In
addition, he had two bullets in his left arm. Though blinded by blood,
he did not lose his sang-froid, and hastily dived, while the second
airplane continued firing, and a third, furnished with a turret, which
had come to the rescue of its comrades, descended after him and fired
down upon his machine. Nevertheless, he had escaped by his maneuver, and
in spite of his injuries made a good landing at Brocourt. On the 14th he
was evacuated to Paris, to the Japanese ambulance in the Hotel Astoria,
and with despair in his soul was obliged to let his comrades fight their
battle of Verdun without his help.
III. "LA TERRE A VU JADIS ERRER DES PALADINS...."[19]
At Verdun our aerial as well as our land forces underwent sudden and
almost prodigious reverses. Within a few days the Storks Escadrille had
been decimated: its chief, Captain Brocard, had been wounded in the face
by a bullet and compelled to land; Lieutenant Perretti had been killed,
Lieutenant Deullin wounded, Guynemer wounded and nearly all its best
pilots put _hors de combat_. The lost air-mastery was only regained by
the tenacity of Major de Rose, Chief of Aviation of the Second Army, and
by a rapid reconcentration of forces.
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