![]() ![]() “All right, I’ll take it,” countered Mermoz. “It’s a terrible risk,” his boss had sensibly pointed out. Quickly realizing that the best way to cut delivery times was flying at night, he decided to do just that with the primitive equipment then available. Respected by fellow pilots for his courage, he led by example, taking great risks to shorten mail delivery times between distant cities. That same year, Mermoz was appointed Aéropostale’s chief pilot in South America and immediately set to work expanding an airmail route system begun on that continent in 1924. What remained of Pierre Latécoère’s original company continued manufacturing planes. Facing financial hurdles, Latécoère changed hands in 1927 to become Compagnie Générale Aéropostale, or simply Aéropostale. To reduce losses, Latécoère Airlines began replacing the weary Breguets with more reliable Laté monoplanes of its own design. Two were murdered outright, while a third man died of wounds soon after being ransomed. A few months later, Mermoz would vainly search for other Latécoère airmen forced down by mechanical problems. Tribesmen killed many who fell into their hands. Ransomed by the carrier after days of captivity lashed to a camel’s back, he considered himself lucky. In May 1926, while flying the most remote and dangerous section of the Line, Casablanca to Dakar, Mermoz was forced down in the Sahara and captured by desert nomads. Latécoère’s pilots had to contend with extreme desert heat that caused engine radiators to boil over and violent sandstorms that suddenly blocked their paths, not to mention hostile Moorish tribesmen who roamed the deserts below. In an age when engine failures were frequent, flying the old Breguets over mountains and trackless deserts was truly an adventure. He initially flew mail from the company’s base at Toulouse over the Pyrenees to Spain, then later to French North Africa and finally on to Dakar in West Africa. Mermoz’s many contributions to the Line’s colorful saga began in the fall of 1924. In the first 15 months of service, six pilots died in crashes. Lignes Aériennes Latécoère (or simply the “Line” to its loyal employees) began its march into history in 1919 with 12 pilots and eight war surplus Breguet 14 biplanes linking France to North Africa by hopping down Spain’s east coast across the Mediterranean Sea. Latécoère relished proving naysayers wrong. To many, his vision was a pipe dream: “Utterly utopian,” exclaimed a French bureaucrat. Latécoère proposed flying mail between France and South America in as little as 7½ days, at a time when post might take three weeks by ship. Finally, Mermoz received a letter from Didier Daurat, Latécoère Airline’s director of operations, offering employment.Īs early as 1918, Toulouse industrialist and warplane manufacturer Pierre Latécoère had planned an airmail service linking France to Africa and South America. Airlines were hiring, but many other pilots were also scratching for jobs. The fiercely independent Mermoz, although a decorated pilot, disliked military life and was demobilized in March 1924.Īdrift in Paris and looking for steady work, Mermoz found himself frequenting soup kitchens. Once posted overseas to Syria, he distinguished himself by surviving a grueling four-day desert trek after a forced landing. Instead, he became a national hero famed for his pioneering airmail flights linking France to South America.Īdvised by a family friend to go into aviation, Mermoz qualified as a military pilot in 1921. It was to be his 24th crossing, but after a brief radio message, Croix du Sud and its veteran five-man crew vanished, never to be seen again.īorn on December 9, 1901, in the rustic village of Aubenton in northern France, Mermoz was a quiet and reserved youth who thought he might become a poet or perhaps an artist. On December 7, 1936, French adventurer and aviator Jean Mermoz took off from Dakar, Senegal, in his four-engine Latécoère 300 flying boat for a flight across the South Atlantic to Brazil. While establishing fast and reliable airmail routes to and across South America, trailblazing aviator Jean Mermoz became a national hero. ![]() Triumphs and Ultimate Tragedy of the French Lindbergh Close
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