It was over the nearby Parroy Forest, directly east of Lunéville, only some 11 months after the outbreak of World War I, that the first aerial victory by a fighter aircraft armed with a synchronised machine gun occurred on July 1, 1915, as Lieutenant Kurt Wintgens of the German Army air force forced down an "Aeronautique Militaire" Morane-Saulnier L parasol monoplane. Neither member of the French air crew was seriously wounded, while the French aircraft's Gnome Lambda engine received multiple hits to disable the aircraft.