Шарль Нюнжессер: Французский ас и тайна трансатлантического перелета

20th century French fighter ace and adventurer

Charles Eugène Jules Marie Nungesser (15 March 1892 – presumably on or after 8 May 1927) was a French ace pilot and adventurer. Nungesser was a renowned ace in France, ranking third highest in the country with 43 air combat victories during World War I. After the war, Nungesser mysteriously disappeared on an attempt to make the first non stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, flying with wartime comrade François Coli in L'Oiseau Blanc (The White Bird). Their aircraft took off from Paris on 8 May 1927, was sighted once more over Ireland, and then was never seen again. The aircraft was either lost over the Atlantic or crashed in Newfoundland or Maine. Two weeks after Nungesser and Coli's attempt, Charles Lindbergh successfully made the journey, flying solo from New York to Paris in Spirit of St. Louis. Monuments and museums honoring Nungesser and Coli's attempt exist at Le Bourget airport in Paris and on the cliffs of Étretat, the location from which their plane was last sighted in France.

Charles Nungesser was born on 15 March 1892 in Paris and, as a child, was very interested in competitive sports. After attending the École des Arts et Métiers, where he was a mediocre student who nonetheless excelled in sports such as boxing, he went to South Americafirst to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to search for an uncle who could not be located and then to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he worked as an auto mechanic before becoming a professional racer. His interest in racing soon led him to flying airplanes; Nungesser learned to fly by using a Blériot plane owned by a friend. After he eventually found his missing uncle, he worked on his sugar plantation in the Buenos Aires province.

When World War I broke out, Nungesser returned to France where he enlisted with the 2nd Régiment de Hussards. During one patrol, he and several soldiers commandeered a German Mors patrol car after killing its occupants. This impressed his superiors and he was subsequently awarded the Médaille militaire and granted his request to be transferred to the Service Aéronautique.

As a military pilot, he was transferred to Escadrille VB106. While there, in July 1915, he shot down his first plane, a German Albatros, and was awarded the Croix de guerre. This action was the beginning of the Nungesser legend. On 31 July 1915, Nungesser and his mechanic Roger Pochon were on standby duty. The two took off in a Voisin 3LAS despite Nungesser's assignment to non flying duties. In an encounter with five Albatros two seaters, the French duo shot one down near :Nancy, France. Returning to their airfield, Nungesser was placed under house arrest for eight days for his insubordination. He was then decorated and forwarded to training in Nieuport fighters. By the time Nungesser left VB106, he had flown 53 bombing missions. He had also emblazoned at least one of the Escadrille's planes with his elaborate gruesome personal insignia: the freebooter's skull and crossbones and a coffin with two candles. His silver Nieuport 17 plane was decorated with a black heart shaped field, within which was painted in white a macabre Jolly Roger, a coffin and two candles. He had adopted the title "The Knight of Death", paraphrasing the French word mort ("death"), a play on words for the German Mors vehicle like the one he captured as a cavalryman. In early 1917, Nungesser had to return to hospital for treatment of injuries but managed to avoid being grounded. the third highest number among French fliers behind René Fonck and Georges Guynemer. In his flying career, Nungesser received dozens of military decorations from France, Belgium, Montenegro, United States of America, Portugal, Russia, and Serbia.

By the end of the war, a succinct summary of Nungesser's wounds and injuries read: "Skull fracture, brain concussion, internal injuries (multiple), five fractures of the upper jaw, two fractures of lower jaw, piece of anti aircraft shrapnel imbedded [sic] in right arm, dislocation of knees (left and right), re dislocation of left knee, bullet wound in mouth, bullet wound in ear, atrophy of tendons in left leg, atrophy of muscles in calf, dislocated clavicle, dislocated wrist, dislocated right ankle, loss of teeth, contusions too numerous to mention." They married in 1923 and separated in 1926.

