Roland Garros (1888-1918)

Roland Garros was an early sport pilot, coming second in the Paris-Rome and Paris-London-Paris races. He then made the first crossing of the  Mediterranean in 1913. Just before the Great War he won the Monaco seaplane race.
                                        
On the outbreak of the First World War, Garros was sent to serve on the Western Front.

Garros realised that he would have more success in dogfights if he could find a way of firing a machine-gun through the propeller. Working with Raymond Saulnier, a French aircraft manufacturer, Garros, added deflector plates to the blades of the propeller of his Morane-Saulnier. These small wedges of toughened steel diverted the passage of those bullets which struck the blades.

Now able to use a forward-firing machine-gun, went out searching for his first victim. On 1st April 1915, Garros approached an German Albatros B II reconnaissance aircraft. The German pilot was surprised when Garros approached him head-on. The accepted air fighting strategy at the time was to take 'pot-shots' with a revolver or rifle. Instead Garros shot down the Albatros through his whirling propeller.

In the next two weeks Garros shot down four more enemy aircraft. However, the success was short-lived because on 18th April, a rifleman defending Courtrai railway station, managed to fracture the petrol pipe of the aircraft that Garros was flying. Garros was forced to land behind the German front-line and before he could set-fire to his machine it was captured by the Germans. After finding out about Garros' invention, German pilots began using these deflector plates on the blades of their propellers.

In 1918 Garros escaped from Germany and returned to active service on the Western Front. Roland Garros was shot down and killed at Vouziers on 5th October 1918.

 Today Roland Garros has a tennis tournament named after him although he seems never to have had a connection with this sport!