He managed to send coded messages back to France and arranged for the delivery of two tennis rackets with hollow handles, containing a map of Germany and a felt hat with which he hoped to escape unseen. Meanwhile, Garros was busy plotting his escape from a German POW camp. Fokker’s planes began shooting down French and British aircraft, in what was known as the “Fokker Scourge”. “From then on Europe’s skies were German,” says Guittard. Garros failed to destroy the aircraft and a young Dutch engineer, Anthony Fokker, was soon at work on an improved synchronization system, which was fitted onto German planes. “He tried to set fire to the plane to hide its secrets and went into hiding, but was caught by the Germans.” “We still don’t know whether it was a mechanical failure or an enemy hit that forced him to land,” says Guittard. His success came to an abrupt end on April 18 when he was forced to crash-land his plane on the German side of the lines. Guittard describes him as “the first fighter pilot in history”. aircraft in 1910.īuilding on research by engineer Raymond Saulnier, Garros helped devise a synchronization system that enabled pilots to shoot through a plane’s propellers without hitting the blades.īy April 1915 his aircraft was equipped with the system and the French pilot rapidly scored three victories over the German air force, earning a commendation for bravery. Roland Garros poses in front of a Demoiselle B.C. “At the time there was one pilot steering the aircraft and a second at the back who carried a gun and tried to fire at enemy planes,” says Guittard. He took part in reconnaissance missions and bombings, but was frustrated by technological limitations. Garros was exempt from the draft but decided to enroll anyway, convinced that airborne warfare would have a major role to play. “He was a pioneer, certainly one of the very best to have vanquished the Mediterranean,” says Guitard, referring to the Frenchman’s successful crossing from France to Tunisia on Septem– the first in history. When war broke out in the summer of 1914 Garros was already a celebrity in the budding world of aviation. He was one of the finest pilots of his generation, and one of the many tragic victims of World War I. But he never picked up a single tennis medal. “When they discover his story, they are usually very surprised.”Įugène Adrien Roland Georges Garros, better known as Roland Garros, was certainly a sports buff. “Visitors often think he was a great champion from the past or a senior tennis official,” says Michaël Guittard, the French Open’s museum curator.
Yet few of them will know what – or who – those two words stand for. Each year in June, tennis fans around the world have their eyes set on the clay courts of Roland Garros.
0 kommentar(er)
