Guynemer was last cited in the French official announcement of September 10, 1917, for having won his fiftieth aerial victory. In an unofficial dispatch a few days before he was said to have accounted for fifty-two enemy planes. His German rival for the war-honors of the air, Baron von Richthofen, is credited with seventy "downs." But the German method of scoring such engagements differs materially from that of the French, inasmuch as a French aviator, in order to get credit for a victory, must send his victim's plane to destruction in sight of two official observers, while a German scores if he but send a bullet through his adversary's motor, forcing him to glide to the earth. Guynemer had a fine courage as well as bravery, and a determined spirit that obtained for him entrance into the Army after he had been several times rejected for lack of sufficient physique.... Captain Guynemer was only twenty-three years old. He was born on Christmas day, 1893, the son of a prosperous manufacturer of Compiègne, who had been a captain in the French Army. All his brief life he had been an invalid, very tall and very slender, even showing a leaning toward tuberculosis. Under tutors Georges had studied to enter the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris, but was rejected because of his frail health. The professors did not believe he could live to finish the course, so why waste the time with him? His parents had taken the youth to Biarritz for his health, and they had been there a year when the Great War started. Five times the young man tried to enlist as a private in the French Army and each time he was rejected because of his health. Certain there was something he could do for his country, young Guynemer volunteered for work in the aeroplane factories. His natural bent was mechanics and his progress was rapid. His superiors recognized the thorough elementary education he had. He had studied in England for two years and made a tour of the world in search of health, but always studying. He remained for a time in the United States. Soon Georges Guynemer became a mechanician at the military aviation-fields, and there his work and his personal character so impressed the officers that he was permitted to enlist as a student aviator. That was his chance, and he made more of it than any other aviator ever did. He obtained a pilot's license in January, 1916, and as a sergeant made his first flight in an _avion de chasse_. In less than three weeks he had brought down his fifth enemy aeroplane, thus becoming an Ace and earning an official citation. From the first his career was, perhaps, more active than that of any other aviator along the battle-front. His most spectacular feat, for which he was made a lieutenant and decorated with the Cross of War, was on September 29 last year, when he rose in the air to defend a comrade of his _escadrille_ who had been attacked by five German _Fokkers_.