Roland Garros - the first fighter pilot !


Together with the French aircraft engineer Raymond Saulnier ...




... the French aviator Roland Garros ...



... developed a device with which he turned an airplane with a Hotchkiss M 1909 machine gun mounted in the longitudinal axis in front of the pilot's seat ...




... can fire rigidly forward and aim with the whole machine, which enormously improves accuracy.

So far it had been impossible!

The MG had to shoot through the running propeller (made of wood) and would inevitably have destroyed it and brought the plane to crash!

During experiments, Garros had found out that only about every tenth bullet hits the propeller blades during the shooting process through the circling propeller - and he invented a simple remedy:

The endangered rear sides of the propeller blades - only a very small part of each! - were simply reinforced with metal plates.

When Garros and Saulnier think they have solved the problem, a surprising new one emerges:

The ricochets of the MG bullets ricocheting off the metal plates "splash" everywhere - also into the cockpit, where they endanger the pilot, who is in danger of shooting himself with his own weapon!

In night-long tinkering, Garros now invents a wedge shape for the metal plates that divert the rebounding projectiles at an angle that is safe for the pilot!

Here is the original propeller he developed ...:



And here the whole thing on a "Morane-Saulnier" mounted in a drawing ...:



The air resistance of the two deflector wedges reduces the performance of the "Morane Saulnier L" monoplane considerably, but with the new armament, the machine has become the first real fighter with the rigid forward-firing tubular armament typical of this type of aircraft!






On April 1, 1915, Garros, who serves as a sergeant in the Escadrille (Squadron) MS 23, starts his "Morane-Saulnier" No. 8 to test his new system in an emergency. The next photo was taken shortly before the start, Garros can be seen in the shadow of the machine ...:



He promptly meets four German "Albatros B.II" two-seater in the front area over Flanders ...



... whose crews have just thrown their bombs by hand...

... and are now on their way home.

Three of the German two-seater escapes, while Garros clings to the fourth "Albatros".

At that time, neither German nor French planes had defensive machine guns on board, the only weapon the Germans can use to defend themselves is the Observer's Karabiner 98!



After a few bursts of fire from the Garros machine gun, the "Albatros" crashes while burning. Garros says after landing that it was like a nightmare for him when the enemy plane went up in flames from his weapon.

Roland Garros is thus the first fighter pilot in history who managed to shoot down an enemy plane!

His system with the wedge-shaped protective plates remains unrivaled until the designer Antony Fokker (working for Germany) ...



... succeeds in combining a mechanical interrupter gear of the MG's with a sequence of shots coordinated with the rotation of the propeller, which reliably prevents the propeller from being hit forward when firing ...:



Fokker successfully tested his system on one of his E.III single-seaters at the end of 1915 ...:



At the beginning of 1916 he was able to deliver with the new fighter plane "Fokker D.VII" ...



... already deliver a large number of front-facing fighter planes, each with two machine guns firing forward through the propeller ...:



After two more aerial victories, Garros was forced to land behind enemy lines on April 18, 1915 after an attack on the Courtrai train station by a hit in a gasoline line.

His aircraft and its invention fell into the hands of the Germans, who removed the propeller and, after a brief assessment, immediately sent it to Fokker.

Garros' propeller, in turn, inspired Fokker to invent his interrupter gear.

Garros himself was taken prisoner unwounded and spent (together with a young french capitain named Charles de Gaulle) three years in German captivity before he broke out from the "Kavalier Scharnhorst" of the Magdeburg Fortress in February 1918 ...



... was able to flee to France via Belgium.

There he reported back to his unit immediately, was awarded and promoted to lieutenant ...


... became a fighter pilot again and was able to achieve another aerial victory at the beginning of October 1918.

A few days later, exactly one day before his 30th birthday, Garros was shot down by a German fighter pilot (his name is unknown!) On October 5, 1918 over the village of Vauzieres (Ardennes department) and was killed in the process.

He is buried in the cemetery of Vauzieres ...: