THE FIRST FIGHTER PILOT
The Roland Garros Tennis tournament is a two weeklong event held In Paris at the end of May every year. The event draws more than 600,000 spectators to watch the world’s best tennis players compete to be the Champion of the French Open. Not surprisingly if you google the name Roland Garros today, you’ll see pictures of tennis courts and perhaps Rafael Nadal, who’s won a record 14 times. Therefore, it may be surprising that Roland Garros was not a great tennis player. He was a pioneering aviator, a hero of France, and the world’s first fighter pilot.
Eugene Adrien Roland Georges Garros was born in the small town of St Dennis on the island of Reunion in 1888. Reunion was, and still is, a colony of France. (Though they don’t like to use the term colony anymore). This Hawaii-like island is the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Madagascar. To get there today you must fly into the Roland Garros International Airport. Roland’s ancestry and name promised great things to come for this small boy from Reunion. His family traced their ancestry to French Corsairs, legalized Pirates who raided and pillaged with the backing of the crown. The Garros Corsairs added another level of mystique to young Roland by naming him after a famous French Knight and the hero of the epic poem, “The Song of Roland”. As an adult Roland may not have been as concerned with a lady’s modesty as medieval knights, but he certainly fulfilled the prophecy in other ways. He was a warrior, a nonconformist and utterly fearless. But Roland was not grown up yet, and at the age of 4 his father moved the family Saigon in Vietnam.
This was the age of the French Empire and of French colonialism. Saigon was part of French Indochina, and the French that settled there typically did so in isolated communities. This was not the case for the Garros clan. They lived on the muddy banks of the Saigon River with the locals. Roland grew up playing with the local Vietnamese and Chinese kids that lived along the river. Fearing his son was “turning native” Rolands’s father sent him to boarding school in mainland France. The trip was miserable for Roland, he missed his mother and hated his father for sending him away. It is most likely in these dark hours after being sent way alone that the non-conformist, individualistic corsair Roland Garros was molded.
As a student Roland was unexceptional. As an athlete he was anything but. He won cycling races and excelled at most sports. Ironically those skill didn’t translate to the tennis court where was a pedestrian player. Besides athletics Roland worked on improving his French. The French upper class at
the time spoke a very proper form of the language, much different than the creole dialect he was used to from the colonies. Popularity among his peers was paramount for Roland’s survival so far from home and family, and Roland had to rework his linguistic skills in order to fit in. Roland’s father insisted on
Roland going to law school and learning Latin. To Roland the language was dead and should remain that way. Instead, after attending business school and being wowed by seeing the Gregoire sports cars at the Paris Auto show, Roland pooled all his resources to start his very own Dealership. Setting up shop right
near the Arc De Triumph, Roland Garros Sports Cars was a triumph indeed for the now 20-year-old. With sales booming, Roland was lavishing in what is known today as the Belle Epoque, or beautiful times in France. The fifteen years before the start of World War 1 were incredibly profitable if one was in the
right business. People were taking advantage of huge technological breakthroughs like the telephone, lightbulb, and automobile. When not selling cars, Roland was cruising around Paris in his sports car, dining in cafés with his well-off friends and seducing women in the city of lights. Roland the pilot was still to come, but Roland the playboy thriving. Seemingly having it all, another invention would show Roland everything he hadn’t known he was missing.
The Paris Air show is held every odd year and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors. It’s an opportunity for both civilian and military contractors to show off their wares and sell to big potential clients. The first year the “Air Show” was held in 1909 there was no actual flying. Held in the Grand Palais, the International Exposition of Airplanes was the best place to see these inventions up and close and personal. Louis Bleriot, the first man to fly across the English Channel had his monoplane hanging above the crowd below a glass domed ceiling. Attending the air show reminded Roland of a reoccurring dream of flying, not in an airplane, but flying all the same. Here was the answer to that dream. Roland had a serious problem however once he woke up and saw the prices these airplanes were selling for. In 1909, as in 2023, aviation was an expensive hobby. The adage still holds true, the best way to become a millionaire in aviation is start as a billionaire. Virtually every airplane for sale was beyond Roland’s means, even with the dealership doing well. At least that was the case until Roland laid his eyes on the Demoiselle. The Demoiselle, which can mean either maiden or dragonfly, was an aircraft built by inventor Alberto Santos-Dumont from Brazil. A legend in his own time Santos-Dumont is considered the inventor of the airplane to this day in Brazil. Santos Dumont wanted to create a mass-produced aircraft that would be inexpensive compared to his competitors. Small and made from bamboo and fabric the Demoiselle cost only about 1/3 of the other airplanes for sale. Weighing in at just over 300lbs this maiden may have been slightly heavier than the ladies Roland typically escorted down the Champs Elysees but no less beautiful. With a 30HP 2 cylinder engine the Demoiselle’s performance was just advanced enough to be dangerous, and what great romance isn’t a little bit dangerous? Pooling his resources Roland ordered his Demoiselles. Sir Roland had found his Fair Maiden.
