Mortane, Jacques - Roland Garros, Genius of gesture and thought (digital edition)

ROLAND GARROS - Genius of gesture and thought

By Jacques Mortane (1938)

Editions Baudinière, 103 pages in French.

Roland Garros, born in 1888 in Saint-Denis de la Réunion, began his aeronautical career by performing in air shows all over Europe, then in the United States, then in Brazil (where he is considered the father of Brazilian military aviation), then in Argentina. As a test pilot for the very young Morane-Saulnier company, he accumulated records before making the first crossing of the Mediterranean in 1913. As a lieutenant pilot during the First World War, he developed the first single-seater fighter in history, armed with a machine gun firing in the axis of the aircraft through the propeller rotation range. He died for France a month and a half before the armistice of 1918. He was one of the exemplary pioneers who profoundly marked the beginnings of aviation.

The author, Jacques Mortane, is probably the greatest journalist-writer of the inter-war period. A history professor, he became a journalist in 1908 and specialized in aviation journalism during the First World War. He published his articles about French military aviation in many newspapers, and founded his own weekly newspaper: La Guerre aérienne illustrée, which was to be named La Vie aérienne in early 1919. Confident of several aces, including Georges Guynemer, Charles Nungesser and René Dorme, he signed 43 books on the subject.