The Exploits of Chapman, Prince, Rockwell, Guynemer, Marchal, Immelman, Boelke, Richthofen and Others

January 23, 1916 - March 8, 1918

  Germany for more than a year relied principally on
Zeppelins in making aerial attacks on England, but
on January 28 and January. 24, 1916, hostile aircraft of
another kind made notable raids on the east coast. Early in the
morning of the 23d, an airplane dropt nine bombs on a
Kentish town, killing one man, wounding two men, a woman
and three children, and damaging some private property.
Twelve hours later two airplanes made an attack on the game
locality, but without effecting damage or causing casualties.
British naval and military machines gave chase, but the
raiders escaped.  These were. the first raids that had been
made on England since October 13, 1915, when Zeppelins
bombed the London district, killing and wounding more than
150 persons. The bright moonlight and the absence of wind
made ideal conditions for the dash.  The airplanes probably
came from a German base in Belgium.  On February 6 two
women and one child were injured when two airplanes again
raided the Kentish coast. Three missiles fell on the outskirts
of Ramsgate and four near a school at Broadstairs.  The
material damage was confined to the shattering of gins.
The attack was made in broad daylight. That afternoon two
sea planes bad been seen approaching the Kentish coast, and a
few minutes later flew over Ramsgate and Broadstairs.  Of
the four bombs dropt on Broadstairs all but one fell. near
property of Lord Northliff.  At Ramsgate six or eight
bombs were dropt in rapid succession, all of which fell in
fields between Ramsgate and Broadstairs.
	Sergeant Pilot Guynemer, twenty-one years old, of tile
French Flying. Corps, brought down, 0n February 7, his
fifth German adversary, and was mentioned for his exploit
in an official communication.  Previously he had been dec-
orated with the cross of the Legion of Honor, the War Cross
and the Military Medal.  Guynemer was a lad in college
when the war began and enlisted at once.  At the end of
seven days of training he made his trial flight for a pilot's
license and afterward made a record for bunting German
airplanes.  In one instance he brought down, single-handed,
a large German biplane.  Guynemer made flights. alone, as
did Garros and Pegoud, but used a great biplane on which
be could make ninety miles an hour instead of a monoplane.
He put four machines out of business in nine days.  One of
these exploits occurred in December when he fought a spec-
tacular duel directly over the French lines, his comrades-in-
arms cheering him enthusiastically from below. He was en-
gaged at that time with one of the famous Fokker airplanes.
Altho there were two men aboard the Fokker, he maneuvered
skillfully until he brought his gun in range.  At fifteen
yards he delivered a mortal blow from "The Old Charles,"
the name given to the biplane which Guynemer manip-
ulated.  He was armed with a weapon which he handled
with remarkable facility and precision, at the same time that
he maneuvered his airplane.  Between his fourth and fifth
successful duels he had a narrow escape in a fight with a
Fokker.  At the moment of firing, at a distance of thirty
yards, his gun became jammed, the lubricating oil had
frozen.  In attempting a quick turn, he was carried on by
the momentum until he struck the German machine with
his upper plane and began to descend abruptly.  After
falling rapidly for 500 yards the biplane righted itself.
Guynemer then returned to headquarters, but had missed
his fifth machine.  He accounted for it a few days later
when his antagonist went to earth in flames after a short
combat.  Guynemer tho French was of Scottish extraction.
	Contemporary with the battle of Verdun, in 1916, occurred
an unusual amount of activity in aviation work. On February
26 nine French bombing aeroplanes traveled behind the Ger-
man lines and dropt 114 bombs on the Metz-Sablons station,
and on the same day another French air-s~adro~ inflicted
similar damage on German establishments at Chambley, north-
 west of Pont-A-Mousson. On the last day of February a
French military transport train was held up by a German
aeroplane between Besancon and Jussey, and it was claimed
that the crew of the aeroplane had successfully attacked with
their machine-guns a convoy train.  A day or so later
French air-squadrons wrecked the stations at Chambley and
Bensdorf and injured the German works at Avricourt, north-
east of Luneville.  On March 7, sixteen French aeroplanes
were again above the Metz-Sablons station, dealing out de-
struction on trains below.  Attacked by a German aerial
squadron the French aviators returned with the loss of one
aeroplane, the engine of which had failed.  On the 14th a
squadron of eleven French aeroplanes bombed the station
at Brieuiles.  A group of seventeen were again over the
Metx-Sablons and also over the Conflans station on the 17th,
