Netherlands (worked in Germany)
Anthony Fokker
1890–1939 Aircraft manufacturer, Fokker Flugzeugwerke, Schwerin, 1914–1918
Born in Blitar, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), and raised in Haarlem, Anthony Fokker learned to fly in Germany and in 1912 founded an aircraft company there. After the French pilot Roland Garros was forced down behind German lines on 18 April 1915, the Germans asked several makers, Fokker among them, to copy his deflector propeller. Fokker's firm produced a pushrod synchronization gear that let a machine gun fire through the propeller. Fitted to the Eindecker, it brought German air superiority, the Fokker Scourge. His factory built the Dr.I triplane and the D.VII biplane, the only type the Armistice named. Historians differ on his own share in the gear and designs. He returned to the Netherlands in 1919 and died in New York on 23 December 1939.