eached his aerodrome safely--these are items in
a long list of feats of which the character can only be realised when
it is fully comprehended that the British Air Service accounted for some
8,000 enemy machines in the course of the War. Among the French there
was Captain Guynemer, who at the time of his death had brought down
fifty-four enemy machines, in addition to many others of which the
destruction could not be officially confirmed. There was Fonck, who
brought down six machines in one day, four of them within two minutes.

There are incredible stories, true as incredible, of shattered men
carrying on with their work in absolute disregard of physical injury.
Major Brabazon Rees, V.C., engaged a big German battle-plane in
September of 1915 and, single-handed, forced his enemy out of action.
Later in his career, with a serious wound in the thigh from which blood
was pouring, he kept up a fight with an enemy formation until he had not
a round of ammunition left, and then returned to his aerodrome to get
his wound dressed. Lieutenants Otley and Dunning, flying in the Balkans,
engaged a couple of enemy machines and drove them off, but not until
their petrol tank had got a hole in it and Dunning was dangerously
wounded in the leg. Otley improvised a tourniquet, passed it to Dunning,
and, when the latter had bandaged himself, changed from the observer's
to the pilot's seat, plugged the bullet hole in the tank with his thumb
and steered the machine home.

These are incidents; the full list has not been, and can never be
recorded, but it goes to show that in the pilot of the War period there
came to being a new type of humanity, a product of evolution which
fitted a certain need. Of such was Captain West, who, engaging hostile
troops, was attacked by seven machines. Early in the engagement, one of
his legs was partially severed by an explosive bullet and fell powerless
into the controls, rendering the machine for the time unmanageable.
Lifting his disabled leg, he regained control of the machine, and
although wounded in the other leg, he manoeuvred his machine so
skilfully that his observer was able to get several good bursts into the
enemy machines, driving them away. Then, desperately wounded as he
was, Captain West brought the machine over to his own lines and landed
safely. He fainted from loss of blood and exhaustion, but on regaining
consciousness, insisted on writing his report. Equal to this was the
exploit of Cap