WAR

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A striking demonstration of the sturdiness of the Spad occurred in September
1916 when Guynemer was shot down for the sixth time—also thereby demonstrating
his own sturdiness. (Once he had crashed in no-man's-land and had been
rescued by the poilus who had spontaneously erupted out of the trenches and
charged over the front to get him and bring him back.) On September 23, he
shot down three German machines in five minutes— 11:20 to 11:25. At ll:25Vi
(as he later wrote his father) the shell from a French 75 went through the
water reservoir in front of the cockpit, spraying wreckage in all directions and
starting the covering of his left top wing which promptly peeled bare in the slip
stream. The Spad dropped in a tailspin from 9000 feet with Guynemer struggling
to right the machine all the way down. He managed to level out but without being
able to slow down much, hitting the ground at about 110 miles an hour, shearing
off the landing gear while what was left of the wings folded up and tore off.
The wreck caromed into the air again, coming to rest upside down about 120
feet away from where it first lit. Guynemer had actually crashed before his final
victim of that morning hit the ground!
"The Spad is solid," he observed laconically to his father. "With another I
would now be thinner than this sheet of paper. I landed within 300 feet of the
battery that demolished me. They weren't shooting at me but they brought me
down all the same . .
."
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