But it must be more than 600, and might well be 700 or 800. Your
Guynemer, our Guynemer, will never be surpassed: not because he forgot
to hand over to his successors, rivals, and avengers the sacred flame
which in France can never go out, but because genius is an exceptional
privilege, and because the present methods of fighting in the air are
not in favor of single combats but engage whole units.
You will also love to hear about Guynemer as an inventor, and the
creator of a magic airplane. Some day this airplane will be exhibited;
and perhaps some of your little friends have already seen at the
Invalides the machine in which Guynemer brought down nineteen German
airplanes. On November 1, 1917, thousands of Parisians visited it; and
it was strewn with magnificent bunches of chrysanthemums, to which many
people added clusters of violets.
In Guynemer the technician and the marksman equaled and perhaps
surpassed the pilot. Captain Galliot, who is a specialist, has called
him "the thinker-fighter," thereby emphasizing that his excellence as a
gunner arose from meditation and preparation.
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