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By Root 2462 0

airspace. The Russians offered only one obstacle, a talent for antiaircraft fire, but their guns were too few, and it was a simple matter for the German pilots to route their missions through vast areas of empty countryside. Though Richthofen treasured every moment in the air, the routine was numbing and as the weeks passed, he began to pursue targets of a different kind, cavalry and infantry. Few Russian soldiers had ever experienced an assault from the air, and Richthofen discovered that entire regiments could be sent into panic by the machine-gun fire from one German plane. This was hardly sport. For Richthofen the marvelous joy of climbing into the cool air each day was dulled by the utter sameness of the duty he was to perform. The skills had become second nature: finding his way by map or by landmark, another basket of eggs dropped on some target whose importance had no meaning to him. He thought too often now of the Eindeckers, the single-winged, single-seat planes whose pilots needed no observer, planes unencumbered by bombs. When the weather kept him on the ground, he passed his time dreaming of flying alone, no orders, no maps, nothing on the ground to distract him. The passion and the instincts were the same that he had carried into the forests, but there was a difference. In the clouds, your prey was seeking you as well, two hunters stalking each other. He could not imagine it without feeling a sharp surge of raw excitement. The perfect hunt.

NEAR BAR-LE-DUC, FRANCE—MAY 24, 1916

THE RIDE HAD BEEN TYPICAL MISERY, THE OLD FRENCH BUS SEEMING to roll on wheels of iron, the flat bench seats no better. The bus was jammed with soldiers, and Lufbery was pressed against the window, could only stare out, another man’s shoulder digging deep into his back. He suffered in silence, but the other passengers were a raucous group. He could tell from their talk and their youth that the men were new recruits, this bus one of hundreds that bounced and rattled their way toward the fighting around Verdun.

It had begun in mid-February 1916, a carefully constructed plan by the German High Command to break the yearlong stalemate in the West by seizing the ancient French fortress. The capture of Verdun, and the French defenses that surrounded it, would strike a blow against a powerful position that stood squarely between the southern flanks of the German army and the open roadways to Paris. But Verdun’s strategic importance was overshadowed by the symbolic meaning of the place, a defensive site that had defended the plains along the Meuse River since the time of the Romans. German planners knew well that the loss of Verdun would be catastrophic to French morale, and could possibly cause the French government to lose their backbone for continuing the war. But as precise as the planning had been, the execution was marred by delays, bad weather and bad timing, and when the German troops finally launched their assault, the French were aware of what was coming. Though the German push had obliterated the front-line French defenses, the fortress itself had been held by a valiant defense the Germans could not destroy. What the German High Command had predicted would be a quick and decisive blow stretched instead into month after month of futile attacks. The combined loss of men was staggering, more than a million casualties, an incomprehensible human disaster, the most costly battle in the history of war.

LUFBERY HAD LEARNED OF THIS CONVOY OF BUSES PASSING NEAR the pilot training center, their route carrying the troops through the village of Bar-le-Duc, close to the airfield at Behonne. He had been given a seat only at the insistence of an officer at the airfield, the passengers grumbling as they made space for him, a narrow slot against the window, the worst seat on the bus. He didn’t know their unit, didn’t know if the men even knew each other at all. But they were sharing the adventure now, had passed the time with bawdy songs, bad voices and guilty laughter, wearing the innocent smiles of young men who do not yet know what awaits