RE:The Sentinell of Verdun

[brad kaste]

My November 'Aviation History' magazine arrived yesterday. One of the feature articles deals with an early French WWI ace,...Jean Navarre. To be honest, I had never heard of him before. Just the more obvious ones.
It's a very good read written by Don Hollway. As Hollway states in the intro paragraph,..."One of the very first fighter aces, Jean Navarre terrorized the skies over France by day and the streets of Paris by night."
Navarre did survive the war only to die while practicing to fly through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. However, this stunt was preformed successfully by a Sergeant Charles Godefroy. Here's Hollway's web sight on Jean Navarre plus actual film caption of Godefroy flying through the Arc de Triomphe. It's only five seconds in length.
http://www.donhollway.com/jeannavarre/

[arfyhun]

Thank you for the post brad. Excellent. Like you I'd never heard of him either. This is a man who has obviously slipped through the net of history.

Graham.

[Dain Arns]

Yes. I am kinda surprised you haven't heard of him. :icon_lol:
Won every award, including the Legion d'Honneur, and as you mentioned was one of the first Aces for France.
Spent all the years in WWI and survived.
But died when he was only 23 years old in 1919 trying to fly through the Arc, which meant he was 18 when he started the war.

Besides the 'Red' Neuport he used over Verdun, he had a couple other 11's he had painted up in French national colors I always liked.