( CNN ) -- You 'll find his name and initials everywhere you go at the French Open -- the famous green and brick red logo stamped on everything from parasols and caps to towels and tennis balls . But ask most people who Roland Garros was and they 'll tend to double fault . `` For a lot of people in France and abroad , Garros is a tennis man , or a sometime president of the French Tennis Federation ( FFT ) , '' says Michael Guittard , head of collections and cultural mediation at the FFT . `` Everybody knows the name of Roland Garros , but nobody knows who he was . That 's why we have an exhibition to explain that he is not a tennis champion , but a hero of World War One . '' Garros ' elevated status was n't earned down in the trenches , but up in the skies above the Western Front , as the exhibition at the FFT museum entitled `` Moi ... Roland Garros '' explains . Born in 1888 on the French island of RÃ©union in the Indian Ocean , Garros had won fame before the war , notably becoming the first man to fly across the Mediterranean Sea in September 1913 . The following year , he switched from peacetime record-breaker to intrepid war pilot . Pioneering propellers . Although he never reached the status of flying ace -- he is officially credited with shooting down four enemy aircraft during the war -- Garros gained notoriety another way by developing a means of allowing a machine gun to be fired forward through a plane 's propeller arc . `` He was an early pioneer in the development of fighter aviation , '' says Peter Jakab , chief curator at the U.S. 's Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum . His method of attaching wedge-shaped steel plates to the propeller blades may have been crude , but it worked , says Jakab . `` The rate of fire was that most of the bullets would miss the propeller , but every so often one would strike it . So this was a way to deflect the bullets from the propeller , '' Jakab told CNN . `` It was n't very efficient , but in the very early months of the war when airplanes were either defenseless or carrying hand-held weapons , this technique made his aircraft more lethal than anything flying . `` Over a very short period of time he shot down a number of German airplanes and created quite some terror among the German pilots . '' Piloting his Morane-Saulnier , Garros ' first victory came at the beginning of April 1915 and two more quickly followed . But his luck ran out later that month when a clogged fuel line forced him to crash-land behind enemy lines . Captured by the Germans , Garros remained a prisoner of war for almost three years before escaping in February 1918 . Short-lived success . Undeterred by the prospect of another incarceration or worse , Garros was soon airborne again , this time piloting a SPAD biplane . The pioneering airman showed he had lost none of his shooting skills as he downed his fourth German plane of the war in early October 1918 . But it was n't long before disaster struck . On October 5 , a day before his 30th birthday and five weeks before Armistice Day on November 11 , Garros was shot down and killed near the French town of Vouziers , close to the Belgian border . His demise came at the hands of a German airman flying a Fokker D VII plane fitted with a synchronization gear that stopped bullets hitting the propeller altogether . Designed by Dutch aircraft manufacturer Anthony Fokker , the device was far more efficient than Garros ' earlier deflector plates and caused numerous deaths of allied airmen when introduced in mid-1915 -- prompting the British press to coin the phrase the `` Fokker Scourge . '' Garros had , it seems , become a victim of the rapid progress that he had started . `` What you see in the First World War is this laboratory or crucible for development of what we know as air power today -- from a tactical/mission perspective as well as a technical design perspective , '' Jakab says . `` A guy like Garros was one of the early pioneers of developing a tactic in an aircraft-specific role . But ideas of formation flying and how squadrons would tactically engage had evolved after he was in prison . `` So when he came out , he was still pursuing fighter aviation like he had done in 1915 , but it was a different ball game by that point , '' Jakab said . `` He was surpassed by the war and by this technique that he had pioneered . But he was a great war hero . '' It was a status reaffirmed a decade after his death when a new stadium built to host the international teams tennis tournament now known as the Davis Cup was named in Garros ' honor . After beating the U.S. at Philadelphia 's Germantown Cricket Club in 1927 , France , led by the `` Four Musketeers '' ( Jean Borotra , Jacques Brugnon , Henri Cochet and Rene Lacoste ) went on to win five consecutive Davis Cup titles at the new stadium in Paris ' 16th arrondissement beginning in 1928 -- the same year the French Open was first held at the clay-court venue . Pre-war records . Garros ' high-standing among the French public was n't built solely on his efforts during the war . Prior to 1914 , he had been a highly successful member of a new burgeoning aircraft community which had rapidly grown in the wake of the Wright Brothers ' ( Wilbur and Orville ) first powered flight at Outer Banks , North Carolina in December 1903 . `` A lot of people do n't realize how much aeronautical activity was going on before the First World War , '' says Jakab . France was at the heart of this development , Jakab says , noting Louis Bleriot 's first crossing of the English Channel in an airplane in July 1909 which was followed a month later by the world 's first air meet at Reims in the Champagne-Ardenne region . `` It took place over a two-week period and upwards of 200,000 people came out to see the flying , '' Jakab says . `` This was not an obscure event and by 1910 , '11 , '12 you have the foundation of an aircraft industry in Europe not just in France , but the UK , Italy , Germany and Russia . '' As the FFT exhibition notes , Garros was inspired to take up flying after attending the Reims event and it was n't long before he was making a name for himself . In 1912 , two years after making his first flight , he won the prestigious Circuit de Anjou race before becoming the first man to fly across the Mediterranean Sea on September 23 the following year , as Flight International magazine reported . `` Tuesday last saw Roland Garros achieve his ambition of flying across the Mediterranean from France to Africa ... `` Leaving the Frejus Aerodrome at St. Raphael at 5.45 a.m. , and steering straight across the Mediterranean , over Sardinia , he made a safe landing in Bizerta , in Tunisia at 1.45 p.m . The distance between the two points is about 460 miles , and after his eight hours flight there still remained in the tank five liters of petrol . '' `` The 1913 flight across the Mediterranean was his great flight , '' Jakab says . `` From a pre-war point of view , he was one of the key pioneering aviators who established the viability of the airplane as a technology in terms of these long-term flights . '' These days , the only aviators you are likely to find at Roland Garros stadium are pairs of sunglasses perched on patron 's noses court side at Philippe Chatrier ( who actually was a former FFT president ) . The pilot 's story may be lost on most of them , but 100 years after the Great War began , Garros ' fighting spirit lives on in more frivolous forms of battle . `` Garros had two big qualities -- a lot of courage and a lot of determination , '' Guittard says . `` Those two words are perfect for our champions . '' The `` Moi ... Roland Garros '' exhibition can be seen at the FFT museum at Roland Garros stadium . Entry is free of charge to ticket-holders during the tournament .
Early 20th-century aviator was credited with developing fighter aviation . Score: 6 Captured by Germans , he escaped -- only to be killed months later . Garros was a pioneer in war and peacetime , setting new distance flight records .