CHAPTER XIX

FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT GUYNEMER

We learn from the _Matin_ that the French champion, Flight-Lieutenant Guynemer, once brought down three German aeroplanes in the record time of three minutes, and then himself had an extremely narrow escape from death. He was 3,000 yards up when a shell burst full in one of the wings of his aeroplane, and the frail bird seemed mortally wounded. The whole left wing was completely cut to bits, and the canvas fluttered in the wind, making the rent still worse. In a few seconds there was nothing left on the frame but a piece of canvas the size of a pocket-handkerchief.

The machine fell with a crash through space—it would not support its pilot any longer. Lieutenant Guynemer declares that he gave himself up for lost; the only thing he asked Providence for was that he should not fall in enemy territory.

‘I was powerless to make my will felt,’ he has said. ‘My machine refused to obey me. At 1,600 yards I determined to make a fight for it all the same.

‘The wind had brought me back into our own lines. I was almost happy. I had been thinking of my funeral, with sorrowing friends walking behind my last remains. I had nothing more to fear from the “pickelhauben.” However, I felt that it was death, and that thought is not a very pleasant one.

‘My fall continued. In spite of all my efforts, I could not do what I wanted with my machine. I tried to turn it first to the right and then to the left. I pushed and pulled, but all to no purpose. I could do nothing.

‘Down I fell, faster and faster, drawn surely and inevitably to the earth, where I was going to be smashed to atoms.

‘I shut my eyes, then I opened them again and looked down. At something like 110 miles an hour I crashed into a pylon. There was a terrific cracking sound and a deep thud. I looked round and found that nothing was left of my machine.

‘How is it I am still alive? I wonder myself. I think it was the straps which held me in my seat which saved my life. They had eaten right into my shoulders anyhow, but if it had not been for them I should be dead at this moment.’

Only to the fortunate is it given to relate their experiences. Sudden and untimely death overtakes many heroic pilots, sealing their lips and robbing the world of personal records of their deeds. We are indeed fortunate in having from Flight-Lieutenant Guynemer a story so thrilling. He is one of our gallant Allies’ most courageous and skilful pilots, and in aviation France is second to none. Later, we shall afresh see how rich she is in skilful and heroic airmen, and we shall see in particular how well the heroic aviator, Lieutenant Guynemer, has continued to acquit himself.