with such utter disdain
of death that they were raised out of the olden ranks of mere
earth-crawling mankind and became supermen of the air.

Some of these heroic names became household words during the war. These
were the aces of the French, American and German air-forces. The British
adopted a policy in news concerning their airmen similar to that
governing their publication of submarine sinkings. They argued that the
naming of British, Canadian and Australian aces would direct the attacks
of German aviators against the most useful men in the British forces.
They also felt that publicity would tend toward the swagger which in
English slang was "swank" and toward a deterioration in discipline.

Raoul Lufberry, Quentin Roosevelt, son of ex-President Roosevelt, and
Edward Rickenbacher were names that figured extensively in news of the
American air forces.

Lufberry and Roosevelt were killed in action. Rickenbacher, after dozens
of hair-raising escapes from death, came through the war without
injury. The pioneer of American aviators in the war was William Thaw of
Yale, who formed the original Lafayette Escadrille.

Besides these men, America produced a number of other brilliant aces, an
ace being one who brought down five enemy planes, each victory being
attested by at least three witnesses.

The French had as their outstanding aces Georges Guynemer and Rene
Fonck. Guynemer went into the flying game as a mechanician. He became
the most formidable human fighting machine on the western front before
he was sent to death in a blazing airplane.

Lieut. Rene Fonck ended the war with a total of seventy-five official
aerial victories. He had an additional forty Huns to his credit but not
officially confirmed. His greatest day was when he brought down six
planes. His quickest work was the shooting down of three Germans in
twenty seconds.

He fought three distinct battles in the air when, on May 8, 1918, he
brought down six German airplanes in one day. All three engagements were
fought within two hours. In all, Fonck fired only fifty-six shots, an
average of little more than nine bullets for each enemy brought down--an
extraordinary record, in view of the fact that aviators often fired
hundreds of rounds without crippling their opponent.

The first fight, in which Lieutenant Fonck brought down three German
machines, lasted only a minute and a half, and the young Frenchman fired
only twenty-two shots. Fonck was leading two