Roland received his lady in 1910 and parked her at the Issy-les-Moulineaux airfield outside Paris. There was virtually no formal instruction on how to fly in those days, especially in a single seat aircraft. Even today, the first flight for pilots in fighters such as the F-35 are made with no instructor onboard
because only single seat models are made. The first flight for any pilot in that 90-million-dollar airplane is solo. Modern pilots, however, have the benefit of 100’s of flight hours in other airplanes as well as formal ground and simulator training. Roland had none of that.
With virtually no training, it’s not surprising that Roland’s flying career got off to an inauspicious start. Taxiing to position into takeoff, Roland taxied in front of a much larger Farman pusher plane on final approach. Seeing the larger plane at the last second Roland assumed the fetal position and soon found himself surrounded by the wreckage of his new bird. The Farman had essentially landed on top of the Demoiselle. The Farman had only minor damage, but the bamboo and fabric Demoiselle was a complete write off. It’s only the generosity of the Farman pilot who agreed to pay for a new plane that kept Roland’s aviation dream alive. Not everyone can claim they’ve had their first plane crash prior to their first takeoff, but Roland would be anything but conventional. Receiving the order of his second plane, Roland again attempted his first flight. After thoroughly clearing the final approach, Roland was able to get the little bird airborne and fly about the length of a football field at an altitude of 3 meters. He was now among the very select few who had ever broken the surly bonds of earth. Roland would continue to fly every morning when the “smoke from a cigarette would rise straight up”. At this time in 1910, most people had never seen an airplane. Many did not even believe it was possible to fly a heavier than air machine. It was that curiosity and disbelief that led promoters to hold local airshows. Promoters would advertise aerial demonstrations and paying customers would come to see the invention for themselves. One day, as Roland continued to train, a desperate promoter showed up at the airfield looking for a pilot to fill in for an act that had dropped out. Roland volunteered once he discovered he would be billeted at the best possible hotel in the area (Pilots can be incredibly picky about their housing arrangements). Roland flew in the “air show” doing takeoffs, landings, and steep turns. This is what passed for aerobatics at the time and was still more dangerous than aerial demonstrations done today. After this serendipitous start, Rolands rise as a demo pilot can only be described as meteoric. Roland made a name for himself by flying in weather that many other pilots wouldn’t fly in, even when the smoke from his cigarette didn’t float straight up. As Roland’s popularity grew so too did his earnings from airshows. At that time there were all sorts of prizes one could collect by being the first person to fly to this or that island, or to cross this channel etc. Even in his small underpowered bird Roland began collecting these prizes and needing to spend less time at the dealership.
A major windfall would come at the expense of the man who had created his beautiful Demoiselle. At an airshow in Hungary Santos-Dumont crashed his Demoiselle when a bracing wire on the wing snapped. This crash nearly killed Santos-Dumont who vowed never to fly again. No longer
needing an airplane of his own, Santos-Dumont gifted one of his personal Demoiselles to Roland. Not believing his luck Roland picked up this new Demoiselle and planned to fly it back to his airfield at Issy-Les-Moulineaux. Flying back Roland detoured over Versailles when suddenly the engine quit. He attempted a forced landing on the road from Versailles to Paris. As he approached the street the tail of his Demoiselle snagged a telegraph wire which brought the plane cashing down. Roland originally thought he had broken his back, but a doctor later diagnosed him with a broken tailbone. With a broken
ass and his 2nd totaled plane in just 5 months you might expect Roland to give up, but some people just can’t be discouraged.
