the officers' mess, where the captured flyer exprest his appreciation of the exceptional treatment he had received, and told of the high regard in which the English held the German flyers. That night he was sent to a German prisoncamp. Boelke was a good-looking young chap of twenty-five, thin, wiry, of the quick, graceful type usually associated with airmen.1 Kiffin Rockwell, the American aviator, brought down his fourth German airplane in September, and so was only one short of the number that would rank him among stars of the air service like Guynemer and Nungesser, who were now chronicled by name in French bulletins after each success. Flying near Verdun at about 3,000 meters, Rockwell attacked a double-seated German airplane just beneath him. He killed the gunner with his first volley, and probably wounded the pilot, for the machine immediately began to descend in a circular spiral. Rockwell plunged in pursuit, caught up with the German at 1,800 meters, and riddled him with bullets. He saw him fall near the trench-lines. In the act of descending to verify the result, the American was attacked from above by two Fokkers. A swift turn which "banked" his Nieuport almost vertically saved his life. He tried to maneuver to engage each foe separately, but, after a brief fight, finding his ammunition exhausted, decided to retreat, and succeeded in escaping unhurt. On September 23 Rockwell came to his death, mortally wounded by a German airman, over the town of Thann. His body fell in reconquered territory near the spot where Rockwell, who was from Atlanta, Georgia, had shot down his first adversary five months before. Rockwell, at the time of his death, was serving as a volunteer in the Franco-American Flying Corps on the Verdun front. A few hours prior to his last engagement he had been promoted to the rank of second lieutenant, but died without knowing of the new honor. He already had received the Military Medal for shooting down a German two-seater near Hartmansweiler-Kopf. He had beaten down another before Verdun and had participated in a thrilling combat. with a strong German force. Sergeant Rockwell was one of 1 Herbert Bayard Swope in The World (New York). a the first American volunteers to join the Foreign Legion. He was regarded in French aviation circles as an "ace,' name given to the most skilful and daring pilots. Lieutenant William Thaw, of Pittsburgh, before he was wounded, and Rockwell, made a formidable fighting pair. They frequently were in the air together and always chasing an adversary. Rockwell had fought thirty-four air battles since recovering from his last wound, or an average of more than one a day. When he met his death he was returning from a bombing expedition of which he was one of the fighting-machines that furnished the escort. The one absorbing topic in Paris on September 25 was a series of successful airplane raids in German territory. No fewer than 56 combats were fought by French airmen in a single day, during which four German machines were destroyed and six others badly damaged. Next day French airmen fought 29 combats and brought down ten German machines, while seven others were damaged. Guynemer, in one flight, brought down his seventeenth and eighteenth machines. Two French airmen performed the astounding feat of flying to Essen, the seat of the Krupp works, where they bombarded this main center of Germany's gun and ammunition supply. The airmen were Captain de Beauchamp and Lieutenant Daucourt, who traveled over 500 miles of German territory in daylight, launched twelve bombs, in spite of being fired on by anti-aircraft guns, and returned safely to their own lines. For the first time two airplanes, with a full load of bombing material, had covered a distance of 250 miles. The Allies lost many machines, however, in the course of September. Britain's list was 74 for the month. On September 29 more than twoscore German, French, Paris reported and British airplanes met with disaster. that French airmen, in battles in the air with Germans in France, had accounted for twenty-six airplanes, while Berlin recorded the bringing down of twenty-four Allied machines, twenty of them on the Somme front. Weather conditions late in September were exceedingly advantageous for aerial operations and air-corps on both sides were busy. The French War Office recorded the destruction of twenty three German airplanes. On the Somme front alone, there were twenty-nine combats. The British report said that five German airplanes had been destroyed, making a total of twenty-eight. Berlin reported the destruction of twenty-four Allied airplanes. On September 27, Sub-Lieutenant Nungesser, whose exploits had made him the best known of the French aerial fighters and the rival of the German, Boelke, outdid his previous achievements by bringing down two German machines and a captive balloon. This brought up to seventeen the number of aircraft destroyed by this aviator. Norman Prince, who originally was from Beverly Farms, Mass., died on October 14 in a French field-hospital of injuries received in a fall with his airplane, when both his legs. were broken. He was a nephew of Dr. Morton Prince, of Boston, who at the time of Norman's death was in Paris. Frederick H. Prince, father of the aviator, lay at the same time dangerously ill at his home in Massachusetts, stricken with typhoid fever. News of his son's death was withheld from him through fear that the announcement might have serious consequences. Frederick Prince, Jr., elder brother of the aviator and himself a member of the American corps, was at his brother's bedside when the end came. Prince was the third of the Franco-American Flying Corps. to meet death within a few months, Chapman, on June 23, Rockwell, on September 23. Prince was a graduate of Harvard University, practising law in Chicago when the war started, but he gave up his practise and went to France, where he was soon attached to the French aviation service. He had been decorated for gallant and distinguished service and mentioned a number of times in dispatches for activity in air-fighting. He was considered a brilliant and courageous pilot. A largely attended memorial service for Prince was held in the American Episcopal Church in Paris where the French Government was represented by Colonel Vallière and several of the Sergeant's comrades in the flying corps who had left the firing-line and attended the service, as did several French aviators. The death of Prince was a fresh reminder of the extent to which America was already represented in the world-struggle. Within a few weeks. three young men, Chapman, Rockwell, and Prince, had lost their lives. These young Americans had gone to the front in the spirit and temper of Crusaders, having had an eager and compelling desire to serve the cause of Democracy as menaced by Prussian militarism. Captain Boelke, the famous German aviator, in the course of an air-flight on October 28, came into collision with an enemy airplane and was killed, and his machine was landed within the German lines. The day before he had shot down his fortieth adversary. Boelke had been the,most spectacular figure among thousands of aviators flying at the front. He had seemed to bear a charmed life. As late as September it had been reported that he had escaped almost certain death on five different occasions when his airplanes were almost shot from under him. Boelke started in the Imperial Flying Corps as an observer, later becoming a pilot. His steady eye, sure nerves, and courage soon sent him to the fighting detachment of the service, where his duties were to meet and fight off French and English battle-planes and reconnaissance-machines. In this he was more successful than any other aviator. He always flew alone, managing his machine and its gun by himself. Boelke was a native of Dessau, and had taken up aviation in peace times as a sport. Official figures for 1916, announced in Berlin, claimed that German aviators had been victors in a majority of the aerial battles on all fronts, and that Germany had lost fewer battleplanes than her antagonists. The total losses of airplanes on both sides during 1916 were said to have been 1,005. Of these the Entente forces lost 784, the Germans 221. On the West Front alone both sides lost 920, and of these 180 were German war-planes. Guynemer had brought down his twenty-sixth German airplane, which fell in flames in the vicinity of Maurepass in the Verdun region. Germany produced one superman of the air in Lieutenant Baron von Richthofen, who came into prominence early in 1917 when he had brought down his fifty-second airplane, the greatest number at that time brought down by any aviator of any army. The nearest rival so far as known was Guynemer, who was believed to have shot down forty German machines. Richthofen, until 1917, had been comparatively unknown. His rise began soon after the death of |