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668 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
new type of flyer that the war has developed.
He wanted men, not to sail
over the enemy's lines and drop bombs
or observe, but "fighting flyers," men
whose sole duty it was to fight, to go up
after an enemy plane and bring it down.
And when Petain demanded "air fighters",
the French supreme command sent
him the Americans. They sent a group
called the Esquadrille Lafayette.
These men already had won a reputation
for bravery and brilliance along the
French front. The compliment that was
paid to them by the assignment to Verdun
was obvious. And they justified it.
Day after day they ascended above the
road from Buc to Verdun—La Voie
Sacree, the Sacred Road—the French
came to call it. Day after day these
Americans fought off the German flyers
who sought to control the fire of their
artillery upon the Sacred Road; and day
after day, munitions rolled up into the
besieged fortress. "They shall not pass,"
the little squadron took for its motto.
And the boche did not pass—thanks to
French bravery and the skill of the
American aviators.
You have read the names Kiffin
Rockwell and William Thaw ? They are
both of the American aerial section in
France. The war made Billy Thawforget
about Pittsburgh. In France, and
feeling the exaltation of the wonderful
soul of the land, he forgot pleasure, and
joined a group of American flying men
who put themselves at the disposal of
the French Army. One morning after
breakfasting on the burned French coffee—which
everybody gets used to—
rolls and jam—Billy Thaw trundled out
his aeroplane and went looking for the
boche near Soissons. Like a relief map,
every rise and depression in the earth
showing in exaggeration, the countryside
spun out from under his propeller.
Below him shrapnel burst, tiny fleecy
white clouds, and off to the left there on
a range of hill, little gusts of dirty yellow
came and went—the French high
explosive shells were searching the German
positions.
Presently, he discerned the wing
spread of a Fokker . . . then another
. then a third German machine,
an Albatross. With his own and their
motors racing over a hundred miles an