Roland’s exploits landed him a spot at an airshow in New York. Always wanting to see America he jumped at the chance. Not able to bring his mechanic with him, Roland teamed up with a new mechanic Jules Hue. Of Vietnamese descent, Hue must have reminded Roland of his youth in French Indochina. A quiet but incredibly capable mechanic Hue would provide his services from 1910 into the beginning of World War I. During this Airshow Roland teamed up with John Moisant who was an American pilot, inventor, businessman and revolutionary. In this sense the word revolutionary is not metaphorical but literal. Moisant led two failed coups in El Salvador before the air show in New York. John Moisant and his brother Alfred concocted an idea to have Roland and the other European pilots stay in America and go on tour. In an age of traveling circuses, the brothers decided the make the first “Flying Circus” that traveled by railroad from town to town. Roland accepted their offer and began a tour that reminds me of the curse, “May you live in Interesting times”. Many circuses at the time were complete frauds, charging expensive tickets and then failing to deliver. As the “Moisant Flying Circus” could often not fly do to weather they got to experience firsthand the type of frontier justice that Americans could resort to if displeased. Spectators shot pistols into the air and in one show burned the
grandstands to the ground. The pilots were pressured into taking off in more and more dangerous weather. In a few cases Roland took off and landed in nearby towns just to get away from the angry crowd.
At one point during the tour Roland was announced as, “The pilot of the World’s Smallest Airplane.” This backhanded compliment wounded his Gallic pride, so Roland acquired and began flying the Bleriot monoplane. Larger with a more powerful engine he could fly faster, farther, and higher in the
Bleriot. This combined with a few more spectacular crashes in his Demoiselle convinced Roland to make the switch permanently. The Demoiselles would always be his first love, but she had wounded both his body and pride too many times.
The show in New Orleans would be a definitive stop on the trip. Roland loved the town and the Cajun French spoke in the city. It felt like home with the bastardized French and cultural mixing that was common on Reunion and in French Indochina. The French Quarter’s nightlife certainly didn’t disappoint the young demo pilot. Most fighter pilots do not miss an opportunity to explore a new country or new city and Roland didn’t miss his chance in the Big Easy. At a New Years eve celebration Roland entertained showgirls and pilots by playing classical piano at restaurant. Roland’s considerable skills seduced at least one of the showgirls that night, but their tryst was cut short the following morning when another pilot burst into Garros’ room and announced that Moisant had crashed. Crashes were a much more common occurrence in the early days of aviation than they are now. Although still dangerous, these crashes tended to be much more survival able than today because of the slow speeds and the fact that the lattice work of wood and fabric created natural crumple zones that absorbed most of the impact of the accident. On this day in January however, the crumple zones were not enough to save John Moisant. Moisant had taken part in the Michelin Cup, a contest for the longest flight duration which came with a 20,000 francs prize. Effects of weight on flight characteristics were still not fully understood and Moisant had crashed after stalling his heavily loaded airplane on landing. He did not survive the crash. The FAA airport identifier for the New Orleans Airport is still MSY for Moisant Stockyards. The other pilots, although shaken by the death of their friend, decided the show must go. In
flying, the sad truth is you either know someone who has died in a crash, or you will.
The remaining stops in the Americas passed with the same sort of excitement and uncertain results. One thing that constantly hamstringed tickets sales was the unavoidable fact that people could see the airplanes flying above the town without having to buy tickets to the show. Despite this the tour
was a moderate success. Either way Roland after a tour of flying, cheating death, and partying with showgirls Roland longed for home. Once back in Paris Roland no longer found the same sort of happiness he had once reviled in with his old group of friends in the café’s. He no longer cared for many of the trivial things being discussed, who was wearing what and who slept with whom. He wanted to fly, and if not flying wanted to talk about flying. This is a common curse for pilots. However, Roland was no longer content with simple flying demonstrations. He began flying air races. These races were not sprints but multi-day affairs that involved pushing both the airplane and pilot to their limits. Engine failures and forced landings in famers fields due to lack of fuel were commonplace. One can only imagine what rural farmers in Spain thought as Roland landed speaking a language they didn’t understand in an invention they had never seen. During these races Roland often used maps created by the Michelin tire company to help aid in his navigation. These maps were created for the expanding automobile industry and not only included roads but also local eateries. Only the best restaurants received stars which is how the prestigious Michelin Star rating system got its start. If you want to horrify a foodie you might want to remind them the most coveted award in the culinary arts comes from a tire company with a mascot who looks like the Pillsbury Dough boy.
