May 1 6, 191 8 
Land & Water 
15 
Their First "Crash": By Herman Whitaker 
I 
Lieut. Campb 
T happened while we were bowl- 
ing along a smooth French road 
that split innumerable red-tiled 
villages in equal halves on its 
way to the American front. A 
week ago I had journeyed around our 
flying instruction stations in South 
France, where our lads were to be seen 
in training, from their first ridiculous 
'' hops "with wing-cUpped " penguins," 
to the final dare-devil stunts on the 
acrobatic field. There I had watched 
performances that would ' have taised 
the hair of Lincoln Beachey, or any of 
the stunt flyers of five years ago. For, 
in the ordinary course of their flying, 
our lads are taught the " vreille," tail spin ; the " reversement," 
a half loop and fall sideways ; to "barrel," turning over and 
over sidewaj^ like a rolling cask; the "vertical viragc," a 
ninety-degree bank, said to be a most disagreeable first experi- 
ence ; to bank and side-slip any distance required to elude a 
pursuer, a difficult operation which the beginner usually ends 
in a "barrel." While dropping from a height of fourteen 
thousand feet, I had seen one boy pull almost the whole bag 
of tricks. In fact he put his plane through every possible 
twist and gyration — and many impossible — in an actual fall. 
"With this knowledge 
stored away, I was now 
on my way to visit an 
American squadrilla in 
actual service at the 
front. 
As we approached 
the last town between 
us and the trenches I 
finished telling the 
lieutenant from 
General Headquarters 
about a submarine 1 
had seen captured 
while cruising with our 
destroyer flotilla in 
English waters. He 
agreed that it was as 
fine a bit of luck as ever 
fell to a correspondent. 
"But lightning never 
strikes twice in the 
same place," he added. 
"You have used up 
• all the luck that is com- 
ing to you in this war 
that again." ^ . 
He was mistaken. Nature's laws are said to be without 
exceptions, but he had no more than said it before the light- 
ning violated all precedents and struck again— through the 
raised hand and arm of an American military policeman on the 
edge of the town. 
"Pinched!" our sergeant chauffeur exclaimed, when the 
hand went up. 
He was not altogether joking. Military law is like that of 
the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. Because of some 
mix-up in their passes, three correspondents had been 
"" pinched" by the military police and brought back to General 
Headquarters last week in a state of uncertainty as to whether 
or not they would be shot at sunrise. ' 
The sergeant abided, as the car rolled on to a slow stop, "You 
can get by the French military police with any old thing — 
beer-check, laundry bill, spearmint coupon, anything that's 
written in English and looks official. But when them "Iron- 
jaws " of ours hold up a hand, it means you." 
The "Iron-jaw," however, was relaxed in a pleasant smile. 
Saluting, its owner informed us ; " If you drive round by the 
public square, you will see two Boche planes our boys have 
just shot down. It's worth your while. These are the first 
planes brought down by home-trained .American aviators fly- 
ing our own flag." 
"First submarine — first plane ! " the lieutenant commented. 
"You must be the luckiest man in the whole wide \Vorld." 
It happened to be Sunday, and in the square we found 
dozens of women, children^nd pretty French girls, all in their 
go-to-meeting best, elbowing through a mixed crowd of poilus, 
Copyright Id U.S.A. 
Albatross aeroplane shot down by Lieut. Winslow 
The first machine to be brought down by a home-trained American flyer 
You won't get in on anything Uke 
Tommies and Sammies, to get a good view of the wrecks. 
Though the French have shot down German planes by the 
hundreds, those good people were glorying for us ; could not 
have shown more genuine pleasure at their awn first achieve- 
ment. Even that reserve with which the British officer 
habitually camouflages his own feelings was dissipated, for 
once, by friendly interest. The sprinkhng of them in the 
crowd were exultant as big boys crowing over the first vic- 
torious fight of a j'ounger brother. Our own men displayed 
the least emotion of all. But it was quite easy to see their 
pride welling up through cracks in their modesty. 
The captured planes were "Albatrosses," swiftest of German 
machines. But the\' had proven far too slow for the 
machines of the latest type flown by our lads. I would Uke to 
give you their name, and the terrific speed at which they fly — 
but I know, without asking, that the censor would not consent 
— and he's right. Be content, therefore, to know that they 
can outfly anything Fritz has got. 
Of the two ".\lbatrosses," one had burned in mid-air, and 
lay a charred wreck on the ground. The other could easily be 
fitted for flying again. Both their pilots had survived, though 
one was badly burned. 
Their conquerors, we were told, could be found at the flying 
fit^ld outside the town, and a very few minutes thereafter it 
opened before our speeding car— a dead flat plain, bounded on 
one side by long low barracks, on the other by camouflaged 
hangars. In front of 
one, surrounded b}' a 
mixed mob of me- 
chanics and flyers, 
stood the victorious 
planes. On their 
painted dragon-fly 
bodies they bore the 
insignia. Uncle Sam's, 
starred hat within the' 
flying circle — v^ry ap- 
propriate, for on this, 
the first morning that 
historic headgear had 
been pitched in the 
arena, its champions 
had scored a knock- 
out. 
In the crowd we 
found two of our crack 
flyers who had recently 
transferred, to us from 
the Lafayettes. One 
had just received the 
newly created Ameri- 
can Order for distinguished conduct. The, other has no less 
than sixteen official "crashes" to his credit, and twice as 
many that are unrecorded. It is said, by his admirers, that 
his total equals, if not surpasses, that of Baron Richthofen, 
the German crack flyer whose death has since been recorded. 
Usually the presence of this one man would be sufficient to 
set any hangar a-buzz with excitement. But to-day he and his 
fellow star were "supeing" in a scene, wliich, in its general 
features, strongly resembled that created in an average Ameri- 
can household by the first visit of the stork. The same atmo- 
sphere of quiet joy, suppressed excitement, prevailed. In 
their pleased interest, indeed, the two stars might have ac- 
ceptably filled the rdle of maiden aunts. 
But though they were "supeing" to-day, it was luck thrown 
on luck to have the chance to meet them. Undoubtedly the 
most spectacular figure in this most spectacular of wars, is the 
great flyer who conducts his duels to the death above the 
thunder and lightnings of the guns. His is a figure that stirs 
even the dullest imagination to wonder what manner of man 
this can be who sets at naught fears and tremors that govern 
most of us, and goes forth daily to slap Death himself in the 
face. 
I sought the secret in tlie star flyer's face. Short and square, 
quiet and kind, bumed and wrinkled by sun and wind, those 
quantities and qualities told nothing. Any farmer has them. 
But the eyes told the tale — bits of grey steel peering through 
narrowed lids as it were between the slits of his armoured soul. 
They were the eyes of an eagle, unconsciously unafraid. 
While I was talking with him they were softened by the 
reflection of his courteous smile. But when his face sets for 
combat — I should not like to see them, as have half a hundred 
Germans, glinting behind the levelled sights of his flame-tipped 
