Georges Guynemer
G. Guynemer byLucien,Musée national de la Légion d'Honneur et des Ordres de Chevalerie
Born	24 December 1894 Paris,France
Died	11 September 1917(1917-09-11) (aged 22) South ofPoelcappelle,Belgium (presumably)
Allegiance	France
Branch	French Air Service
Service years	1914–1917
Rank	Capitaine
Unit	Escadrille N.3, MS 3, Spa3
Awards	Légion d'honneur Croix de Guerre Médaille militaire Order of Karađorđe's Star

Georges Marie Lodovic Jules Guynemer (French pronunciation:[ʒɔʁʒɡinmɛːʁ], 24 December 1894 – 11 September 1917MIA) was the second highest-scoringFrenchfighter ace with 54 victories duringWorld War I, and aFrenchnational hero at the time of his death. Guynemer's death was a profound shock to France.

Georges Marie Ludovic Jules Guynemer was born inParis^[1] to a wealthy and aristocratic family. His father was Paul Guynemer (1860-1922), a former officer ofSaint-Cyr.^[2] His mother, Julie Noémi Doynel de Saint-Quentin (1866-1957), belonged to the old Norman nobility and was a descendant ofCharles of Valois, founder of theroyal house of Valois. Guynemer experienced an often sickly childhood. Nevertheless, he succeeded as an aviator through his enormous drive and self-confidence.

He was originally rejected five times formilitary service due to frailty, but was accepted for training as a mechanic in late 1914. With determination, he gained acceptance topilot training, joiningEscadrille MS.3 on 8 June 1915. He remained in the same unit for his entire service.^[3] The first plane allocated to him was aMorane-Saulnier Lmonoplane previously flown by Charles Bonnard, and accordingly namedVieux Charles (Old Charles). Guynemer kept the name and continued to use it for most of his later aircraft. On 19 July 1915, he shot down his first plane, a GermanAviatik.^[4]

On 5 December 1915, theEscadrille MS.3 was renamed theEscadrille N.3, after being re-equipped with newNieuport 10 fighters. Flying the more effective plane, Guynemer quickly established himself as one of France's premier fighter pilots. He became anace, with his fifth victory coming in February 1916, and was promoted tolieutenant in March. On 12 March 1916 he scored his 8th victory.^{[citation needed]} At the end of the year, his score had risen to 25.^{[citation needed]} Capitaine Brocard, commander ofEscadrille N.3 (Storks), described Guynemer at that time as "...my most brilliant Stork."^[3] Less than a year later, Guynemer was promoted to captain and commander of the Storks squadron.

Guynemer became influential enough to affect French fighter aircraft design. In December 1916, he wrote a letter to the chief designer atSpad, criticizing theSpad VII as inferior to the GermanHalberstadt that was its contemporary. As a consequence, Spad developed two new but very similar models, theSPAD XII andSPAD XIII. The new models were promising, but had teething problems with the reduction gear between engine and propeller.^[5]

On 23 January 1917 Guynemer scored a "double" credit of victories 26 and 27, first shooting down an Albatros C piloted by Captain Martin Korner, who was killed, followed by a Rumpler C I of Flieger-Abteilung (A) 216 piloted by Lt. Bernhard Röder and his observer Lt. Otto von Schanzenbach who were both killed.^{[citation needed]} On 26 January 1917 Guynemer forced down anAlbatros C.VII of Flieger-Abteilung (A) 226 whose crew was captured for his 30th credit.^{[citation needed]} On 8 February 1917, flying aSPAD VII, Guynemer became the first Allied pilot to shoot down a GermanGotha bomber,^[6] his 31st victory.^{[citation needed]} On 16 March 1917 he brought down his 32nd credit, aRoland D.II ofJasta 32 whose pilot was captured.^{[citation needed]} On 14 April 1917 he downed his 36th credit, by killing a crew from Flieger-Abteilung (A) 254.^{[citation needed]} His highest scoring month was May 1917, when he downed seven German aircraft including a quadruple credit on 25 May.^[7] By July, he began to fly the Spad XII; hisavion magique was, at his behest, armed with a 37 mm (1.46 in) cannon whose barrel fired through the propeller shaft. It was also armed with a .30 in (7.62 mm) air-cooledVickers machine gun. Although the cannon promised devastating firepower, the new plane was a handful because of it, as the cannon's rearwards-protruding breech mandated separate aileron and elevator controls split from each other on opposing sides of the cockpit.^[8] The single shot cannon had to also be manually reloaded in flight; it had a heavy recoil when fired and filled the canopy with fumes with every shot. The Spad XII was not a plane for a novice pilot. However, Guynemer used it to down anAlbatros fighter on 27 July,^{[citation needed]} and aDFW the next day.^[9] The latter triumph made him the first French ace to attain 50 victories, with headlines such as "Fifty machines destroyed! This had been Guynemer's dream!" written in the newspapers.^[10]