Always pushing the limits Roland set his sights on new heights, literally. Altitude records were highly publicized affairs that often-offered prizes to the daring individual who would fly higher than anyone before. Unlike Icarus whose wings melted when he flew too close to the sun, airmen on these flights fought bitter cold and lack of oxygen. Still flying in open cockpit monoplanes with no oxygen, frostbite was common, and it’s probably only the slow ascents that let pilots somewhat acclimate to the environment that kept most people from passing out. Roland would set an altitude record climbing to 17,000’ being one of the first individuals to experiment with supplemental oxygen. Having coaxed every ounce of performance from his Louis Bleriot monoplane Roland made a
change to the Morane-Saulnier monoplane after a test flight. He signed a contract with Morane-Saulnier as a test pilot and salesmen. After Roland’s altitude record was broken, he saw the futility in such flights. Altitude records were set, then broken, then broken again. He started searching for a record that once
set couldn’t be broken.
Roland’s goal was to become the first man to fly across the Mediterranean. On September 23, 1913, Garros’s overloaded Morane Saulnier sluggishly took flight outside of Saint Raphaëll on the French Riviera and charted a course to Bizerte in Tunisia. Taking off around Sunrise, his plane had 200 liters of fuel and 60 liters of castor oil. He would need just about every drop. His gnome engine quit twice but he was able to get the engine running before losing too much altitude. Garros landed in Tunisia at 1.40 pm after flying 780 kilometers (485 miles). He only had five liters of fuel left. Before he left France Roland had bought the morning newspaper and stuffed it into his jacket for extra insulation. He removed the newspaper which had the current date and had been printed in France as proof that he had indeed began the day in France. Roland’s incredible list of accomplishments garnered him the attention of current French president Raymond Poincare. Poincare awarded Roland France’s highest decoration, La Legion of Honor”. The award had been created by Napoleon just 100 years earlier and is given for incredible achievements both in civil and military domains. Roland had been named after a knight of France, but now he had literally been named a Knight of France. Aviation was seen as a bridge not only between lands but peoples. In this age where someone could have breakfast in France and dinner in Tunisia people hoped old animosities would fall to the wayside. However, as Roland tried using the airplane as an instrument of peace, Europe raced to war.
In 1888 Otto Von Bismark said, “One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.” His words proved prophetic. Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on June 28th 1914, and all of Europe was at war by August. Not a citizen of mainland France Roland could not be conscripted but volunteered to fight anyway. In a few short weeks the Germans had advanced to where they could see the Eiffel Tower on the horizon. Built for the Paris world Fair in 1889, the Eiffel tower was originally supposed to be demolished 20 years later. Now it looked like the Germans would be the wrecking ball. Roland may have been from Reunion, but he was Parisian through and through and couldn’t stand the thought of the city of lights being occupied by the German “huns”. The Germans were considered uncultured compared to Parisians”. Fortunately for those in Paris, a French reconnaissance plane spotted a gap in the German lines. The French infantry poured into the Gap and were able to force the Germans back to the Marne and Aisne Rivers. Once established there, the Germans dug in, and the trench warfare associated with World War 1 began to take root. Roland was assigned to squadron MS 26. The MS stands for Morane-Saulnier, the plane flown by Garros and everyone else in the squadron. Early in the war aircraft were only used for reconnaissance as the technology to make them true weapons of war had not yet been invented. The problem was how to best arm an aircraft. Most believed in outfitting two seat aircraft with an observer who doubled as a gunner and had a machine gun that could swivel. Having been a single seat pilot his entire career, the
thought of adding someone to his airplane must have horrified Roland. Even today, single seat fighter pilots pride themselves on being self-sufficient and one with the airplane. With the high workload of single seat fighters perhaps its arrogant to insist on a single seat fighter, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Roland naturally sought ought a way to arm a single seat fighter.
Single seat fighters have advantages over two seaters in that there is a lack of weight and added drag. This was even more important in the underpowered planes of World War 1 than it is today. The problem was how to affix and aim a machine gun. Roland understood that aiming would have to be accomplished by aiming the entire plane, i.e. pointing the plane at your intended target. The natural spot for the gun would be in front of the pilot to reduce what’s called parallax error, or error in aiming due to the gun being offset from the pilot’s reference point. With that solved, the next and more challenging problem came with how to fire a machine gun through the propeller arc. One of the craziest solutions attempted was by the British in the B.E. 9. They tried what was called a “pulpit” fighter. In this configuration, a gunner’s cockpit was mounted in front of the propeller. This was incredibly hazardous to the gunner up front. You can imagine the British gunners were not too enthused about sitting directly in front of a lethal propeller in an age were landing accidents were commonplace.
