But mothers are not considered by those in authority - his application was denied. But the whole frightful episode really constituted a considerable shock to the nerves of our squadron. Lieutenant Green who bad been leader of this formation came in a few minutes later and confirmed the sad intelligence we had received by telephone from the French artillery battery which had witnessed the collision in mid-air. The fighters on the front can never understand why the authorities back home deny them necessary arms and ammunition. We air-fighters cannot understand why we cannot have parachutes fitted on our aeroplanes to give the doomed pilot one possible means of escape from this terrible death.
Pilots sometimes laugh over the comic end of a comrade shot down in course of a combat.
It is a callousness made possible by the continuous horrors of war. If he dies from an attack by an enemy it is taken as a matter of course. But to be killed through a stupid and preventable mistake puts the matter in a very different light. For the past six months the German airmen had been saving their lives by aeroplane parachutes. A parachute is a very cheap contrivance compared to the cost of training an aviator.