Roland GARROS (1888-1918) aviator. L.A.S. April 5, 1915, to a newspaper editor; 2pages in-4 (small tear on one edge, removing 3 word endings). Beautiful and rare letter after his first aerial victory (April 1, 1915). He asked Ajalbert to send "the shots I was able to take of the wreckage of the downed aircraft and the two German corpses. The day was unhappily dim [...] I missed the 'beautiful shot' and I'm sorry for that. The enemy plane, in flames, circled for half a minute below me before crashing. I had ten times the time to take it. Alas, I'd gone out to bomb, not hunt, and I didn't have my Verascope! [...] I took about 10 shots of Nieuport after the last bombardment by 420s, including one or two 420 holes [...] The weather is still difficult for aerial photography, and it's so cold that it's impossible to loosen up even for a moment. It's hard to do anything delicate with aviator's gloves on [...] But as soon as the weather's fine, you can count on one or two amazing numbers. It's essential that no one knows you're holding pictures of me, otherwise I'll get into serious trouble"...