Jean du Plessis de Grenédan

Jean du Grenedan Plessis was a naval officer of France, born in Rennes on 15 January 1892, died on 21 or 22 December 1923 over the sky of Sicily, as lieutenant, Commander of the airship " Dixmude".

Biography

Jean Joseph Anne-Marie du Plessis was the second son of a lawyer at the bar of Rennes, Count Joachim du Plessis Grenedan. His father participated in the creation of the Catholic Faculty of Angers. Jean completed his high school, from the fifth class, at the Collège Saint-Maurille.

On October 5, 1907 he entered the 'Naval Course' preparatory to the Ecole Navale at the college of Vaugirard in Paris to prepare for the entrance exam to the National Naval School. Following the end of the preparatory classes at the Vaugirard college, in Octobrt 1908, he completed his second year of 'Naval Studies’ at the Lycée Saint-Louis where he was an external student. This School is a boarding school at Massillon, run by priests of the Oratory that provide further studies for advanced students. He was received at the forty-first College Intake in August 1909. He joined the naval school and embarked on the Borda, a school ship that housed the Naval Academy from 1840 to 1913, on September 30, 1909.

He passed twenty-first at the Naval School in July 1911.

Career

From 1911-1912, he made a tour in the West Indies and a tour in the Mediterranean and Baltic on the "Duguay-Trouin" (launched in 1900).

He was commissioned in 1917 as an airship pilot, and he became famous as commander of the Dixmude, one of the two French zeppelins, and especially by establishing world records on board. His disappearance in the Mediterranean Sea, aboard the Dixmude, on the 21 or 22 December 1923, gave rise to a formidable controversy.

The airship LZ-114 (ex-L-72) was built in 1917. It was, at the time, the largest airship in the world. Its features are the following: 226 m in length, height of 28 m, total weight of 85 tons, total volume of 68 500 m3 of hydrogen, a diameter of 24 m, volume of useful cargo 55 ton, with 7 Maybach engines generating 260 horsepower, with 6 propulsion propellers, with a maximum speed of 80 km/h, and a cruising speed 60 km/h (optimal).

In 1920, as a result of the armistice, the airship was delivered by the Germans to the French authorities in Maubeuge. Jean du Plessis de Grenedan (as a Naval Lieutenant) baptized it the Dixmude. in memory of the dead Marines defending the Belgian city of Dixmude. On the 10 August 1920, it was in working condition. It arrived on August 11 at 3 AM at Paris, flews over the Concorde and the Champs-Elysées, and went on to the Aviation Center of Cuers-Pierrefeu (near Toulon).

On the night of 21–22 December 1923, on its returning to Tunisia, the airship ‘21 - 12 L – 72’ disappeared in a storm with 50 men on Board (crew: 43, passengers: 7). On 26 December, fishermen from Sciacca (Sicily) retrieved in their net the body of Jean du Plessis de Grenedan. In the pockets of his large coat he was wearing were a rosary, a few medals, a purse, a bag containing a relic of Saint Marguerite - Marie of the Sacred Heart, an image of St. Christopher, some other objects and, attached to a gold chain, a steel watch stopped at 2: 27.

This drama marked the end of the use of Dirigibles as military airships.

Jean du Plessis was given a national funeral celebrated on 5 January 1924 in Toulon. He was decorated with the national order of the Legion of Honour, with citation of the Order of the Day for the Navy: "An elite officer, dedicated technician, communicating to all his spirit of duty, qualities of thoughtful boldness, brave eagerness and his disregard for danger." "For three years, he had displayed a high degree of the finest military qualifications in command of the airship Dixmude, on which he died gloriously at his post of duty."

Sources

• • Josselin du Plessis de Grenedan
  • French Ministry (Department) of Defence
  • Site de Bretagne Aviation

Works

• • * Les Grands dirigeables dans la paix et dans la guerre (2 volumes) ; tome I : Leur passé, leur avenir, l'expérience du Dixmude - tome II : Leur technique ; P., Plon, 1925. (in French) ("Large airships in peace and in war" (2 volumes). Volume I: Their past, their future, the experience of the Dixmude. - vol. II: Their technique. 1925. (released posthumously by his father).

Bibliography

• • Le Dixmude est-il perdu ?, La Libre Parole, no 11359, 27 December 1923
  • Le Dixmude signalé en dérive vers le Hoggar, La Libre Parole, no 11360, 28 December 1923
  • Le sort du Dixmude, le corps du Commandant du Plessis de Grenédan, La Libre Parole, no 11361, 29 December 1923
  • La catastrophe du Dixmude, La Libre Parole, no 11362, 30 December 1923
  • La perte du Dixmude, L'Illustration, 5 January 1924
  • Du Plessis de Grenédan (Comte Joachim), La vie héroïque de Jean du Plessis, Commandant du "Dixmude" 1892-1923, P., Plon, 1924 (reissued, 1949), 364 pp, Illustrated.
  • Jacquet (Bernard, La base aéronautique de Cuers-Pierre feu, du crash du Dixmude à nos jours ; Hyères les palmiers, éd. du Lau, 2007, 224 p.
  • L'épopée des Grands Dirigeables et du Dixmude, Michel Vaissier, November 2011. Mens Sana editions. Work selected to compete for the Guynemer Prize 2013 (at the salon du Bourget 2013).