WAR

The Germans were making the most of team fighting in the fall of 1917,
exploiting the development of the Geschwader. The Storks lost
men—Guynemer, Heurtaux, Auger—killed or wounded.
some of their best
Fonck selected new men for a team of his own, much as had Boelcke, with
the backing of Capitaine d'Harcourt. He lectured them, flew with them, tried to
teach them everything he knew. They went out on daily patrols, venturing farther
afield every day. He started them out on Drachen and when this stirred up the
German single-seaters, his men received their baptism of fire. When fights developed
this way he had his work cut out for him to keep an eye on his pupils
and keep his own tail clear. He scored no victories but his men learned the ropes.
Soon he had a team that could work smoothly. They flew a V-formation of
nine to 12 aeroplanes in flights of three or four machines grouped likewise in Vs.
Patrols of Allied machines would frequently meet over Flanders during this period
and join forces on the spur of the moment, French, British, and Belgian, to go
looking for trouble across the lines.
September 11, 1917, had been a black day for the Storks. It was the day
Capitaine Guynemer had failed to return. Since no one had actually seen him go
down, it had been almost impossible not to hope that he might have been in a
hospital somewhere, or even a prisoner. Days had passed, however, and hope
had evaporated.
Some time later it was learned that the Germans had officially credited an
officer named Wisseman with having shot Guynemer down.
Fonck was told the news by Commandant Brocard whose broad shoulders
seemed for once to be bending under the load. Fonck had his Spad rolled out
and took off alone, partly in the hope of finding a Boche, and partly just to be
alone. Within ten minutes he spotted a German photo-reconnaissance two-seater
directly over the French lines. He climbed in a wide circle around the aeroplane,
keeping it just a speck in the distance. When he had the height he wanted, Fonck
turned toward the two-seater, coming up to it
high. The observer was leaning over
the side with his heavy box camera poised in a rack. The pilot gazed either
straight ahead or at his instruments, oblivious to everything else. Fonck dived,
steeply. He watched the two-seater grow in his sight, the details of the machine
and its crew standing out clearly in the bright sky. Leather helmets. Black
crosses edged in white. He tightened his grip on the control stick, his finger on
the firing button. The tracer bullets flared out and hit the enemy machine in the
engine then walked back along the fuselage to the pilot's cockpit. Pieces flew
back in the slipstream. Fonck let up on the firing button. As he flashed past the
aeroplane he saw it was starting to burn. It reared up in a half loop and as Fonck
leveled out of his dive, the observer, who had fallen out of his rear cockpit at
the top of the loop, dropped past Fonck's wing tip, arms flung out, hands
clutching at the empty air. The two-seater, now flaming like a torch, roared down
after him, its passage marked by a long black pall of smoke.
Such, for Fonck, were the funeral ceremonies for Guynemer.
139
Fonck.