The Mentor: Guynemer, The Wingèd Sword of France, Vol. 6, Num. 18, Serial No. 166, November 1, 1918

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Not only modern, but ancient French records glorify the name of Guynemer. In the time of Roland and Charlemagne, there was a Guinemer that performed noble deeds. An eleventh-century history of the Crusades extols the name of a Guinemer of Boulogne. The Treaty of Guérande, which terminated in 1365 a war of succession in Brittany, bore the signature of Geoffroy Guinemer among thirty knightly signers. In 1464 the old and honorable name was first spelled with a y by Yvon Guynemer, a man of arms in the service of his country.

Bernard Guynemer, great grandfather of Georges, was an instructor in jurisprudence in Paris during the Revolution, and was later made president of the Tribunal of Mayence. A son, Auguste, who lived to be ninety-three, left to posterity a remarkable collection of memoirs of the Revolution, the Empire, and the Restoration. One of his brothers, an officer in Napoleon’s army, was killed at the siege of Vilna in 1812; another, a naval officer, died of wounds received at Trafalgar. A fourth brother named Achille became the grandfather of Georges, and it was his exploits, among all the tales of his forbears, that the youthful grandson loved best to read about. One venturous anecdote of the child Achille became part of family history, and in its revelation of mature purpose and utter poise under confounding circumstances recalls instances of the boyhood of the future Ace of Aces. When the small Achille arrived one morning at his school in Paris he found it closed. The mistress, he was told, had been taken away, summoned before the Revolutionary Tribunal. When he inquired where this Tribunal was, he was laughingly informed, and straightway he set out to find it. When the eight-year-old appeared in the court room alone, he was received by assembly and judges with amazement, then with raillery, but, in no wise disconcerted, he continued up the imposing aisle to the place where the mighty Robespierre sat. Humorously, Robespierre met his request that his teacher be allowed to return to her classes by remarking that the child’s need of her could not be great, as doubtless she had taught him little in the past. In his desire to refute the injustice, the boy begged permission to recite his lessons for the day. When he had finished, Robespierre impulsively took him in his arms and embraced him. Then he gave into his charge the school mistress, and permitted them both to depart.

Seven years later, Achille Guynemer was a volunteer in the army that invaded Spain. In 1812, he was taken prisoner; later he escaped, and in 1813, at the age of twenty-one, he was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honor. His grandson, who strongly resembled his early portraits, received the same honor when he was a few months younger.

Of the four sons of the president of the Tribunal of Mayence, only one, Achille, had descendants. The son of the latter was Paul Guynemer, a French army officer and military historian, and his only son was Georges, the young chieftain of the sky.

Even as a very little boy, Georges carried his head with pride and set his ambitions high. Adored by his mother and sisters, he was a constant object of solicitude because of ill health. When he was of school age he received instruction from the governess of his sisters. Very young he showed evidences of those qualities of honor, truth and bravery that earned him in later years all the honors France could bestow. Very young he fell under the spell of Joan of Arc, she who was wounded in Compiègne, the home of his boyhood, and he clamored for stories of her and of others of his country’s warriors.

An indifferent pupil in the grammar-school at Compiègne, he was placed in Stanislas Military College, his father’s Alma Mater. A group photograph of the students represents Georges as a boy of twelve, pale, thin, with dark, wilful eyes lighted by smouldering fires of dream and ambition. As a student he was quick and intelligent, but he was mischievous and headstrong under discipline. In play he preferred warlike games, and invariably chose parts that gave him opportunities to attack, which he did with agility and vigor, often to the discomfiture of older opponents. One of his teachers wrote a sketch of his school-boyhood that betrays many outstanding traits of the Guynemer of the future. In playground battles he had no desire to command; he liked above all to fight, and to fight alone. He attacked the strongest, without consideration for any advantage they might have of weight, height or numbers. Even as a boy, he excelled by adroitness, suppleness of maneuver, and will-to-win.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 6, No. 18. SERIAL No. 166 COPYRIGHT, 1918. BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

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Though hampered by illness and enforced vacations, Guynemer graduated from Stanislas College in his fifteenth year with honors. In the autumn he re-entered the school for a further course of study. His leisure hours were passed installing miniature telephones, and experimenting with paper airplane models. His ability for invention and mechanics was marked. All the sciences held interest for him, but he had special liking for chemistry and mathematics. He was fond of reading, but his choice of books fell solely on those that dealt with war, chivalry and adventure.

One of young Guynemer’s intimates was Jean Krebs, whose father was a pioneer in the development of aerostatics and aviation. He was then director of the great Panhard automobile works, and on Sundays the two youths spent hours studying motor parts. With their fellow students at the college they were often taken to visit technical establishments after school. Georges was always to be found beside the one that explained the operations of the machinery. When they were permitted to attend automobile and airplane exhibitions, his delight was boundless. Keen, excited, agitated, he passed from one exhibit to another, commenting, interrogating, and incidentally filling his pockets with catalogues and pamphlets about the different makes of cars and planes. While still at school he fashioned a small airplane, which he launched with glee over the heads of his companions.

At that time (1910), the eyes of Europe were on the sky. Blériot had crossed the Channel; Paulhan had soared to a record height of over four thousand feet. It was the ambition of all French youth to fly. With Guynemer the desire was an obsession. From the aerodrome near Compiègne he secretly made his first flight, crouched behind an obliging pilot, cramped and uncomfortable, but ecstatically happy. So determined was he to follow the profession of the air that pleasures of world travel, enjoyed for months in the fond companionship of his mother and sisters, served in no way to distract him from his purpose. “What career shall you adopt?” his father inquired, when they returned. And Georges answered, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, “I shall be an aviator.” His parent protested that aviation was not a career, but a sport. The boy was obstinate. He confessed that his life was already dedicated to this passion. That on the morning he had first seen a birdman fly above the college of Stanislas, he had been possessed by a sensation he could not explain. “I felt an emotion so deep it seemed sacred,” he told his father. “I knew then that I must ask you to let me become an aviator.”

Refused admission to the École Polytechnique because the professors believed him too frail to finish the courses, he was taken with his family to Biarritz on the coast of France, and there rumors came to them of the war, in the month of July, 1914. War was declared August second. The following day Georges presented himself for medical examination at Bayonne,--was rejected, and when he tried still other times, was rejected again. Finally his persistence, his devotion to France, his resolve to serve her in the way he felt he could be of the most value, won him the reward of acceptance in the training school at Pau.