Guynemer failed to return from a combat mission on 11 September 1917. The previous week had been one of mechanical ills, in both his assigned aircraft and the ones he borrowed. At 08:30, with rookie pilotJean Bozon-Verduraz, Guynemer took off in hisSpad XIII S.504 n°2. His mission was to patrol the Langemark area. At 09:25, nearPoelkapelle, Guynemer sighted a loneRumpler, a German observation plane, and dove toward it. Bozon-Verduraz saw several Fokkers above him, and by the time he had shaken them off, his leader was nowhere in sight, so he returned alone. Guynemer never came back.^[11][12]

Guynemer was confirmedmissing in action by his squadron commander Major Brocard; it was officially announced in Paris by the French War Department on 25 September 1917.^[13] Unofficial confirmation came from a captured German pilot who was shot down behind Canadian lines the evening of 29 September.^[14] A German sergeant from the 413th Regiment swore he had witnessed the crash and identified Guynemer's corpse; he also certified that he had died from a bullet through the head, with other injuries including a broken leg and a finger shot away. The German party retrieving the body was driven away by Allied artillery fire before they could bury or remove the body.^[12] The 25 September details released by the French War Department were unclassified and became public knowledge as described by one of his flying comrades (name withheld due to security reasons):^[14]

Guynemer sighted five machines of theAlbatros type D-3. Without hesitation, he bore down on them. At that moment enemy patrolling machines, soaring at a great height, appeared suddenly and fell upon Guynemer. There were forty enemy machines in the air at this time, includingBaron von Richthofen and hiscircus division of machines, painted in diagonal blue and white stripes. Toward Guynemer's right some Belgian machines hove in sight, but it was too late. Guynemer must have been hit. His machine dropped gently toward the Earth, and I lost track of it. All that I can say is that the machine was not on fire.

Additional details were furnished by Major Brocard, as listed in an article from the ParisLe Matin:

The last fight of the French aviator occurred four or five miles inside the German lines northeast of Ypres and opposite the British lines. Captain Guynemer was accompanied by Lieutenant Bozon Verduraz, who says that they were flying at a height of 15,000 feet when Guynemer sighted an enemy two-seater, which he attacked. Almost at the same moment Verduraz saw four German monoplanes approaching and turned toward them instantly so as to draw them off. They circled around for a while and then disappeared. Verduraz then returned to the place where he had left Guynemer engaged with the German biplane, but Guynemer had vanished.

The two-seater, described as a Rumpler type by Bozon-Verduraz, has never been identified, but recent research shows that it could have been a machine flown by Lt. d. R. Max Psaar (observer) and Fl. Georg Seibert (pilot) from FA(A)224.^[15] German aceKurt Wissemann ofJasta 3 was credited with the victory.^[16] Wissemann would himself be killed in action little more than two weeks later on 28 September 1917.

