A few days later a motor breakdown
compelled him to land at Ingelminster, north of Courtrai, and he was
made prisoner.[18] The aviators, like the knights of ancient times,
sent one another challenges. Sergeant David--who was killed shortly
after--having been obliged to refuse to fight an enemy airplane because
his machine-gun jammed, dropped a challenge to the latter on the German
aerodrome, and waited at the place, on the day and hour fixed, at
Vauquois (noon, in June, 1915, above the German lines), but his
adversary never came to the rendezvous.
[Footnote 18: The romantic circumstances under which he escaped in
February, 1918, are well known.]
The Maurice Farman and Caudron airplanes were used for observation. The
Voisin machines, strong but slower, were more especially utilized for
bombardments, which began to be carried out by organized expeditions.
The famous raids on the Ludwigshafen factories and the Karlsruhe railway
station occurred in June, 1915. It was at the battle of Artois (May and
June, 1915) that aviation for the first time constituted a branch of the
army; and the work was chiefly done by the escadrilles belonging to the
army corps, which rendered very considerable services as scouts and in
aerial photography and destructive fire.
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