Edmond Thieffry

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Edmond Thieffry (born September 28, 1892 in Etterbeek / Brussels , † April 11, 1929 at Lake Tanganyika ) was a Belgian fighter pilot in the First World War and a well-known aviation pioneer. Together with Léopold Roger and Jef de Bruycker, he carried out the first successful flight from Belgium to the Congo (then a Belgian colony ).

Pre-war period

Thieffry was born in Etterbeek, a district of Brussels. He studied law at the Catholic University of Leuven , which later earned him the nickname "The Flying Judge". After graduating, he began his military service in the 10ème Régiment de Ligne in 1913.

First World War

When war broke out as a lawyer, he was drafted and as a motorcycle reporter with the 14ème Régiment de Ligne of the IIIème Division near Liège, he became a German prisoner of war; however, he managed to escape to the Netherlands on a stolen motorcycle , where he was picked up by the Dutch military police. However, his legal knowledge and his fluent Dutch helped him to avoid internment and to return to the Belgian army via Antwerp on his stolen motorcycle .

In 1915, Thieffry joined the Compagnie des Ouvries et Aérostiers , the Belgian air force, and after a series of crash landings in Étampes on August 21, 1915, took the pilot's exam. Right at the start, Thieffry crash-landed a Nieuport, and as he climbed out of the wreck, he panicked the rushing spectators when he accidentally pulled the machine-gun trigger. From February 1, 1916, he initially served in the 3ème Escadrille equipped with Voisin two-seater and took part in numerous day and night bomb attacks. Then he came to the 4ème Escadrille, which was equipped with Maurice Farman two-seater. Here he distinguished himself as an artillery observer over the front on the Yser through courage and precision. Due to his numerous crash landings, however, he was assigned to a single-seater squadron, possibly because no one was willing to fly with him as an observer.

Thiffry came to the 5ème Escadrille ("Les Comets") under Captain Jules Dony, who was stationed at De Panne. On January 24, 1917, he flew over occupied Brussels and his old school, Saint-Michel, where he dropped a Belgian flag and a letter to the Jesuits. He dropped a second flag and a letter to Miss de Loneux, his fiancée, over Place Van Meyel.

On March 15, 1917 he won his first aerial victory with his Nieuport 11 , eight days later at Ghistelles the second, on May 12 at Houthulst his third and on June 14, 1917 his fourth against an Albatros D.III over Westende.

After his squadron was relocated to Les Moëres and equipped with Nieuport 23 , he shot down two German naval fighters at Diksmuide on July 3 . In August he received the first of the new SPAD S.VII , which had been delivered to the Belgian air force and personally transferred by the Belgian Crown Prince. With his SPAD he won three more aerial victories, but on August 31, 1917, in an aerial battle east of Diksmuide with two German Albatros DV , he was caught in the bursts of Albatros by Lieutenant Karl Hammes (Jasta 35b), so that he had to make an emergency landing behind his own front could. He received a new SPAD S.VII, which he marked with red and white stripes.

Unterleutnant Thieffry achieved his tenth and last confirmed aerial victory on October 10, 1917. On February 23, 1918, he was shot down burning during his 150th enemy flight in a dogfight with a German two-seater from Fliegerabteilung 227 near Woumen and was wounded in the German hospital near Courtrai . On April 13, 1918, he managed to escape from the prison camp, but after ten days of escaping he was caught and spent the rest of the war behind barbed wire.

Together with five other unconfirmed aerial victories, he was third among Belgian fighter pilots after Willy Coppens and André de Meulemeester .

The Congo flight

After the end of the war, Thieffry returned to Brussels via Switzerland on December 6, 1918, where he worked as a lawyer, but remained involved in aviation. In 1923 he co-founded the Belgian airline Sabena and planned to establish a flight connection to the Congo. At the beginning of 1925 the authorities finally gave permission for this adventurous undertaking and the Sabena provided a three-engine Handley Page W8f, replicated in Belgium , which Thieffry named " Princess Marie-José " in order to represent the father, his friend and patron King Albert I. from Belgium , for their support.

