Airplane

I turned from this extraordinary spectacle in midair to witness another which in all my life at the front I have never seen equaled in horror and awfulness. The picture of it has haunted my dreams during many nights since . . . I saw that a general fight was on between the remaining ten Fokkers and the eight Spads . . . Like a flash [Lieutenant] White zoomed up . . . and made a direct plunge for the enemy machine . . . without firing a shot the heroic White rammed the Fokker head on while the two machines were approaching each other at the rate of 230 miles per hour! It was a horrible yet thrilling sight . . . Wings went through wings and at first glance both the Fokker and the Spad seemed to disintegrate. Fragments filled the air for a moment, then the two broken fusilages, bound together by the terrific collision fell swiftly down and landed in one heap on the bank of the Meuse [River]!

—Eddie Rickenbacker, Fighting the Flying Circus, 1919