WWI Planes: Crews, Cockpits, Crashes, Contraptions | HistoryNet

Ready for trouble, pilot Sergeant Georges Brou mans a Browning machine gun and his observer, Sub-Lieutenant Jean Billon de Plan, raises his Hotchkiss to practice dealing with an attack from behind in a newly delivered Maurice Farman MF.11bis of escadrille MF.62 at Breuil-le-Sec aerodrome in September 1915. On April 27, 1916, Billon de Plan shot down an attacking Fokker E.III fighter. His luck ran out on October 10, however, when he was shot in the head by one of three attacking Albatros D.IIs and his wounded pilot, Sergeant Roger Thuau, was forced to land their Nieuport 12bs in German lines. Thuau was later visited by his three assailants and their leader, who was credited with him as his 14th victory, expressed his regrets at Billon de Plan’s death and left him a photograph signed “to my brave enemy,” from Lieutenant Wilhelm Frankl commander of Jagdstaffel 4. (U.S. Air Force)