while another squadron dropt five bombs on the station at
Arneville and ten on the aerodrome of Dieuze. The aviation-
ground of Habsheim and the freight station at Mulhausen
were the objectives of twenty-eight French machines on the
18th.  The Germans said they brought down four of the
raiders.
	On March 30 the stations of Metz-Sablons and Pagny-
sur-Moselle were attacked, and on April 1 and 2 the
station of Etain, the German bivouacs in the neighbor-
hood of Nantillois, and the village of Azennes and Brienlies-
stir-Meuse. As "a reprisal for the bombardment of Dunkirk
by a Zeppelin," on the 2d, thirty-one Allied machines dropt
eighty-three bombs of heavy caliber on the enemy canton-
ments of Keyem, Essen, Terrest, and Houthulst.  On the
night of the 23d-24th forty-eight bombs of heavy caliber
were released over the station of Vifwege, east of the
Forest of Houthulst, in the environs of Ypres, and places
on the German lines of communication in the Verdun region
received attention, twenty-one shells and eight incendiary
bombs being dropt on the station of Longuyon, five shells
on that of Stenay, twelve on the camps to the east of Dun
and thirty-two shells on German establishments in the Mont-
faucon region, and on the station of Nantillois.  Similar
operations continued in succeeding weeks.
	Guynemer had become the most notable destroyer of Ger
man airmen of the Allies operating near Verdun. Starting on
his daily hunt piloting a new and smaller aeroplane than usual,
but a much swifter machine, he noticed two German air-
craft sailing above him and placed himself behind one of
them.  When he judged the range suitable, he riddled the
German with bullets and the German machine turned over
and crashed to the ground.  After this victory Guynemer
swooped down on the second German aeroplane, but, mis-
judging his speed, through unfamiliarity with his machine,
he forged ahead of the German after firing some seven or
eight shots, which went wide.  The German, who then had
the advantage, opened fire on the Frenchman and riddled
his engine casing with bullets.  Splinters struck Onynemer
in the face, cutting somewhat deeply into his cheek and
nose, while two bullets went through his left arm. Guynemer
let himself drop like a stone for about 1,000 feet, so as to
give his opponent the impression that he had brought him
down, and the German, thinking the battle won, proceeded on
his way.  Meanwhile Guynemer recovered himself, and
steering his machine with one hand, succeeded in landing
within the French lines.
	On March 18 Navarre scored his seventh German aero-
plane. The same day an aerial engagement between British
and German airmen took place near Ypres and La Bassee,
and a German machine was brought down near Radinghem.
On March 30 there was another encounter, when the British
lost three machines.  In the Champagne, on the 30th, the
French airman, Doutrien, brought down a "Fokker," and
the German, Lieutenant Immelmann, east of Bapauume, got
the better of a British biplane, capturing its two occupants.
On the 26th of April there were nineteen combats on the
British front. A German two-seater aeroplane was attacked
three times by a single-seater British machine at a great
height.  The enemy pilot was shot through the heart and
the observer through the body.  The German machine
crashed to the earth, with the engine full on, from a height
of 14,000 feet.  One of the British reconnaissances was at-
tacked by eight hostile aeroplanes, one of which was brought
down.  Two British machines were damaged, but all re-
turned to their base.  Events like these, notable at the
time, seemed small afterward in the light of airship work
on the Western Front in 1918.
	On March 20 fifty Allied airplanes attacked the German
submarine base at Zeebrugge, Belgium  and works at
Houltade.  For two days air-battles constituted the greatest
activity seen on the Western Front.  In one raid against
German towns in upper Alsace, two sky-fleets clashed in one
of the most spectacular battles of the war.  Four French
airplanes and three German were brought down.  The raid,
in which a squadron of twenty-three French craft invaded
upper Alsace and grappled with almost an equal number of
German Taubes, furnished a thrilling spectacle. Two of the
three German machines brought to earth were masses of
flames as they crumpled up.  The four French planes that
were brought down were wrecked.  Possibly twenty persons
were killed, including seven civilians, and many more than
that number were injured.  The raid was directed for the
greater part against Mulhausen, where seven were killed and
thirteen hurt, and against Habsheim, just east, where one
soldier was slain. A total of seventytwo shells were dropt.
Several of the fighters were killed when their machines

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Secretary Baker visiting an American aviation training camp.

Religious services at the front. A chaplain for a pulpit has made use of the body of an aeroplane.