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Many years ago, during my primary school days I became fascinated with fighter aircraft. I don’t know where it came from. My family is about as unmilitary as you can get (my Grandad aside, who tried to join up for the first world war, but being born in 1900 missed out. Luckily I’d say). It wasn’t the fighter aircraft that other boys in my class were interested in either, but the planes of world war one. My favourite, was predictably Manfred von Richthofen, but it lead onto me borrowing books from the library on the wars other less well known fighter aces and aircraft. Names such as Fonck, Mannock, Collishaw, Rickenbacker, Voss, Boelcke and Udet were constant appearances in any assignment set by school. Amongst these names was Georges Guynemer of the French Aviation Service with 53 confirmed victories. On 11th September 1917 he took off with a companion and was never seen again. The memorial has his squadron’s insignia, the stork at it’s summit and is said to point in the direction of his last flight. The chance to see this memorial was too good to turn down, so the boys had to put up with eight months of my reminders about Poelkappelle, and on the day my less than subtle hints about not forgetting the Guynemer memorial. I don’t ask for much though. To read more about Guynemer’s life click here: http://www.acepilots.com/wwi/fr_guynemer.html |
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