FRENCH FLYING MEN.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15133, 30 January 1917, Page 5

FRENCH FLYING MEN.

GUYNEMER’S GREAT RECORD. LONDoII January 18. Reuter’s Paris correspondent reports that Captain Delorme, an aviator and famous bomb-thrower, was killed on Sunday while practising. The Academy of Sports has awarded the annual prize of 10,000 francs—about ,£450 —to Flight-Lieutenant Guynemer, who has brought down 25 enemy aeroplanes. I In the Allies’ Flying Corps it is agreed that the greatest fighting aviator in the world is a French lad of but one-and-twenty summers. This gallant son of the tricolour is Georges Guynemur, whose name is a boast througout France and a dread to German airmen who have christened him the “Fokker Killer.” During his twelve months ’service in the French Flying Corps he has risen from private to lieutenant, won the Medaille Miiitaire, been made a Knightcommander ■of the Legion d’Houneur, received the Croix do la Guerre with seven bars, and has had the unique distinction of being mentioned in an order to tho nation. To be mentioned in despatches is a distinction cherished by every soldier, but to attain mention in an order to the nation means that the Government considers the heroic individual mentioned as serviceable in the very highest degree. Strange enough, the “Fokker Killer,” unlike his predecessors, Pcgond, and Guilhert, hitherto considered to he the three greatest aviators, had the utmost difficulty in being admitted to the service. Five times the. hoy tried in different parts of the country to get passed into the army, and each time he was rejected. Guynemur was at his wits’ end to know what to do. Suddenly a bright idea struck him. He pitched a tent in an aviation field near Paris and watched for his chance. It came on the third day. A monoplane was temporarily deserted. He slipped into it and soared away up into the clouds. -The commander of tho aerodrome witnessed the daring feat and interested himself in this audacious youth. Finally, Guynemur was admitted to the French Flying Corps under a special ruling. During the first month he performed the remarkable feat of bringing' down six German machines single-handed. He pilots one of the smallest aeroplanes ever constructed, which is popularly known as “Le Yieux Cradles” (Old Charley). Georges is a Parisian. His father is a manufacturer at Compiegne. When the war broke out he was a student at Paris, living with his grandmother, to whom he is devotedly attached. '