the first one, tacking under it and firing from a distance of ten meters.  But the adversary answered his fire, and Guynemer’s machine was hit:  the right-hand rear longitudinal spar was cut, the cable injured, the right forward strut also cut, and the wind-shield shattered.  The airman himself was wounded in the face by fragments of aluminum and iron, one lodging in the jaw, from which it could never be extracted, one in the right cheek, one in the left eyelid, miraculously leaving the eye unhurt, while smaller fragments peppered him generally, causing hemorrhages which clogged his mask and made it adhere to the flesh.  In addition, he had two bullets in his left arm.  Though blinded by blood, he did not lose his sang-froid, and hastily dived, while the second airplane continued firing, and a third, furnished with a turret, which had come to the rescue of its comrades, descended after him and fired down upon his machine.  Nevertheless, he had escaped by his maneuver, and in spite of his injuries made a good landing at Brocourt.  On the 14th he was evacuated to Paris, to the Japanese ambulance in the Hotel Astoria, and with despair in his soul was obliged to let his comrades fight their battle of Verdun without his help.

III.  “LA TERRE A VU JADIS ERRER DES PALADINS...."[19]

At Verdun our aerial as well as our land forces underwent sudden and almost prodigious reverses.  Within a few days the Storks Escadrille had been decimated:  its chief, Captain Brocard, had been wounded in the face by a bullet and compelled to land; Lieutenant Perretti had been killed, Lieutenant Deullin wounded, Guynemer wounded and nearly all its best pilots put hors de combat.  The lost air-mastery was only regained by the tenacity of Major de Rose, Chief of Aviation of the Second Army, and by a rapid reconcentration of forces.

[Footnote 19:  “Once knightly heroes wandered over earth....”]

Major de Rose ordered enemy-chasing, and electrified and inspired his escadrilles.  The part he played during those terrible Verdun months can never be sufficiently praised.  Guynemer’s comrades held the sky under fire, as their brothers, the infantrymen, held the shifting ground which protected the ancient citadel.  Chaput brought down seven airplanes, Nungesser six, and a drachen, Navarre four, Lenoir four, Auger and Pelletier d’Oisy three, Puple, Chainat, and Lesort two.  The observation airplanes rivaled the fighting machines, often defending themselves, and not infrequently forcing down their assailants in flames.  Twice Sergeant Fedoroff rid himself in this manner of troublesome adversaries.  But other pilots deserve to be mentioned, pilots such as Stribick and Houtt, Captain Vuillemin, Lieutenant de Laage, Sergeants de Ridder, Viallet and Buisse, and such observers as Lieutenant Liebmann, who was killed, and Mutel, Naudeau, Campion, Moulines, Dumas, Robbe, Travers, sous-lieutenant Boillot, Captain Verdurand—­admirable squadron chief—­and Major Roisin, expert in bombardments.  The lists of names are always too short, but these, at least, should be loudly acclaimed.