ROMANCE AND AVIATION

We are gradually coming to learn that war, although more frightful than ever, has not lost all its chivalry. During these many months of artillery and trenching, battle has appeared dreary work without a touch of romance; it has seemed a monotonnous series of incidents no one of which was interesting in itself. One branch of service, however, has lighted up the picture. It is a field where only heroes can serve with success and where heroes can show the stuff they are made of. This field is aviation.

Only yesterday the details of Captain Guynemer's funeral were announced. This most brilliant of French aviators was finally brought down behind German lines, but his life and record had been so glorious that even Germans had to honor him in death. They invited his companions in service to attend his burial and they gave them a safe-conduct across their lines. On that day a group of French planes flying close to the ground went over German lines and landed at a small village, the whole populace of which was showing its respect for the French hero. After the exercises the French aviators were led back to their machines and allowed to depart in safety.

This sort of thing is not happening every day in aviation, but it is happening there more frequently than in any other department. We know of a generally used signal among Teuton and Allied aviators to postpone a struggle until after they meet again. These men, after hours of manoeuvring for positions, will move their planes to signify calling off the duel until some other time and both sides, with the honor of good sportsmen, accept the signal. This takes us back to the age of joust and tourney, to a time when death in battle was no less horrible than it is now, but when the battle itself seemed man's and not the devil's mode of fighting.

Our idea of romance in war is closely associated with single combat and justly so. There is something splendid about two individuals facing one another; certainly much more than in hordes of men joining battle. There are surely many heroic encounters taking place in the infantry, but we cannot hear of these so easily. Aviation at present is a service where single combat must be the feature. Our peculiar interest in it may be the result of its infancy, for the new holds much charm for us. And yet trench fighting does not thrill us in the same way, in spite of its new place in modern warfare. The romantic element in aviation surely lies in the fact that individual wits are battling for supremacy. It is a service which will give us many new heroes to hold in national esteem.