FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1917
1917 - 0370.PDF
APRIL 19, 1917- NOTES FROM PARIS. By DOUGLAS W. THORBURN. Travelling.—No one thinks of travelling for pleasure inthese strenuous times, which is fortunate, for there is little pleasure to be found that way, especially in a journey, forexample, from London to Paris and back—and more especially in the wintry spring weather which has marked the comingof our official " summer time." To begin with, there is much to be done before one obtains a passport and a militarypermit to use it. I was able to show that I was going to Paris on important business not unconnected with the war,and probably my application was made the easier by reason of the fact that my business was on behalf of the ex-LordMayor of London, while the present Lord Mayor was good enough to endorse it. What further guarantee of goodbehaviour, apart from an honest face, could even the Foreign Office desire ? The journey by way of Southampton andHavre is tedious, to put it mildly. Many hours are spent in cold and uncomfortable sheds watching other people havingtheir luggage and passports examined. Many more hours are wasted at Havre because the steamer lands you thereearly in the morning, and the train leaves for Paris at 5 o'clock in the evening. However, " c'est la guerre." I know onedistinguished Anglo-French gentleman in aviation circles who gets to Paris in much shorter time, but he has the inestimableadvantage of a Rolls-Royce, a diplomatic passport available via Folkestone and Boulogne, and a winning smile. Thenext time I go across I should like to hire a Handley-Page. The Customs officers could amuse themselves by walkingabout and inspecting my luggage en route. I am more than ever convinced that aerial travelling will be the mode of thefutureT Life in Paris.—The beauty and charm of Paris arebeyond question, even in war time. Its countless endless avenues, its broad boulevardes, its spacious Place de la •Concorde, are all without equal. Its shops are as artistic as ever, and its cafes and restaurants still busy and amusing,but there is .no doubt the war has been felt more there than in London. The serious shortage of coal has affected lifein many directions. Restaurants close at 9.30, but there are no restrictions on the sale of intoxicants, with the excep-tion of absinthe, up to that hour. On two days a week afternoon tea is prohibited, and one cannot buy cakes orconfectionery of any kind. French is the only language permitted on the telephone, and I had to produce my pass-port before I could send a telegram to London. The recent great successes of the Allied forces have put new life intoParis, aiul with the advent of spring and the opening of the theatres nightly, after being closed four nights a week duringthe winter months, the city is regaining some of its old gaiety. Guynemer.—I have been staying for three weeks at thesame hotel as the famous Captain Guynemer, whose brilliant record in the French flying services is well known all overthe world—and perhaps best of all in Germany. On the day on which I first met him he had brought down his 36th enemymachine, and on the previous day he had accounted for three others. His bedroom is littered with souvenirs of his variousvictims. One morning he showed me a machine gun from a Boche aeroplane which he had hit fairly in the loadingmechanism—a fine shot. He had also secured from another recent victim a German compass and sundry charts, soakedin blood—a gruesome trophy. In reply to my comment that he seemed to have made a mess of some one, he said, " No, that was Lieut. S . I only shot him through the leg. He is a prisoner, and a very nice fellow indeed. Igo to visit him occasionally . . . But it is Boche blood ! " Guynemer has a striking personality. He is young—22, I believe—slender and very upright, with a pale face and darkexpressive eyes not easy to forget. I learned from him one interesting fact which does not appear to be generally known,namely, that throtfgh his mother he is directly descended from Sir Walter Scott. He is a born pilot and a magnificentshot, and looks like winning more decorations yet, though I don't know how he will find room to wear them all. Likethe other members of the famous "Storks" squadron to which he is attached, he has a sort of roving commissionover the lines with his Hispano-Suiza Spad, and it is told how, on one recent occasion, he was at the end of his ammuni-tion when he saw another enemy machine somewhere under- neath him, and decided to try and capture it. Diving towardsit, he commenced to circle around in order to let the pilot observe the well-known distinguishing mark which all" Storks " bear on their planes. The Hun evidently saw it and made a forced landing, and Guynemer landed beside himand made him a prisoner. The remarks of the Hun on finding he had been caught by an aviator whose only effectiveweapon happened to be a revolver are said to have been quite unprintable ! Guynemeu is one of the greatest pilotsFrance has produced, and it is gratifying to be able to claim him as at any rate partly Scotch ! Old Friends.