Returning quickly to the Douai flying field, I informed the commander of the field that I was through flying over the Front. I had no stomach for the whole business, nor any wish to kill Frenchmen for Germans. It was too much like 'cold meat' to suit me. Suddenly, I decided that the whole job could go to hell. In another instant, it would be all over for them. By this time I was near enough to open fire, and the French pilots were watching me curiously, wondering, no doubt, why I was flying up behind them. I was flying merely to prove that a certain mechanism I had invented would work. I had my finger on the trigger.I had no personal animosity towards the French. Even if my bullets failed to kill the pilot and observer, the ship would fall down in flames. My imagination could vision my shots puncturing the gasoline tanks in front of the engine. It would be just like shooting a rabbit on the sit, because the pilot couldn't shoot back through his pusher propeller at me.Īs the distance between us narrowed the plane grew larger in my sights. While approaching, I thought of what a deadly accurate stream of lead I could send into the plane. It takes long practice and constant vigilance to guard against surprise air attack, for the enemy can assail one from any point in the sphere.Įven though they had seen me, they would have had no reason to fear bullets through my propeller. It may even have been that the Frenchmen didn't see me. The plane, an observation type with propeller in the rear, was flying leisurely along.
That was my opportunity to show what the gun would do, and I dived rapidly toward it. ".while I was flying around about 6,000 feet high, a Farman two-seater biplane, similar to the ones which had bombed me, appeared out of a cloud 2,000 or 3,000 feet below. We join his story as he searches the sky for a likely victim: "I thought of what a deadly accurate stream of lead I could send into the plane."įokker described his encounter with the French airplane in his biography written a few years after the war. The airplane was no longer just an observer of the war it was now a full-fledged participant in the carnage of conflict. Many German planes as possible be fitted with the new weapon. His base and told the Germans that they would have to do their own killing.Ī German pilot soon accomplished the mission and orders were given that as Of its destruction dawned on Fokker, he abandoned his mission, returned to As his prey grew larger in his sights, and the certainty Finding one, he began his attack while the bewildered FrenchĬrew watched his approach.
Fokker dutifully followed instructions and was soon in the air searchingįor a French plane whose destruction would serve as a practical demonstration Fokker was informed that he must make the first They felt that the only true test of the new Harmlessly through the empty space between the propeller blades.Īlthough Fokker's demonstration at his factory was successful, the German generals This synchronization assured that the bullets would pass The result was a machinegun whose rate of fire was controlled by the turning Aware that the French device was crude and would ultimately result inĭamaging the propeller, Fokker and his engineers looked for a better solution. Ordered Fokker to return to his factory, duplicate the French machinegun andĭemonstrate it to them within 48 hours. Dutch aircraft manufacturer Anthony Fokker, whoseįactory was nearby, was immediately summoned to inspect the plane.
However, on April 19, Garros was forced down behind enemy lines and his secret National hero and his total of five enemy kills became the benchmark for Two weeks Garros added four more planes to his list of kills.
It worked, on his first flight Garros downed a German observation plane. The lower section of the propeller blades with steel armor plates that deflectedĪny bullets that might strike the spinning blades. Machine gun that fired through its propeller. On April 1,ġ915 French pilot Roland Garros took to the air in an airplane armed with a The French were the first to develop an effective solution. TheĮqual importance of preventing the enemy from accomplishing this mission was Made evident to all the belligerents in the opening days of the conflict. Importance of the information gathered by this new technological innovation was The newly invented airplane entered World War IĪs an observer of enemy activity (see The Beginning of Air
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