUX DURING THE BATTLE OF VAUX, JULY 1, 1918] From the first of July to the fifteenth we were continuously engaged in making the best possible preparations for what we knew must come. On the morning of the fifteenth it came. It came from Château-Thierry along to Rheims. The first day we did not worry a great deal for we confidently felt that the Germans would never be able to cross the Marne as all the bridges had been blown up, but on the morning of the sixteenth day things were mighty blue. An American pursuit plane immediately after daylight, reported that the Germans had constructed pontoon bridges in different places and were already sweeping across the Marne. This flight by a pursuit plane and the resulting information was, I think, unquestionably one of the greatest flights of the entire war. I did not learn until several days later who the aviator really was. No one seemed to know, nor could we find any record on the regular reports. The French Army Commander told me the source from which he had gotten this timely information as to the presence of the pontoons. It seems that General William Mitchell, who commanded all American Aviation at the Front, had been at the French Army Headquarters during the night of the fifteenth, getting the reports from the Front and making his aërial dispositions accordingly. An hour before daybreak on the morning of the sixteenth he left the French Headquarters and without telling any one his intended movements he drove his high-powered automobile, with all haste, to the American Pursuit Airdrome about fifty kilometers away. Climbing into a single place Spad, the General hastily drew out a pocket notebook and scribbled a few words to his chief of staff, and handed this note to his mechanic. Then the General headed his plane into the wind and with whirring motor sailed off into the somber darkness. At the first glimpse of dawn he was over Fere-en-Tardenois, fifteen miles within the German lines. He saw the glare of the village, but the usual whiteness of the roads was not there—they were of a greenish hue, like the morning mist surrounding them. It was hard to comprehend the magnitude of this view. Heading south for five miles, the roads presented the same aspect. From fifteen thousand feet the General swept down to three thousand. Here he could realize the awful fact of what was taking place below him—the whitened roads were green with the thousands of German troops driving on toward the Marne with the steadiness and determination of a huge caterpillar. On south he flew—the Germans were everywhere—infesting the whole salient like a plague of locusts. Reaching the Marne, it was certain the inevitable had happened—one, two, three, four, five—five pontoon bridges already across and the onrushing Huns were marching across in terrible precision.