Slowing down as we descend, the plane glides sweetly over the Meurthe valley. We volplane gently toward the earth. Little by little things begin to look real. The beautiful green moss changes into forests, the black ribbons into railways, and the white ribbons into highways. What I had thought from a distance to be a huge curtain of black smoke, becomes the beautiful city of Nancy. We are only 800 feet above the field. One more spiral and we land.
I examine the machine at once. The fabric of the planes is full of bullet holes.
Many of the planes that went with us have not returned. We are told that some of them will not, for they were seen dropping into enemy territory.
But one by one, the white specks in the sky come in. At last all of our squadron have returned and the grave and worried look leaves the commander's face. He is indeed pleased and does not hide it.
But alas! It is not the same with all the squadrons. There is still time, of course, to find that we are mistaken. The missing planes may appear, but it is to be feared that this night at some of the messes, black bread will be eaten.
The British parliament recognized the brave work of the aviators in the following words:
"Far above the squalor and the mud, so high up in the firmament as to be invisible from the earth, they fight the eternal issues of right and wrong. Every fight is a romance, every report is an epic. They are the knighthood of this war. Without fear and without reproach, they have fought, for they have brought back the legendary days of chivalry, not merely by the daring of their exploits, but by the nobility of their spirit."
Although the great issues of the war were decided, and victory was finally won, by the fighting on the western front, the British campaigns in Palestine and in Mesopotamia were in no small way responsible for the final result. The fighting in this theater of the war was against the Turkish allies of Germany. The Turks were originally one of the Tartar tribes, dwelling in Asia, east of the Caspian Sea. Many of these tribes passed over into Europe, where they are now known as the Lapps, the Finns, the Bulgarians, and the Magyars or Hungarians. More of these Tartar tribes migrated to Asia Minor and adopted the Mohammedan religion. The Turks were one of these. They served first as hired soldiers, but were finally united by their leader, Seljuk, into a strong people called the Seljukian Turks. Their power grew rapidly and soon they captured the city of Jerusalem. They also invaded Europe and captured Constantinople, in 1453, where they have ever since been a menace to civilization.