—I got quite accustomed to meeting Guy-nemer about the city on his Sigma, a small two-seater car of Paris manufacture, with a sporting body enamelled white,but one day while motoring some miles outside the fortifica- tions I had an unexpected encounter on the road. A bigcar was going—not too slowly—in the opposite direction, and I caught a fleeting glimpse of our old friend Pierre Verrierat the wheel. We both pulled up and came back for a chat, and his numerous friends at HerRlon and elsewhere will beglad to hear that he was looking quite his old self again, and showing no traces of the serious accident which befelhim some time ago. Another friend who will be well known to many Hendon pupils was Mr. Frank Delves, who was atone time learning under Mr. Clifford Prodger at the Beatty School, and is now manager in France for the Sperry Gyro-scope Co. Of this gentleman and his firm I hope to be allowed to write at greater length next week. The Limit.—While I think of it, I should like to make anote of one incident which occurred when Delves and I were talking together one evening at a certain famous resort whichI will not indicate more particularly than to say it might be regarded as the unofficial headquarters of the AmericanFlying Squadron in Paris. The room was fairly full, and Delves was showing me a document of a somewhat confidentialnature dealing with aviation. While we were reading it I found a youth in the uniform of an officer in a French colonialforce was calmly looking over our shoulders also reading it. At once I asked Delves if this was a friend of his, and heturned round and asked what the Dickens—or words to that effect—the youth meant by his behaviour. He replied in thecoolest possible fashion, " Oh, it interests me very much! " I must confess that for some minutes we were so astonishedwe could think of no suitable retort. English Self-Taught.—I met one morning a Brazilianfriend who speaks French well, and English not quite so well, though well enough, and mentioned the fact that I had justseen an artificial leg factory on fire. (One is always seeing something new in Paris.) Fortunately it was soon over andthe damage was slight. My friend,, on learning that I was on the spot when the outbreak occurred, said :—" That wasvery interesting. And did you wait until the—how do you call it in English T—the Salvation Army arrived—" . . ,I had to explain I could not have spared the time. ••Air-Power."ff- IN this book, the latest work in collaboration of Messrs. Claude Grahame-White and Harry Harper, the object has beento enforce the lesson that " in the future a nation which dominates the aerial highways will dominate also those of theland and sea; that a dominion of the air must mean, ulti- mately, the dominion of the world." Written so as to beunderstood by the general reader who may be unacquainted with the technicalities of aviation, the book first deals withthe use of aeroplanes in war, after which " Problems in Con- struction " ; " Our Policy After the War " ; and " Factors ofSafety " take their turn. In " Popularising Travel by Air " some hints are given as to the use of aeroplanes on a com-mercial scale for cross-country travelling, and this is further enlarged upon in the section headed " The Commercial Eraof Flight," in which the authors wax prophetic, and consider the possibility of flying from New York to London and backagain in 48 hours, with a first-class fare each way of ^300. The book, which is illustrated by a number of photographsdepicting the construction of a modern type aeroplane in the Grahame-White works, is published by Messrs. Chapman andHall at 7s. 6d. net. The Arrest of Sub-Lieutenant Navarre. SOME excitement was caused in Paris recently by Sub- Lieut. Navarre, who drove a large motor car through the streets, knocking over half-a-dozen policemen, several lamp- posts, and doing other damage. He was arrested on Monday and charged with attempted manslaughter. It is explained that since he was severely wounded in an aerial fight in June last, he has shown symptoms of an unbalanced mind, and this is to form the subject of an enquiry. 370
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
