Twelve Days of Aerial Combat

On the twelfth day of combat, my squadron gave to me

• Twelve gunners gunning,
• Eleven valves a-leaking,
• Ten pilots griping,
• Nine bullets glancing,
• Eight blades not spinning,
• Seven pilots sweating,
• Six bombers laying,
• Five victories!
• Four flaming Fokkers,
• Three Frenchmen fired,
• Two hurtled down,
• And one Nieuport in a pine tree.

Notes:

1. For engineers who are busy subtracting seven pilots sweating from eight blades not spinning, and wondering where the other pilot is - well, there's the one in the pine tree.

2. About "bombers laying" - the Red Baron, before he was a fighter pilot, flew in a bomber. In describing his quandary about whether to bomb a submarine (hard to tell from the air whether it was German!), he said, "We could have flown calmly above it and waited for the moment it surfaced for air to drop our eggs."  

3. Five victories equals one ace. If the victories were by one man. And if they were confirmed. And if it was properly documented - unlike Bob Todd's case.