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U. S. LEADS IN
T I IE title of this narrative
seems to imply
the incredible.
Glances at the
aerial strength of
our own and European countries
show us to be utterly
dwarfed. When our expeditionary
forces entered Mexico
there were not a dozen flyable
machines on the Texas frontier.
And some of us
recalled that Germany
alone had three thousand
aeroplanes and
France and England
mure . . . yet. the
"United States leads
in air war !" Why?
Have you ever
AIR-WAR
by Edward Lyell Fox
heard of the Esquadrille
Americaine?
That is why. The Esquadrille
Americaine
is a flying squadron that has been a part
of the French Army since after the battle
of the Marne. It is composed of Americans.
They are daredevil Americans.
You know the type. You have seen them
often—making headlong tackles on the
football field, diving feet first, spikes
flashing, in a wild slide for third base,
galloping madly across a polo field, diving
from a platform higher than someone
else has dared—they are the youth
of America and their number is legion.
Recall the opening of the German
drive on Verdun. It was swift, sudden
and unexpected. For several days the
French thought it was a feint devised to
draw their men away from the northern
end of the great line so that the Germans
Wasn't He the Greatest EnJ Harvard
Ever Had, or the Man Who Broke the
Record in the 440. or—Well. Never Mind!
He Has Found a Sterner and More Glorious
Sport
could then attack in terrific
force out from Lille
and drive on the coveted
Calais. By the time the
French realized that
Verdun was indeed the
German objective, the
Imperial flyers had
soared above it and its
environs and had succeeded
in mapping out
and photographing every
important military point.
They had recorded the
two railroads, one broad,
the other narrow gage,
that entered Verdun
from the southwest.
These railroads fed the
fortress with ammunition.
The German aviati
irs thus were able to
give charts to their artillery
that enabled the
Krupp guns to spray every foot of these
lines with shell.
So when General Petain assumed the
defense of Verdun, he faced an appalling
problem. He found that there were but
ten days' ammunition supplies in the
fortress and that the only way of getting
more was by an automobile road
running north from Buc to Verdun.
With the two railroads under unceasing
shell fire it was dire necessity that this
highway be kept open, that the German
aviators get no chance to plot and photograph
it as they had everything else.
The fate of Verdun, the fate of France,
depended upon that ribbon of road.
General retain sent to headquarters
an urgent call for flyers. He wanted a
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