The Bottle of Death (Flying with the Escadrille Americaine) - 6 December 1916

[WWIAceofAces]

The Escadrille Americaine was no more. Diplomats had decided that a name change was required due to Germany's protest. It had taken time, but a new name was finally adopted. From hence forth the squadron was known as the Escadrille Lafayette.

Our commanding officer was carefully writing the new name on our tally board. My name was near the top; I having scored 10 confirmed victories, plus 1 unconfirmed in the almost seven months the Escadrille had flown. Ten other names filled out the roster, but only two had victories. The two sergeants and myself were the flight leaders for the Escadrille.

Three other names had been erased from the board, but I could still make them out. Between them the three had scored five victories. With the exception of De'Villa, who'd died before orders could be written, all had been promoted to Sergeant. All had been flight leaders as well.

The Escadrille to date had a total of 18 victories in exchange for those three men.

We'd gathered first to recognize the new name of our Escadrille and second to honor those who hadn't made it. In a rare exception to our unwritten rule we all took a sip from the "bottle of death" to the memory of those brave young flyers.

Tomorrow would, hopefully, bring us new victories and, regrettably, most certainly further loses. But today we celebrated and remembered...

[Carl_Brisgamer]

A local campaign I take it?

Have you read 'High Adventure' by James Norman Hall? He was a member of the Escadrille Lafayette and the book recounts his experiences in training and serving at the front. Well worth the read if you have an interest in that period.

There is also an audiobook available on www.scribd.com - https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/255...High-Adventure

[WWIAceofAces]

Yes, a local group/campaign. We have 12 players, but 1 only plays German. We take turns being german, but the campaign is about the Lafayette squadron. My big brother set up the campaign for us based off an osprey book and thenault’s operational journal. So the battles are historical.

Our biggest had 5 Lafayette versus 12 german, some guys played 2 plans but only after their first one got shot down. I shot down 3 germans in that battle. I wrote it up, but haven’t posted it yet cause I am waiting for it to be edited. We were up high and the germans were below us at three different levels. It was pretty cool. We all got shot up pretty bad and one of our guys got shot down. The germans ony lost the 3 I shot down.

We never know what the situation is going to be until we start to play. It may be 2 on 2, or 5 on 1, or 1 on 2, etc. We can be higher or lower, have surprise or be surprised. Sometimes we play more than one game at the same time so everyone is busy. Like one battle where there is 3 on 2 and another that is 2 on 1 so no one is not playing.

The battles are almost never even. There was one where I was the lone german against 5 and I shot one down and flamed another. He dived out of the battle and landed so his pilot would live to fight again. Then I ran away cause the other three nailed me pretty good.

We keep tract of our german pilots too, but none of them are close to be aces. None have or gotten more than 2 victories.

I thought all the stuff Hall wrote was basically fiction, but I'll check it out. Thank you very much.