A few months later one of these same reporters, reverting to the subject of French aviation, took Guynemer himself to task in the Badische Presse for August 8, 1917, as follows:  “The airman you see flying so high is the famous Guynemer.  He is the rival of the most daring German aviators, an as, as the French call their champions.  He is undoubtedly to be reckoned with, for he handles his machine with absolute mastery, and he is an excellent shot.  But he only accepts an air fight when every chance is on his side.  He flies above the German lines at altitudes between 6000 and 7000 meters, quite out of range of our anti-aircraft artillery.  He cannot make any observations, for from that height he sees nothing clearly, not even troops on the march.  He is exclusively a chasing flyer bent on destroying our own machines.  He has been often successful, though he cannot be compared to our own Richtofen.  He is very prudent; always flying, as I said above, at an altitude of at least 6000 meters, he waits till an airplane rises from the German lines or appears on its way home.  Then he pounces upon it as a falcon might, and opens fire with his machine-gun.  When he only wounds the pilot, or if our airman seems to show fight, Guynemer flies back to his own lines at the incredible speed of 250 kilometers an hour, which his very powerful machine makes possible.  He never accepts a fair fight.  Every man chases as he can.”

“Every man chases as he can.”  Quite so.  To revert to that 25th of May, the “very prudent” Guynemer, on his morning patrol, met three German airplanes flying towards the French lines.  They were two-seaters, less nimble, no doubt, than one-seaters, but provided with so much more dangerous arms.  Naturally he could not think of attacking them, “not feeling sure of victory,” and “always avoiding a risky contest!” Yet he pounced upon his three opponents, who promptly turned back.  However, he overtook one, began making evolutions around him, succeeded in getting slightly below him, fired, and with his first volley succeeded in bringing him down in flames north of Corbeny (northeast of Craonne).

The danger for a one-seater is to be surprised from behind.  Just as Guynemer veered round, he saw another machine flying after him.  He again fired upwards, and the airplane fell in flames, like the first, only a few seconds having elapsed between the two fights.  Guynemer then returned to camp.

But he was excited by these two fights; his nerves were strained and his will was tense.  He soon started again.  Towards noon a German machine appeared above the camp itself.  How had it been able to get there?  This is what the airmen down below were asking themselves.  It was useless to chase it, for it would take any of them longer to rise than the German to escape.  So they had to content themselves with looking up, some of them searching the sky with binoculars.  Everybody was back except Guynemer, when somebody suddenly cried: