WAR

under the stress of diving or violent manoeuvring. The danger of wing collapse
was not so great as to mean certain death, obviously, for Navarre scored most
of his dozen victories at Verdun with diving attacks in a Bebe, and was, as we
have seen,
an inveterate stunter.
The Bebe was armed with a single Lewis gun fixed to the top wing in such
a way as to fire straight ahead over the propeller. The gun was aimed by means
of a ring-sight arrangement on the cowling in front of the cockpit. The lines of
sight and fire were regulated at the target range on the ground to converge at 150
metres or about 500 feet. Most pilots, however, were not such good shots as to
be able precisely to gauge distance in combat whilst the adversary and the Bebe
were both moving in three-dimensional space, and so preferred to close in to
point-blank range. Aside from the complex problems of co-ordination inherent in
deflection shooting (any shooting in which the target is elsewhere than straight
ahead), there was the problem of a severely limited supply of ammunition—the
47 rounds in the drum of a Lewis gun could be fired off in five seconds and the
pilot of a Bebe could not afford to hose an area of sky in order to score a hit as
could the observer of a German two-seater armed with a 500-round Parabellum.
Navarre was a virtuoso who could shoot as well as fly. He brought some
of his victims down with only a half-dozen rounds.
On April 4, 1916, shortly after he was promoted to sous-Lieutenant, Navarre
flew three patrols—one at dawn, one in the afternoon and one at sunset—in
the course of which he shot down jour enemy aeroplanes, an incredible performance
for the time. Only one machine was officially credited since the other
three had fallen behind the German lines.