With the help of his mechanic Jules Hue and a special dispensation from Headquarters, Roland was allowed to leave the front in December of 1914 and went to the Morane-Saulnier factory to begin work on an entirely different solution. Their originally concept was a gear that would synchronize the machine gun with the propeller so the gun would not fire if the propeller was in front of the muzzle. After destroying several propellers over the course of a month it was clear that the synchronizing gear was not working. Still transfixed with the idea of a forward firing machine gun aimed by flying the plane, Roland and Hue installed steel wedges on the back of the propeller blades. These had grooves that were designed to deflect the rounds through and not back at the pilot. Roland and Hue knew this was a bastardized solution but wanted to prove the efficacy of a true single seat fighter.
After a couple months of poor weather, Garros was back at the front with MS 26 with his modified Morane-Saulnier. On April 1st, 1915, he took off on all Fools Day, on what most people assumed was a fool’s errand. Roland spotted a German Albatross observation plane, closed in under fire from the observer and opened fire from 100’. He unloaded a 24 round cannister in two seconds. The Morane Saulnier shook violently as bullets ricocheted off his own propeller but the steel plates held. The albatross crew must have been shocked and began an immediate steep right-hand turn. Luckily for the Germans the rounds had passed harmlessly through the mostly hollow areas between the wing spars, shredding the fabric but little else. The only critical areas on a plane at that time were the fuel tanks, engine, and crew. Following the Albatross Garros reloaded with one hand while flying with the other. Turning inside the bigger albatross and firing another 24-round burst these rounds found the Albatross’ engine which quickly caught fire. The dying albatross’ turn increased into a death spiral trailing smoke the whole way. The pilot had taken a bullet to the back of the head and died instantly; in many respects he had the more merciful death. The observer fought the controls to pull out of the dive but with the dead pilot’s weight slumped on the controls and the airplane on fire the observer was only able to bring the nose up momentarily. The albatross had suffered too much. Eventually the plane succumbed to the damaged, nosed over, and crashed behind the French lines. To paraphrase Ed Codbleigh in The First Fighter Pilot the crash was “a funeral pyre, wind blowing eastward, carrying with it the spirits of two human beings’ home to Germany”. Roland had proved the efficacy of a forward firing machine gun. The corsair now had his ship, the knight had his steed and Roland was no longer just a pilot. He was the world’s first fighter pilot.
The world’s first fighter pilot visited the crash site soon after. Everything of value had been looted from the airplane. The only things left were the bodies and debris. The pilot had been thrown clear from the plane in the crash and his wounds clearly visible. The observer on the other had had burned with the plane and was a terrible sight. The steel deflector plates had worked, but it sickened Roland to see the effects of his invention. Sickened or not Rolands’s resolve was not broken, after all the funeral pyre was on French soil. Roland would send two more German crews to their deaths in April quieting any remaining doubters and putting the Germans on notice. I’m not sure if the Germans intended to bring bad luck on anyone who would shoot down their observers by naming the plane after the albatross, but bad luck would soon find Roland Whether it was the metaphorical weight of the albatross crews he had downed or not, Roland was forced down behind the German lines on April 18, 1915
The French attribute this to a clogged fuel line, the Germans claim to have shot him down via ground fire. The result was the same for Roland who found himself behind enemy lines. He tried setting fire to his Morane Saulnier but the fire was slow to catch and both Garros and his airplane were quickly taken into custody. The ground troops realized that this airplane was special, and it was turned over to a brilliant inventor with questionable morals, Anthony Fokker. Fokker would analyze the deflector plates and be tasked with recreating or improving the design. Roland was taken as a prisoner of war at gunpoint.
