René Paul Fonck was born on March 27, 1894, in Saulcy-sur-Merthe, a typical French village in the mountainous Vosges region. At 20, when the war started, he was assigned to the engineers and spent several months digging trenches, building bridges, and fixing roads. In early 1915, he entered flight training, first at Saint-Cyr, then at Le Crotoy. His first combat unit was Escadrille Caudron 47 at Corcieux, flying a Caudron G.4 (an ungainly-looking bomber/reconnaissance plane: a twin-engined biplane, with a pilot nacelle instead of a full-length fuselage). He did fine work as an observation pilot, twice being mentioned in dispatches. He shot down his first enemy aircraft in July 1916, in a Caudron that had been fitted with a machine gun. But in his greatest feat in a G.4, he didn't fire a weapon at all. On August 6, he attacked a German Rumpler C-III. Maneuvering over and around the reconnaissance plane, he skillfully stayed out of its field of fire, while continually forcing it lower and lower. Eventually, the German had to land behind French lines; Fonck had captured a new, undamaged prize for the Allies to inspect. Following this, Fonck was transferred to Escadrille Spad 103, Les Cigognes, the Storks, France's premier fighter groups, comprised of escadrilles S.3, S.26, S.73, and S.103. After several months of training in single-seaters, he began flying Spads in May, 1917. (In this month the ultimate version of the Spad, the S.XIII, began to be delivered to French units. Presumaby the Storks received early deliveries. Powered by a Hispano-Suiza 235 HP engine, capable of 138 MPH, the Spad S.XIII was the fastest aircraft of World War I. It weighed 1,800 pounds and was considered to be very rugged for that era. It carried two synchronized machine guns. The French built 8,472 of the S.XIII and it was the superior fighter plane for the remaining 18 months of the war. Fonck scored most of his kills in a Spad S.XIII.) In less than two weeks, he became an ace. By the fall of 1917, he had downed 18 German planes, and was inducted into the Legion of Honor. Always anxious to prove his claims, on September 14, he recovered the barograph from an aircraft he had shot down. The instrument confirmed Fonck's rendition of the encounter, showing that the German plane had reached 20,000 feet, had maneuvered lower while dueling Fonck, had zoomed up briefly at 5,000 feet (as the pilot pulled back on the stick when hit), and then had stalled and crashed. The great French ace, Georges Guynemer, disappeared on September 11. The Germans claimed that he was shot down by Kurt Wisseman, a Rumpler pilot, and a good one, as he was credited with five kills while flying the two-seaters. Shortly, Fonck achieved a measure of revenge for the French Aviation militaire. On the 30th, he spotted a two-seater flying at 9,000 feet. Sensing that the rear gunner was alert to him, he expertly moved in below and behind, where he could not be fired on. Fonck fired two bursts. The Rumpler fell inside the French lines and the dead pilot's papers identified him as Kurt Wisseman. He told a journalist that by killing "the murderer of my good friend," he had become "the tool of retribution." This statement might have surprised the dead Guynemer, since he and Fonck were never friends. René Fonck died in June 1953. http://www.acepilots.com/wwi/fr_fonck.html
It's perhaps worth mentioning that while some accounts credit the victory over Ltn Kurt Wissemann's Albatros (he flew the Albatros D.V with Jasta 3) to Fonck, there's more evidence to suggest that he was shot down by an SE 5a pilot from No 56 Sqn RFC. Both Capt R C T Hoidge in B506 and Capt G H Bowman in B2 were credited with victories over Jasta 3 Albatroses in a fight on 28 September; one was Oblt Carl Menckhoff, who survived, and the other was Ltn Wisseman, who was killed. The comprehensive list of Fonck's victories in Franks and Bailey's Over the Front shows that he was credited with his 14th victory on 23 September, followed by his 15th on 30 September, so there's no victory to correspond with Wisseman's Albatros. I hope that this is useful. Gareth
That's good to know Gareth ! ... thanks ! This was in the same place I got the other information ... so maybe it was Fonck himself that said it !! Annie
And there is the issue of how much he collaborated with the Nazis in WW2. He was a General in the Vichy Air Force. He was arrested at the end of the war and accused of collaboration, but not convicted. But he certainly hadn't gone out of his way to defy the Nazis, unlike other WW1 aces, such as Alfred Hertaux was spent four years in Buchenwald.