According to an American Red Cross communique from the French front, the death of Guynemer was determined to be "definitely confirmed".^[17] This Red Cross report provided these details:

Information received by the Red Cross says Guynemer was shot through the head north of Poelcapelle, on the Ypres front. His body was identified by a photograph on his pilot's license found in his pocket. The burial took place at Brussels in the presence of a guard of honor, composed of the 5th Prussian Division. Such is the story told by a Belgian, who has just escaped from the Germans. The burial was about to take place at Poelcapelle, when the bombardment preceding the British attack at Ypres started. The burying party hastily withdrew, taking the body with them. The German General chanced to be an aviation enthusiast with a great admiration for Captain Guynemer's achievements. At his direction the body was taken to Brussels in a special funeral car. Thither the captain was carried by non-commissioned officers and was covered with floral tributes from German aviators. The Prussian Guards stood at salute upon its arrival and during the burial, which was given all possible military honors. The French Government has been invited to place in the Pantheon, where many great Frenchmen are buried, an inscription to perpetuate the memory of Captain Guynemer as 'a symbol of the aspirations and enthusiasm of the Army.' A resolution to this effect has been introduced in the Chamber of Deputies by Deputy Lasies.

Guynemer had 54 victories at the time of his death.

Guynemer was lionized by the French press and became a national hero. TheFrench government encouraged the publicity to boost morale and take the people's minds off the terrible losses in the trenches. Guynemer was embarrassed by the attention, but his shyness only increased the public's appetite to know everything about him. This was quite different later in 1918 with the French top aceRené Fonck, who despite having 75 confirmed victories, had bad publicity for his arrogance and shameless self-promotion. Guynemer's death was a profound shock to France; nevertheless, he remained an icon for the duration of the war. Only 22 at his death, he continued to inspire the nation with his advice, "Until one has given all, one has given nothing."^{[citation needed]}

The Paris street rue Guynemer is named after him, as is a school inCompiègne, the Institution Guynemer.^{[citation needed]}A statue was erected in Poelcapelle in commemoration of Georges Guynemer.^{[citation needed]}

The episode "The Last Flight" (1960) from season one of the American television seriesThe Twilight Zone was loosely based on the disappearance of Guynemer put to fictional speculation as to what happened to him.^{[citation needed][19]}

He received many decorations, including theOrder of Karađorđe Star with swords fromSerbia.^[20]

• French Air Force
• List of people who disappeared
• List of World War I flying aces
• When the World was Wide

• Arthur Constantin Krebs, father of Jean Krebs, the college friend of Georges Guynemer

• SPAD XII/XIII aces of World War I. Jon Guttman. Osprey Publishing, 2002.ISBN 1841763160, 9781841763163.
• Bordeaux, Henry. (1918) "Guynemer: Knight of the Air." Translated from French by Louise Morgan Sill. Yale University Press; Second Printing.
• Franks, Norman L. R. & Bailey W. (1992) "Over The Front; A Complete Record of the Fighter Aces And Units of the United States And French Services, 1914-1918." Grub Street, London,ISBN 0-948817-54-2.
• Guttman, Jon. (2004) "Groupe de Combat 12, France's Ace Fighter Group in World War 1." Aviation Elite Units Osprey Publishing. INBN 978 1 84176 753 6.
• Klaeylé, Bernard & Osché, Philippe (November 1997). ""La Lorraine et la gloire", extrait du livre: Georges Guynemer – les avions d'un as" ["For Lorraine and Glory": An Extract from the Book:Georges Guynemer – Aircraft of an Ace].Avions: Toute l'aéronautique et son histoire (in French) (56):9–12.ISSN 1243-8650.
• Musciano, Walter A.Capt. Georges Guynemer: W.W.I Eagle of France. New York: Hobby Helpers, 1963.OCLC 4008686

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• Georges Guynemer – Detailed biography and color profiles of his planes
• Georges Guynemer – "Who's Who" at FirstWorldWar.com
• Georges Guynemer – "a beloved French Ace" at Acepilots.comArchived 23 July 2011 at theWayback Machine
• Georges Guynemer page at theaerodrome.com
• Georges Guynemer: France's World War I Ace Pilot at Historynet.com
• JAsta 32 plane shot down by Guynemer 16 March 1917

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