Transitioning from a life as a famous pilot and Parisian playboy to a life as a POW could not have been easy for Roland. He maintained a posture of defiance against the Germans throughout his imprisonment and was shuffled from camp to camp. Eventually he ended up at the fortress of Zondorf near the polish border. As the years dragged on this prison in particular garnered a vicious reputation and Roland was transferred to the prison of Gnadenfrei in Alsace. Outside the war raged on, inside months turned into years and Roland’s morale plummeted. He seemed to have almost given up. Roland would write a letter to his lover in Paris and say: “Screw reasonably, but screw. Follow your tastes and your instincts. Live free for both of us”. Perhaps that’s the line that should be written on the walls of the French Open. Although it seems at times Roland had given up, it was at Gnadenfrei that he seems to have gotten a second lease of life. The prison at Gnadenfrie was probably converted from a school and had tennis courts of all things. Roland befriended the Commandant of the cam and was able to acquire a racket and some balls from the red cross. Inside the handle of the racket were some maps and survival items needed for an escape. It’s unclear exactly who was helping Roland, but help he received. After linking up with a fellow prisoner named Anselme Marchal, he now had friend who spoke fluent German. The two were able to obtain German Officer uniforms and in the twilight hours literally walked out the front of the prison. Out of the pot and into the frying pan Roland and Marchal were anything but free. Still stuck behind German lines they had an epic journey through Brunswick, Cologne, and other smaller cities until hitting the Dutch border. They slept in cemeteries at night and traveled by train during the day. No one is quite sure how they acquired the means for all their travel but they did and Garros was free of German occupied territory on Valentines Day February 14th, 1918.
After three years of captivity the corsair of reunion and Knight of the France was a shadow of his former self. He was malnourished. His hair was thinning, and eyesight was diminished. He was reserved and somewhat melancholy. I assume that’s a normal response to spending 3 years as a POW. Back in France this was a crossroads for Roland. The French government getting back their famous aviator had no need to send Roland back to the front. At this point the propaganda uses of fighter pilots were well understood. With the Americans now fully established in the war the French government sent Roland on a press tour in New York to thank the Americans for their support. It was obvious however that Roland’s heart was not in this endeavor. Normally very suave with the press his interviews were short and failed to convey the sense of gratitude the French government was going for. Roland was a corsair, a knight,
and a fighter pilot and he wanted back to the front.
After returning to Paris from New York Roland enjoyed a brief dalliance with the dancer Isador Duncacn. Duncan wrote in her memoirs that she danced for Roland one night in a fountain in the Place de la Concorde, at the foot of the Champs Elysées. One can only imagine what it was like for Roland, after three years of captivity, watching this woman dance just for him in fountain at midnight in Paris. World War 1 was still raging just miles away, but its guns couldn’t reach the two lovers on that night. Days later in September of 1918 Roland Garros returned to the front lines of WW1, returning to number 26 squadron now SPA 26. Nowlonger were the French flying the underpowered Morane Saulnier, with deflector plates, the Squadron were now equipped with SPAD XII’s. Huge advancements had been made while Roland was a POW. The SPAD had a V8 engine sporting 220 HP, the single monoplane had been replaced two studier wings, and two Vickers machine guns were mounted behind the propeller with working synchronizer gears. Roland’s experiment may have been short lived, but it proved beyond a doubt the efficacy of forward firing machine guns for single seat fighter. The airplanes were not the only thing about the squadron that was different however, virtually none of the pilots that Roland knew from 26 Squadron in 1915 were still alive in 1918. Despite the changes in aircraft,
personnel, and tactics Roland begin flying back on the front lines. He barely had any time flying the new SPAD, had to sneak glasses into the cockpit with him so he could see, and had just gotten off a 3 year hiatus from flying, and was flying in combat. But a fighter pilot is a fighter pilot and on October 2 Garros
scored his 4th confirmed kill. Roland claimed a 5th kill later that day but it could not be confirmed, and Ace status alluded him.
Three days later on Garros was flying as his Squadron Commanders wingman over the Ardennes forest when they attacked a lone observation plane behind German lines. This may have worked in 1915, but his commander should have saw it for it was in 1918, a trap. They were attacked by at least 7 Fokkers orbiting nearby. The Fokkers, using tactics developed over the course of the war were able to split the Frenchmen and prevent them from providing mutual support. Outnumbered and outgunned over enemy territory Garros flew and fought for his life. These fights through frantic, could often last 5- 10 minutes or more. French civilians from the town of Saint morel watched the fight and reported seeing a SPAD explode. The most likely cause would be an incendiary round hitting Garros’ fuel tanks. The man who had survived numerous plane crashes, high altitude flights, crossed the Mediterranean, shot a machine gun into his own propeller, and survived 3 years as a POW was killed on October 5th.
He was a day shy of his 30th birthday and just over a month away from seeing the Germans sign an armistice to end WW1. Roland’s body was recovered and laid to rest in the town of Vouzier under a stone obelisk. He is often misremembered today as a great tennis player. The truth is stranger than the
fiction. He was a fearless aviator, a corsair, and a fighter pilot. But for all that, I like to remember him as the man by the fountain.