Frank Leaman Baylies

His initial posting, on November 17, 1917, was to Escadrille 73 as a Corporal; he was the 13th member of the squadron, and was assigned airplane number 13. As Baylies wrote home: "Cannot afford to be superstitious."[4] A month later, he was reassigned to Escadrille 3 to be a Spad pilot. Beginning on February 19, 1918, and stretching to 31 May, he scored a dozen victories, two of which were shared with André Dubonnet.[1] He also survived being shot down on March 28; after landing in no man's land, he rescued the altimeter and watch from the wreckage and outran a detachment of German infantry to the nearby French trenches.[4]

Baylies flew a SPAD S.XIII such as this for Escadrille 3.

Then came a spectacular performance on 9 May. It was sparked by a disagreement between René Fonck on one hand, and Baylies and his friend Edwin C. Parsons on the other. Although Fonck's three dozen victories spoke for themselves, the American duo believed that his attitudes in his actual speech was atrocious. Perturbed by Fonck's highhanded lectures on aerial success, the two Americans bet Fonck a bottle of champagne that one of them would shoot down an enemy plane before Fonck. Baylies took off despite hazy weather and shot down a Halberstadt CL.II. Back at the airfield, rather than pay off the bet, a sulky Fonck badgered the Americans to change the terms of the bet to whoever shot down the most Germans that day would win. Lingering fog kept Fonck grounded most of the day. It was well into the afternoon before it cleared enough for him to take off at 1500 hours.[5] Between 1600 and 1605 hours, he shot down three enemy two-seater reconnaissance planes. A couple of hours later, he repeated the feat. Understanding the importance of reconnaissance planes, with their potential to direct intensive artillery fire onto French troops, Fonck concentrated his attentions upon them; six shot down within a three-hour span proved it.[1]