"I glanced at my watch. One minute to 11:00, thirty seconds, fifteen. And then it was 11:00 A.M., the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. I was the only audience for the greatest show ever presented."
Don't waste this fighting spirit, Pershing warned, "An armistice would lead the Allied Armies to believe this the end of fighting and it would be difficult if not impossible to resume hostilities with our present advantage in morale in the event of failure to secure at a peace conference what we have fought for."
Around this time Eddie Rickenbacker went for a balloon but found himself fighting four Fokkers from Baron von Richthofen's Flying Circus squadron, now led by Hermann Goering. Rickenbacker recognized them as well-practiced veterans of air warfare. Boxed in by the four, he decided not to wait for the kill and started attacking instead, managing to shoot one down.
It was not quite one month after the Red Baron's death and ceremonious burial by his enemies, that America's Ace of Aces was laid to rest among a "huge pyramid" of flowers, with "hundreds of officers from all branches of the service" in attendance.
