Roland-Garros, France’s tennis stadium was named after a legendary aviator despite having never played in a tournament
MOST people associate the name Roland Garros with tennis. However, the French tennis area was named after a pioneer aviator.
Today in History
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PEOPLE often assume that because France’s most famous tennis arena is named after him, Roland Garros must have been a great of the game. Although he did play he was no champion — he preferred rugby.
In fact, he was not famous for sport of any kind. His claim to fame was as a pioneer aviator, the first man to fly across the Mediterranean and a great World War I fighter pilot.
But his life came to a tragic end in the sky. A century ago tomorrow, Garros climbed into the cockpit of his Spad aircraft to take part in a routine patrol. Just three days earlier he had claimed two kills in a dogfight, which would have brought his total to five, giving him official “ace” status. However, only one of those aircraft was confirmed. All he needed was one more victory in the air; it was the day before his 30th birthday and he was hoping to give himself a present.
Over Saint-Morel, near Vouziers, his patrol encountered seven German Fokker DVII aircraft. Ordered to stay in formation, Garros impulsively rushed forward to take on the enemy. Despite his experience as a pilot the Germans got the better of him, raking his plane with bullets. It exploded in the air.
He had survived dogfights, hits and mechanical problems, even once expertly gliding his plane for kilometres to land safely when his engine stopped. This time his luck had ran out. He died a day before he turned 30 and five weeks short of the Armistice.
While famous as a pilot in France before his death, it was the fact that he died a World War I hero that would make his name live on around the world associated with tennis.
Born in Saint-Denis on the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean, on October 6, 1888, Eugene Adrien Roland Georges Garros was the son of Georges Garros, a wealthy lawyer. The family later moved to Cochinchine, in French Indochina (a region in southern Vietnam).
At the age of 12, Roland was sent to study music in France and considered a career as a concert pianist. Instead he studied business in Paris and opened a car dealership.
Then in 1909 he saw the Reims Air Show and met Brazilian inventor Alberto Santos-Dumont. Garros learnt to fly in one of Santos-Dumont’s Demoiselle (Damselfly) aircraft and in 1910 gained his pilot’s licence, giving flying demonstrations in the US in a plane he bought from Santos-Dumont.
He performed stunt flying shows, entered air races and in 1911 set an altitude record of 3950m in a Bleriot monoplane. When someone else broke it the next year he reclaimed the record by flying to 5610m. In 1913 he flew 800km from France to Tunisia in a Morane-Saulnier monoplane, the first person to fly over the Mediterranean.
He was teaching flying in Germany in 1914 when war was declared. Put under house arrest, he climbed out a window and secretly flew out of Germany at night via Switzerland and home to France where he joined the army. In the army air corps Garros helped develop methods for firing a machinegun mounted on the front, firing through the propeller blades, using gears to synchronise the bullets.
It wasn’t perfect so he fitted special wedge-shaped deflectors to the propeller blades in case a bullet accidentally hit one. The front-facing gun allowed him to notch up three confirmed kills in a short time (there were other unconfirmed ones).
People referred to him as Garros “l’as” (the ace) meaning figuratively “top of the deck”. The expression caught on for other pilots, although an unofficial rule was established that aces had to have at least five kills, technically kicking Garros out of the ace club.
In April 1915 Garros was flying over enemy lines when his engine sputtered due to a blocked fuel line. He glided in to land, but was captured. After nearly three years as a prisoner, in 1918 he decided to escape. He had a map of Germany smuggled into the prison camp in the handle of a tennis racquet and, wearing a fake German uniform, strolled out of the prison. He made his way to the Netherlands, then to England and back to France.
Garros rejoined the army but had a lot to learn about new aircraft technology which had advanced considerably while he was in prison. On October 5, 1918, he was shot down.
When France beat the US in 1927 at the Davis Cup, they realised they needed a new stadium to host the competition befitting their new tennis stars known as the Musketeers.
Permission was gained from former rugby star Emile Lesieur, president of Stade Francais athletic club, to use a tract of land just outside Paris as long as it was named after a World War I hero. Lesieur suggested Garros, who had been a good friend and member of the club.