Thieffry started in the 5 to heavy and 850 HP strong machine with his mechanic Joseph "Jef" de Bruycker and Léopold Roger as copilot on February 12th 1925 in Zaventem and set course for the airfield N'Dolo near Leopoldville (today Kinshasa ). As navigator, Thieffry had set a route with daily stages to Marseille , Oran , Colomb-Bechar , Gao , Fort-Lamy , Bangui and Coquilhatville . However, strong headwinds and a broken propeller extended the tour from seven to 51 days. After a flight distance of 8,200 kilometers and a flight time of 75 hours and 20 minutes, the crew landed in Leopoldville on April 3 and was enthusiastically received by the spectators.

Thieffry made two more flights to the Congo. He started his next flight attempt on March 9, 1928 in an ACAZ C.2 together with Joseph Lang and Philippe Quersin; however, he only got as far as Philippeville . The next attempt began on June 26th, again with Philippe Quersin, but had to be stopped in Montpellier .

Thieffry, however, continued to work on plans to connect the Congo to international air traffic. On April 11, 1929 he started a test flight with Gaston Julien and the mechanic Eugène Gastuche on an Avimeta C.92 , but got caught in a cyclone. Thieffry and Julien were killed in the crash landing on Lake Tanganyika, only the on-board mechanic could be rescued by the rescue workers.

10 years later the Brussels - Kinshasa airline was opened.

In July 1932 a memorial plaque for Thieffry was put up in Etterbeek, which shows his adventurous flight route to Leopoldville. In addition, the Thieffry metro station and the Rue Aviateur Thieffry / Vlieger Thieffry Straat in his home town commemorate the famous aviator.

Hit list

No. date Time plane against place
1 March 15, 1917 ~ 17-18h Nieuport Two-seater
2 March 23, 1917 morning Nieuport Two-seater Ghistelles
3 May 12, 1917 07: 00h Nieuport Two-seater Houthulster Forest
4th June 14, 1917 20: 30h Nieuport Albatros D.III West end
5 July 3, 1917 1.30 p.m. Nieuport Albatros D.III North of Diksmuide
6th July 3, 1917 13: 32h Nieuport Albatros D.III North of Diksmuide
7th August 16, 1917 09: 15h SPAD Albatros C two-seater Houthulster Forest
8th August 22, 1917 10:15 a.m. SPAD Beerst
9 August 26, 1917 19: 40h SPAD Slype
10 October 16, 1917 11:40 a.m. SPAD Merckem

Awards

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Les Chevaliers du Ciel ( Memento of October 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Biography at theaerodrome.com

literature

  • Freddy Capron: L'aviation belge et nos sovverains . Editions JM Collet, Braine-l'Alleud 1987, (French).
  • Norman Franks: Les as de la Grande Guerre sur Nieuport . Osprey Aviation, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-84349-085-5 , ( Les combats du ciel 54), (French).
  • Hervé Gérard: Les As de l'aviation belge . Editions JM Collet, Braine-l'Alleud 1994, ISBN 2-87367-018-5 , ( Collection Vécu ), (French).
  • Jon Guttman: SPAD VII aces of World War I . Osprey Aviation, Oxford 2001, ISBN 1-84176-222-9 , ( Osprey aircraft of the aces 39), (English).
  • B. van der Klaauw, Armand van Ishoven, Peter van der Gaag: De geschiedenis van de Nederlandse en Belgische Luchtvaart . Lekturama, Rotterdam 1982, ( De geschiedenis van de luchtvaart ).
  • E. Thieffry: En avion de Bruxelles au Congo Belge. Histoire de la 1st Liaison Aérienne entre la Belgique et sa Colonie. Bruxelles-Léopoldville 1925 . Préface de SM le Roi des Belges. La Renaissance du Livre, Brussels 1926, (French).
  • Arch Whitehouse: Aviator Aces. 1914-1918 . Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1970, pp. 178-180.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Thieffry, Edmond
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian fighter pilot
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Etterbeek, Brussels
DATE OF DEATH April 11, 1929
Place of death Tanganyika lake