as evolved. Nobly, too, did the men
of all nations rise to these heroic and dangerous opportunities. The
Germans were the first to boast of the exploits of their fighting
airmen, and to us in Britain the names of Immelmann and Bolcke were
known long before those of any of our own fighters. The former claimed
not far short of a hundred victims before he was at last brought low
in June, 1916. His letters to his family were published soon after his
death, and do not err on the side of modesty.

On 11th August, 1915, he writes: "There is not much doing here. Ten
minutes after Bolcke and I go up, there is not an enemy airman to be
seen. The English seem to have lost all pleasure in flying. They come
over very, very seldom."

When allowance has been made for German brag, these statements throw
some light upon the standard of British flying at a comparatively early
date in the war. Certainly no German airman could have made any such
complaint a year later. In 1917 the German airmen were given all the
fighting they required and a bit over.

Certainly a very different picture is presented by the dismal letters
which Fritz sent home during the great Ypres offensive of August, 1917.
In these letters he bewails the fact that one after another of his
batteries is put out of action owing to the perfect "spotting" of the
British airmen, and arrives at the sad conclusion that Germany has lost
her superiority in the air.

An account has already been given of the skill and prowess of Captain
Ball. On his own count--and he was not the type of man to exaggerate his
prowess--he found he had destroyed fifty machines, although actually he
got the credit for forty-one. This slight discrepancy may be explained
by the scrupulous care which is taken to check the official returns.
The air fighter, though morally certain of the destruction of a certain
enemy aeroplane, has to bring independent witnesses to substantiate his
claim, and when out "on his own" this is no easy matter. Without this
check, though occasionally it acts harshly towards the pilot, there
might be a tendency to exaggerate enemy losses, owing to the difficulty
of distinguishing between an aeroplane put out of action and one the
pilot of which takes a sensational "nose dive" to get out of danger.

One of the most striking illustrations of the growth of the aeroplane
as a fighting force is afforded by the great increase in the heights
at which they could scout, take photograph