Produced by Al Haines. [Illustration: Cover art] [Illustration: German trenches. No man’s land. French trenches. A view of French and German trenches.] WITH THE FRENCH FLYING CORPS BY CARROLL DANA WINSLOW OF THE FRENCH FLYING CORPS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS Published January, 1917 TO MY FATHER *CONTENTS* My Enlistment First Principles Learning to Fly The School at Chartres Passing the Final Tests The Zeppelin Raid over Paris At the Ecole de Perfectionnement The Réserve Générale De l’Aviation Ordered to the Front In the Verdun Sector My First Flight over the Lines Co-operating with the Artillery All in the Day’s Work July 14th, 1916 The Finishing Touches *ILLUSTRATIONS* A view of the French and German trenches . . . _Frontispiece_ A Voisin bombarding-machine A Nieuport "avion de Chasse" "Mechanics ran the machines out on the field in long lines" The little café across the road A Morane-Parasol "I had received orders to make a flight during a snow-storm" The author, together with his first mechanic, at the "mitrailleuse" A Farman artillery-machine An anti-aircraft .75 A bad landing A heavy bombarding-machine A German aeroplane brought down by a French aeroplane A bi-motor Caudron A captured Fokker A view of the Mort-Homme taken from a height of 3,600 feet "Everywhere little white puffs seemed to follow the machines about" Reduced facsimile of the photographic report supplied to the Headquarters Staff of the fighting at Cumières A Penguin *MY ENLISTMENT* In the last two years aviation has become an essential branch of the army organization of every country. Daily hundreds of pilots are flying in Europe, in Africa, in Asia Minor; flying, fighting, and dying in a medium through which, ten years ago, it was considered impossible to travel. But though the air has been mastered, the science of aero-dynamics is still in its infancy, and theory and practice are unproved so often that even the best aviators experience difficulty in keeping abreast of the times.