Most of the machines we met were handled in a manner far above the German average. Each night our pilots brought in exciting stories of the chase. Although they were a higher class of fighting men than we had hitherto flown against, the Germans still showed a reluctance to attack unless they outnumbered us by at least three to one. One lone German was induced to take a fatal chance against a British scout formation. By clever manoeuvring, at which the hostile airman was also quite adept, we managed to entice him to attack one of our machines from behind. As he did so, a second British machine dived at him, and down he went, one of his wings breaking off as he fell. I can best illustrate the German tactics of the time by telling the experience of one of our faithful old photographic machines, which, by the way, are not without their desperate moments and their deeds of heroism. All of which goes to show that the fighting scouts should not get all the credit for the wonders of modern warfare in the air.
