Georges Guynemer: France’s World War I Ace Pilot

By Jon Guttman | Aviation History  | one comment  | Print This Post  | Email This Post

When Germans, Americans, Italians or Belgians think of World War I aviation, the first names that come to their minds are usually their highest-scoring fighter pilots — Manfred von Richthofen, Eddie Rickenbacker, Francesco Baracca and Willy Coppens. However, while the French acknowledge René Fonck as their ace of aces, it is for their second-ranking ace, Georges Guynemer, that they reserve the greater fame and affection. The difference is largely a matter of personal impression. Fonck, though the higher scorer, with 75 confirmed victories, was a self-serving braggart who rubbed his comrades the wrong way. He further tarnished his image postwar by failing in a 1926 transatlantic attempt and being suspected of collaboration with France’s German occupiers during World War II. Guynemer, in contrast, eschewed fame while devoting all his energy to fighting for his country from the earliest days of air-to-air combat. Perhaps just as important, he died in battle, achieving national martyrdom and an immortality that Fonck was denied — partly because he had survived.

Born in Paris on December 24, 1894, Georges Marie Ludovic Jules Guynemer was a sickly child who studied at home until age 14, when he attended the Lycée de Compiègne. This was followed by Stanislas College, where his headmaster’s first report said he had “a willful character but is not particularly good at sports but shows promise at the College’s small bore rifle shooting competition.”

During a visit to the Panhard automobile factory, Guynemer acquired a lifelong interest in mechanics. In 1911 a friend of his father’s took him up for a 20-minute flight in a Farman airplane, and from then on Georges’ ambition was to fly. Focusing on his studies, he passed all his examinations in 1912 with highest honors, but his health failed again, and his parents took him to southern France. By the time he regained his strength, war had broken out in Europe.

Guynemer promptly applied for the air service, or Aviation Militaire, on August 3, 1914, but he did not pass the medical examination until the fourth attempt. Assigned to Pau aerodrome as a mechanic on November 23, Guynemer continued to press for flight training and finally succeeded. He earned his flying license on March 10, 1915, was promoted to corporal on May 8 and was assigned to Escadrille MS.3 at Vauciennes, near Villers-Cotteret, on June 8. He flew his first mission over the front two days later, and his observer, Private Jean Guerder, reported that the new pilot displayed no fear from either groundfire or the occasional rifle fire they encountered from passing German reconnaissance planes.

Equipped with Morane-Saulnier L two-seater parasol monoplanes when Guynemer joined it, MS.3 was in the process of transitioning from a reconnaissance to a fighter unit, under the aggressive leadership of Captain Antonin Félix Gabriel Brocard. On July 3, 1915, Brocard, armed with only a carbine, attacked an Albatros two-seater over Dreslincourt, killed its observer and brought it down. Among the many pilots inspired by that feat was Guynemer, who installed a machine gun mount behind the observer’s cockpit of his Morane-Saulnier L.

On July 19, Guynemer and Guerder encountered an Aviatik two-seater, and Guynemer promptly attacked, while Guerder blazed away as opportunity permitted. Ultimately the duo succeeded in shooting down the enemy plane between the lines, killing its crew. Both Guynemer and Guerder were awarded the Médaille Militaire for scoring MS.3’s second air-to-air victory.

A few day later, MS.3 began receiving more potent aircraft for aerial combat. Designed by Gustave Delage, the Nieuport 10 was a two-seater sesquiplane, with a single-spar lower wing of much narrower chord than the upper, braced by V-shaped interplane struts and powered by an 80-hp Clerget or Le Rhône 9B rotary engine. Nieuport pilots began installing a lightweight Lewis machine gun above the upper wing, on a mounting that allowed the weapon to be pulled down so the pilot could change its ammunition drum. Some aggressive units had the observer’s cockpit faired over, turning the reconnaissance plane into a single-seat fighter. In the summer of 1915, Nieuport tested a smaller single-seat version of the 10. Designated the Nieuport 11, it came to be popularly known as the Bébé (baby).

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Tags: Aces, Aerial Combat, Aviation History, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures, World War I