A Privileged Life Style
Roland Garros was a young man of independent means; enabling him to indulge in expensive motor cars and to also fly the embryonic aircraft of that pre-Kaiser war period. He won great acclaim at pre-war aerial meetings, and in July 1914 Garros was in Berlin; making exhibition flights in his Morane Parasol. By the evening of 3 August it was obvious that war with France and Germany was inevitable. Garros had no intention of presenting himself and his aircraft as prisoners of war to Germany; his dilemma was to make a getaway from under the noses of his German hosts.
Escape from Berlin
His daring night escape from a Berlin airfield belongs with the classics, but Garros was undismayed by the odds. Pointing the Morane at an area clear of obstacles he swung the propeller and before his machine bolted into the darkness he hauled himself onto the wing and clambered into the cockpit. Somehow he coaxed the Morane into the air and navigating by the stars he carried out an amazing escape. Back on French soil he wasted no time in offering his services to the French Air Service, where the aggressive Garros saw it as his duty to restrict the activities of his German counterparts with whatever means it took.
The Garros gun
Early attempts to mount a machine gun on a tripod to fire above the propeller blades proved unrewarding; should the gun jam, which was fairly common, it was impossible to clear the stoppage in flight. Garros hit on a solution that was basic and also extremely daunting; the outcome was the installation of deflectors on his propeller. Garros reasoned that a fair number of bullets would strike his propeller but enough would pass through intact to down an enemy aircraft. It was a desperate measure and opposed to engineering logic but Garros was unperturbed by the odds.
First successes
Perhaps it was significant that Garros should launch his device on April Fool’s Day 1915. His initial encounter was with four Albatros 2-seaters over the French lines north of Paris. At first the Germans paid scant attention to his Morane as it bore down on them. Their disdain turned to horror when they became aware of flames shooting between his propeller blades and one of their comrades fell away out of control. So close did Garros fly to the doomed Albatros, that his companions presumed the Morane had clipped his upper wing. Meanwhile Garros returned to the fray and calmly despatched a second Albatros, which erupted in a ball of fire.
Back to Berlin
It was a crude, semi-suicidal weapon but in a brief encounter the bold Garros had dramatically changed aerial combat. For almost three weeks he ranged unopposed in his particular sector; a period when 5 German 2-seaters fell to his gun. But time was running out for the intrepid Garros; when on 19 April his long-suffering Morane finally succumbed to the stresses being imposed on it. Garros made an emergency landing behind enemy lines, and before he could destroy his machine he became a prisoner of war for the second time. The identity of its pilot was soon revealed and once again Garros and his plane were on their way to Berlin.
Fokker’s reply
Anthony Fokker was summoned to make an appraisal of the Garros device. He summarily dismissed it for its crudity and with his design team he set about the creation of his own interrupter gear. After an operation involving several days of concentrated effort, Fokker was able to demonstrate the synchronised gun installed in an Eindecker scout. In no time several examples became operational and it was the Allies’ turn to be driven from the skies. The so-called Fokker ‘scourge’ had begun.
A second escape
Garros’ career had been marking time during his sojourn as a P.O.W. but in January 1918 he made another sensational escape. His guards were not averse to bribery and on a pitch-black night he was flown to freedom from an airfield near Cologne. He was soon in the air again, but the law of averages was against him and in October 1918 he fell to the guns of a Fokker DVII.
It was a fitting tribute that his name was commemorated with the Roland Garros Tennis Stadium in cosmopolitan Paris.
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