First the French soldiers, then the Germans climbed out of their trenches to stare up at a most unusual sight. On this morning of October 5, 1914, they watched two airplanes in mortal combat—the first dogfight in the history of aerial warfare.

The French craft, a Voisin bomber, was returning from a mission when Sergeant Joseph Frantz spotted a German Aviatik far below him. With a nod to Corporal Quenault, his observer and machine gunner, Frantz banked into a steep dive, cut off the German’s flight path, and forced him to turn back. Then the shooting started. Quenault began firing point-blank at the surprised Aviatik, but because his Hotchkiss machine gun was semi-automatic and often jammed, he could only get off one shot at a time. From the beginning, the Voisin had the advantage. Its machine gun was mounted in front of the pusher engine, so it could fire straight ahead at the enemy. But since synchronized firing through the propeller was not yet developed, the Aviatik could fire only to the sides and to the rear above its tail. Round after round went into the German’s fuselage. By now, the two planes were a mere 600 feet above the rolling French hills.

All this time, French soldiers, covered with the mud of the trenches, cheered on their countrymen. Quenault had responded with a total of 47 rounds—most of them hits. Finally, the Aviatik flipped upside down, spurted out a cloud of burning gasoline, flamed, and dropped like a dead weight straight to the ground. In less than 10 minutes, the war’s first dogfight was over, and a whole new chapter in aerial warfare had begun.