For the first time in the war, some Americans found their military adventures in the air, by joining a French fighter squadron known as the Lafayette Escadrille. In 1914 airplanes were used only for reconnaissance and token bombing raids; but the next year, belligerents on both sides introduced aircraft with forward-firing machine guns specially designed for aerial combat. Victor Chapman had graduated from Harvard in 1913 and was studying architecture in Paris when the war broke out. He joined the French Foreign Legion and served in trenches for a year before taking to the sky. Chapman began training with the French air service in September 1915 and became one of the first seven American volunteer pilots in the Lafayette Escadrille. Flying a French Nieuport 11, Chapman took part in the first patrol of the new squadron on May 13, 1916. He wrote his father about flying over the Verdun battlefield, where the French and Germans had been engaged in a massive battle for more than three months.
June 1st, 1916.
Dear Papa: This flying is much too romantic to be real modern war with all its horrors. There is something so unreal and fairy like about it, which ought to be told and described by Poets, as Jason’s Voyage was, or that Greek chap who wandered about the Gulf of Corinth and had giants try to put him in beds that were too small for him, etc.
Yesterday afternoon it was bright but full of those very thick fuzzy clouds like imaginary froth of gods or genii. We all went out. All but I and the Captain got lost and turned back, so we two flitted about over mountains of fleecy snow full of shadow and mist. He reminded me of the story of the last fly on a polar expedition as I followed his black silhouette. I went down to a field near the front and flew again at five o’clock. Then it was marvelous. At 3000 metres one floated secure on a purple sea of mist. Up through it, here and there, voluminous clouds resembling those thick water plants that grow in ponds; and far over this ocean, other white rounded ones just protruding, like strands on some distant mainland. Deep below me I could just distinguish enough of the land now and again to know my whereabouts,—the winding Meuse in its green flood banks or that smouldering Etna, Douaumont. But off to the north, hovering and curveting over one of the bleached coral strands like seagulls—not Nieuports surely! They were the modern harpies: the German machines for the chase. In the still gray mist below now and again I caught sight of a Farman or Caudron sweeping over the corner of the lines to see some battery fire. But as I peered down, a livid white object moved under me going south, with the tail of a skate. “There is my fish and prey,” I thought as I pointed down after the German réglage machine, “but prudence first.” So I searched in the water-plant clouds. Yes, sure enough the venomous creatures are there, as dark specks resembling the larvae one sees in brackish water,—three of them moving the same way. Those are the Fokkers. I did not want to have them fall on my neck when I dived on the fat greasy Boche!
This morning we all started off at three, and, not having made concise enough arrangements, got separated in the morning mist. I found Prince, however, and we went to Douaumont where we found two German réglage machines unprotected and fell upon them. A skirmish, a spitting of guns, and we drew away. It had been badly executed that manœuvre! But ho! another Boche heading for Verdun! Taking the direction stick between my knees I tussled and fought with the mitrailleuse and finally charged the rouleau, all the while eyeing my Boche and moving across Vaux towards Etain. I had no altitude with which to overtake him, but a little more speed. So I got behind his tail and spit till he dived into his own territory. Having lost Norman, I made a tour to the Argonne and on the way back saw another fat Boche. “No protection machine in sight.” I swooped, swerved to the right, to the left, almost lost, but then came up under his lee keel by the stern. (It’s the one position they cannot shoot from.) I seemed a dory alongside a schooner. I pulled up my nose to let him have it. Crr—Crr—Crr—a cartridge jammed in the barrel. He jumped like a frog and fled down to his grounds. Later in the morning I made another stroll along the lines. Met a flock of Nieuports, and saw across the way a squad of white-winged L. V. G. How like a game of prisoner’s base it all is! I scurry out in company, and they run away. They come into my territory and I being alone, take to my heels. They did come after me once too! Faster they are than I, but I had height so they could but leer up at me with their dead-white wings and black crosses like sharks, and they returned to their own domain.
This afternoon we left together, it being our turn for the lines at 12:30. The rolly-poly cotton wool clouds were thick again. Popping in and out of them, I ran upon some blue puffs such as one sees when the artillery has been shooting at aeroplanes. “Strange phenomena, perhaps there exist blue puffs like that.” Yesterday I had fruitlessly chased about such puffs to find the Avions. More smoke balls! There above me, like a black beetle, was the Boche! But well above me, and heading for his lines. For twenty minutes I followed that plane ever in front of me, and inch by inch, almost imperceptibly I gained in height and distance. He veered off to give me a broadside; I ducked away behind his tail; he turned off again; I repeated, but I did not have enough extra speed to manœuvre close to him, though I temporarily cut off his retreat. After three passages-at-arms he got away. Then like a jack-ass I went on to Verdun and found no one. On my return what tales were told! The Boches had come over Bar-le-Duc and plentifully shelled it; two of our pilots had their reservoirs pierced and one had not returned. The town, the station, the aviation field all shelled—40 killed, including ten school children. (And we had word this morning that Poincaré has formally forbidden bombardment of every description, even on arm factories—it might kill civilians.) Yes, this is what comes of getting notoriety. There were disgusting notices about us in the papers two days ago,—even yesterday. I am ashamed to be seen in town today if our presence here has again caused death and destruction to innocent people. It would seem so. That Boche at Luxeuil, by the way, came again after we left, on the day and at the hour when the funeral services were being held. But through telephone they got out a Nieuport escadrille and cut off his retreat, bringing him down on the French trenches. By the papers on him he was identified as a one-time waiter in the Lion Vert now, of course, a German officer.