In late 1923, Nungesser headed up an ill starred voyage to Havana. Having been invited by the secretary to the President, José Manuel Cortina, when the latter was vacationing in Paris, Nungesser seemed to have assumed he had received an official tender from the Cuban government. At any rate, Nungesser brought four World War I SPADs with him, as well as two fellow veterans. Nungesser based the SPADs with the Cuban Air Corps at Campo Colombia. He then proposed that the Cubans buy forty or more airplanes from him. When the Cuban Army pleaded lack of budget, Nungesser so aggressively importuned the Cuban Congress that the Cuban army Chief of Staff, General Alberto Herrera y Franchi, threatened to throw Nungesser's party out of the country. On 10 February 1924, the French ace ended his Cuban sojourn with a fundraising flying exhibition, proceeds going to charity.

François Coli, a navigator already known for making historic flights across the Mediterranean, had been planning a transatlantic flight since 1923, with his wartime comrade Paul Tarascon, another World War I ace. When Tarascon had to drop out because of an injury from a crash, Nungesser came in as a replacement. Nungesser and Coli took off from Le Bourget airport near Paris on 8 May 1927, heading for New York in their L'Oiseau Blanc (The White Bird) aircraft, a Levasseur PL.8 biplane painted with Nungesser's old World War I insignia. Their plane was last sighted heading past Ireland and, when they never arrived, the assumption was that their plane had crashed in the North Atlantic Ocean. Two weeks later, American aviator Charles Lindbergh successfully crossed from New York to Paris and was given an immense hero's welcome by the French, even as they mourned for the losses of Nungesser and Coli. Over the years, there have been various investigations to try to determine what happened to Nungesser and Coli. Most believe that the plane came down in the Atlantic due to a rain squall, but the aircraft has never been recovered. The leading alternative theory is that the aircraft may have crashed in Maine. Amongst them are Nungesser Lake and Coli Lake
The town of Gander, NL, Canada has named a street after Charles Nungesser (48.953497, −54.612927). The modern town of Gander was started in late 1950s and most of its streets are named after famous aviators.

The first American air fighting super production film, The Dawn Patrol (1930), featured Nungesser flying himself in his own plane with The Knight of Death emblem on it. The film was released in 1930, well after Nungesser's disappearance, but filmed four years earlier. The plane he flew was not a Nieuport 17, as he flew in the war, but a Hanriot HD.1 type. The film, directed by Howard Hawks, became a success due to the many scenes of spectacular dogfighting. A number of other aces of World War I, of various nationalities, have been used to fly planes in similar film productions or airshow demonstrations as well. Contrary to rumor, Nungesser was not one of the stunt pilots killed during the filming of Hell's Angels (1930), the epic aviation movie by Howard Hughes. In 1982, a French film L'as des as (Ace of Aces) starring Jean Paul Belmondo extensively used many anecdotes from Nungesser's life, mostly for comedic effect. In addition to dogfighting, his night life in Paris had become a legend of sorts. A 1999 Canadian made for TV children's special movie, Dead Aviators (airing on U. S. cable TV as "Restless Spirits"), uses the mystery of the disappearance of The White Bird as the key plot device. A young girl, who struggles with her pilot father's death in a plane crash years before, visits her grandmother in Newfoundland. While there, she encounters the ghosts of Nungesser and Coli, whose restless spirits constantly relive their own unheralded 1927 crash in a nearby pond. The girl decides to help the pair move onto the afterlife by assisting them in rebuilding their airplane and completing their flight so they may be released and, by doing so, works through her own emotional distress over her father's test flight death. The depiction of The White Bird and Nungesser's crest and dialog references to Nungesser's wartime achievements are very consistent with some published accounts. In the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episode Attack of the Hawkmen, Indiana Jones meets Nungesser (played by Patrick Toomey) when Jones, as a Belgian officer, is temporarily attached to the Lafayette Escadrille. Nungesser is depicted as the squadron's reckless, flamboyant and charismatic hero, who parties in Paris and duels with the Red Baron. Nungesser flies Jones in and out of Germany in a German biplane to accomplish an undercover spy mission concerning Dutch aircraft manufacturer Anthony Fokker (played by Craig Kelly), who was building new planes like the Fokker Dr. I for Germany's war effort.