Air University Review, March-April 1968
For many years, a major gap in the otherwise overloaded field of World War I aviation history has been the conspicuous failure to tell the story of Captain René Fonck, a superb airman, the top French ace, and the ranking Allied ace as well.
The recent and dramatic upsurge of interest in World War I aviation makes this the ideal time to rectify the unfortunate oversight. Welcome news, then, is the announcement that Doubleday & Company, Inc., and the editors of the “Air Combat Classics” series have made Fonck’s memoirs available under the title, Ace of Aces.*
By official count, Fonck shot down 75 German airplanes; by his own tally, he had an additional 52 unconfirmed ones, enough to make him the most effective fighter pilot of the war. On 9 May 1917 he shot down six in a single day. Three months later, on 14 August, he shot down three in the space of ten seconds, and the following month (on 26 September) he had another sextuple. Yet throughout his career, first as a pilot of observation planes and then as a fighter pilot, he was never touched by an enemy bullet.
Fonck’s incredible record speaks for itself. While both sides had superb
airmen who were not aces and aces who were mediocre airmen, Fonck was clearly
in a class by himself. As Kenneth Driggs, an early chronicler of World War I
aviation, put it, “No other man, living or dead, has ever equaled this
marvelous pilot in air dueling.” Why, then, the long neglect? In a recent book
on the French aces of World War I, for example, a respected author devoted less
than two pages to Fonck and set those in a chapter about an American airman who
flew for
To this reviewer, several explanations occur. The first lies in the overshadowing prestige accorded Guynemer before and after his death. With 54 victories, Guynemer was a living legend, with the title “Ace of Aces” before he vanished on 11 September 1917. After his death, of course, his prestige soared even higher. Tributes, books, and articles appeared by the hundreds, his last citation was duly inscribed on the walls of the Pantheon in Paris, and French air forces began the traditional ceremony of gathering each year on the anniversary of his death to hear the citation read: “Legendary hero, fallen at the full height of glory. . . .” Indeed, in some circles it was fashionable to believe that Guynemer had not died at all but had flown directly into heaven. “Surely he was a god,” one otherwise careful biographer noted.
Perhaps the main reason for inundating Guynemer with honors was the fact that this frail and sickly flyer matched perfectly the popular image of what a World War I ace should be. Courage rather than cunning, élan or spirit rather than skill were the keys. Blind to danger, he would brave the enemy field of fire to trigger off a few shots at murderously close range. His own pain or death counted for nothing. He would willingly fight any time, any place, against any odds.
Of course Guynemer paid the price. Eight times he was shot down, more than any other ace. Also, on numerous occasions he came back from combat with his plane badly shot up. But this only added to the luster. “Guynemer the Miraculous” had an image etched in blood, some of it his own.
Guynemer’s dash and daring contrasted sharply with Fonck’s cold, knifelike efficiency. Fonck truly admired “our national hero” and counted him among his friends, but he believed Guynemer’s method of attack to be foolish. If the overall purpose was to hurt the enemy as much as possible, there were obviously better ways of doing it.
Fonck found his guide to aerial combat in birds of prey, which he had watched and admired since childhood. They shunned chivalry; they made a cautious and patient approach, followed by a sudden swoop and swift kill. Could not these same techniques, he reasoned, be applied to air combat, where the game of survival was much the same? Fonck believed they could, and in time he adopted the clever and delicate maneuvering into the most favorable position, the sudden kill, and the refusal to fight against prohibitive odds.
To gain the advantage, Fonck went to lengths undreamed of by most airmen. He studied his opponents carefully, acquiring, as he put it, “a thorough knowledge of the strategy of the enemy fighter, reconnaissance, and range-intelligence pilots.” He also kept his senses honed to razor’s edge, even to the point of avoiding completely the wartime necessities of alcohol and tobacco. Finally, he practiced self-control the same way he practiced marksmanship. “To obtain good results,” he once counseled, “you must know how to control your nerves, how to have absolute self-mastery, and how to think coolly in difficult situations. I have had to duel with great Boche aces and have had the patience, while fighting, to wait for the moment my adversaries gave way to nervous irritation—the fatal mistake. . . .”
Still, Fonck’s marvelous self-mastery would have let him lag in the ranks of the aces had he not been blessed with incredible aerial marksmanship. Admitting that his aim was “legendary among my comrades,” he added, “My bursts are from eight to ten bullets at the maximum, and I often do not use more than three.” Perhaps no other airman on either side of the lines could say with the certitude and calmness of René Fonck that two of the enemy escaped “certain death” because of the “jamming of my machine gun.”
In his own story, Fonck does not seem to have resented Guynemer’s glory or comparison of himself with the super hero. On the contrary, he greatly admired Guynemer and lists as one of his proudest moments his victory over one Captain Wissemann, an obscure German airman who claimed to have shot down Guynemer.** He does say that he took over his friend’s title of “Ace of Aces,” but then this was a title that had to be given him by others. Overall, however, the public was not generous with Fonck, and by the time he began cutting a path through the Germans, the French people had already chosen their supreme hero. Henceforth they automatically judged Fonck’s exploits in Guynemer’s shadow.
A second and more tragic reason for the neglect of René Fonck lies in the attitudes and ambitions of those who have exploited the aces for literary profit. For some reason, all too many aviation writers have felt compelled to emphasize the snarling dogfights, the spectacular deaths, and the flowing gore. Bullets must be “splattered by the thousands” and cockpits “awash with blood.” With every adventure necessarily an epic, the writers automatically turned to Guynemer and a hundred lesser lights who “make good copy.” On the other hand, since Fonck’s exploits, by contrast, are relatively dull and uninteresting, he was tacitly passed over. Fonck himself obviously sensed this lack of interest. He passes off seven kills in the month of October 1917—including three in one day—with the terse comment, “During the month of October I succeeded again in some good kills but the story does not offer anything particularly exciting to recount.”
The overall result of Guynemer’s dominating shadow and the imaginative,
journalistic approach to World War I aviation has been a conspicuous lack of
good foundation material on Fonck, particularly for the serious,
English-speaking student or reader. Many of those with a compelling interest in
the subject do not even know that Fonck wrote his own story, which was
published in
It is safe to say that most readers, like this reviewer, will find some faults with Fonck’s book. Despite the claims of the editors, Fonck was not as gifted with the pen as he was with the plane. Also, the book is lamentably short. One cannot read it without wishing that Fonck had taken the time to describe his techniques and combats in considerably more detail.
These failings, however, are minor compared to the overall worth of Ace
of Aces. The very fact that the most accomplished airman of World War I
wrote the book about his flying experiences qualifies it for wide
dissemination. The fact that it fills a gap in a prime field of interest,
rectifying an oversight and perhaps an injustice, marks it for an honored place
on the bookshelf of every student of aviation history.
*René Fonck, Ace of Aces, trans. Martin H. Sabin and Stanley M. Ulanoff, ed. Stanley M. Ulanoff (“Air Combat Classics”; Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967, $4.95), xxv and 164 pp.
**There is considerable doubt as to Wissemann’s claim. Fonck seems to accept it at face value, but most authorities, noting discrepancies as to time and place, pass the claim off as a bid for instant fame.
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