Disappearance of Georges Guynemer

On the morning of 11 September 1917 Captain Georges Guynemer, France’s most famous airman, took off on patrol from the aerodrome at Saint-Pol-sur-Mer near Dunkirk. He did not return. He was last seen over Poelkapelle (PL) in Flanders, diving on a German reconnaissance aircraft. Neither his body nor the wreckage of his aircraft was ever found. He was 22 years old and had 53 confirmed victories (some tallies give 54).

Guynemer was born on 24 December 1894 in Paris, into a wealthy family. He was a sickly, frail boy, and in 1914 medical boards rejected him several times as unfit for service. So he joined the air service as an apprentice mechanic at Pau, gained his pilot’s licence in March 1915 and soon afterwards was posted to the squadron that went down in history as “the Storks” (Les Cigognes). He scored his first victory in July 1915. In 1916 he fought over Verdun, where the French wrested air superiority from the Germans, and was seriously wounded there. In February 1917 he became the first to shoot down a German Gotha heavy bomber, and in the summer the first French airman to reach 50 victories. Propaganda made him a national hero, and he became a role model for the young.

In the summer of 1917 his squadron was moved to Flanders to support the British offensive at Ypres. On 11 September, at about 8.30 a.m., he took off in a SPAD XIII fighter with a young second lieutenant, Jean Bozon-Verduraz, to patrol the area of Langemark. At about 9.25 a.m., over Poelkapelle, he spotted a lone German two-seat reconnaissance aircraft, probably a Rumpler, and dived on it. Bozon-Verduraz saw several German fighters above him and dealt with them. When he had shaken them off, Guynemer was gone. He returned alone.

For two weeks France did not know his fate. The squadron command listed him as missing, and the War Ministry announced it publicly only on 25 September. The Germans credited the victory to Lieutenant Kurt Wissemann of Jagdstaffel 3, who was himself killed just over a fortnight later. According to German accounts, Guynemer’s aircraft crashed behind the German lines and his body was identified, but artillery fire over the battlefield prevented his burial, and every trace of him was lost.

The absence of a grave made Guynemer’s legend grow even greater. The commander of the French First Army, General François Anthoine, wrote in his posthumous citation: “Legendary hero, fallen at the height of glory in the sky after three years of ardent struggle.” His motto, “Faire face” (“Face up”), is used today by the French air force academy, and after the war a monument to him was erected in Poelkapelle, a column topped with a stork.