On November 5 the foregoing letters were solemnly read aloud in every
school, and Guynemer was presented as an example to all French
schoolboys.
* * * * *
The army then prepared to celebrate Guynemer as a leader, and in default
of any place suitable for such a ceremony they selected the camp of
Saint-Pol-sur-Mer, whence Guynemer had started on his last flight. On
November 30 General Anthoine, commanding the First Army, before leaving
the Flemish British sector where he had so brilliantly assisted in the
success, decided to associate his men with the glorification of
Guynemer.
The ceremony took place at ten in the morning. A raw breeze was blowing
off the sea, whose violence the dam, raised to protect the
landing-ground, was not sufficient to break. In front of the battalion
which had been sent to render the military honors, waved the colors of
the twenty regiments that had fought in the Flemish battles, glorious
flags bearing the marks of war, some of them almost in rags. To the
left, in front of the airmen, two slight figures were visible, one in
black, one in horizon blue: Captain Heurtaux still on his crutches, the
other _sous-lieutenant_ Fonck.
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