Henri Nomy

Henri Nomy (born June 4, 1899 in Saint-Brieuc , † August 2, 1971 in Toulon ) was a French admiral and pioneer of naval aviation .

First World War and the interwar years

Nomy entered the École Navale , the naval officer school in Brest , in June 1917 and left it in March 1918 as a lieutenant at sea ( Enseigne de vaisseau 2e classe ). At the same time he was commanded on the Aviso Regulus , which patrolled off the coast of Brittany .

After the end of the war he switched to naval aviation , acquired his pilot's license in 1924 and became a fighter pilot in April 1927 . As a lieutenant captain ( Lieutenant de Vaisseau ) he was from January 1927 to January 1930 squadron chief at the "Commission d'Etudes Pratiques d'Aviation" at the Saint-Raphaël air base near Fréjus . He proved himself in this function, then as commander of the flying boat prototype Short S.8 "Calcutta" and finally as chief of the reconnaissance squadron 3.E.1. In 1934, as a flight engineer , he was a member of the crew that, on 25 November with the pilot Lucien Bossoutrot on the flying boat Blériot 5190 , the "Santos-Dumont", was the first French to cross the South Atlantic from Dakar to Natal and thus the establishment of a National postal service of the air France allowed.

With his promotion to corvette captain ( Capitaine de Corvette ) came his change to the admiralty staff and in the military cabinet of the naval minister. From 1936 to 1938 he was in command of the naval aviation on the aircraft mother ship Commandant Teste . This was followed by a course at the “Center des Hautes Etudes Navales”, and on May 5, 1939, he was promoted to captain of the frigate ( Capitaine de Frégate ) and commanded the Branlebas torpedo boat .

Second World War

Five months after the start of the Second World War , on February 1, 1940, Nomy became commander of the naval air base in Berck- sur-Mer on the Channel coast , which he fiercely defended in May 1940 and from which the planes of his two squadrons, AB2 and AB4, defended the Germans Invaders inflicted considerable losses on May 19 and 20, but also paid a heavy toll in blood . Shortly before the Battle of Dunkirk , the heavily decimated squadrons were moved from Berck to Boulogne . Nomy himself came into German captivity until June 1941.

After his release he was initially involved in the French Resistance , but then had to flee after the occupying power had learned of his activities. He went via England to North Africa, where he was in command of the Port-Lyautey naval air base in Morocco from September 30, 1941 to June 1942 . After the Allied landing in Morocco in November 1942, he was one of the organizers of an espionage and information network of the Resistance in occupied France, until, from August 1943, in the meantime, as captain at sea ( Capitaine de vaisseau ), he was involved in the reorganization of French naval aviators . In March 1944 he received a number of Catalina flying boats from the allied Americans , with which he equipped the 8FE reconnaissance squadron, and 40 Dauntless dive combat aircraft for the 3FB and 4FB bomber squadrons , which were then used to clear the remaining German bridgeheads on the Atlantic. As head of the “Service central aéronautique” he was involved in the Allied landing in Provence in August 1944 , where he vehemently opposed the American proposal to completely bomb Saint-Raphaël . During the war, Nomy was promoted to Contre-Amiral ( Rear Admiral ) in February 1945 .

Post-war years

In July 1947 Nomy became Deputy Chief of the Admiralty ("Sous-chef d'Etat-major général") of the French Navy, in September 1949 Inspector of Naval Aviation ("Inspecteur général de l'aéronautique navale"), and in January 1950 his took place Promotion to Vice-Amiral ( Vice-Admiral ). In October 1950 he became Inspector of the Naval and Naval Aviation Forces ('Inspecteur des Forces maritimes et aéronavales'), and on October 26, 1951 he was appointed Chief of the Admiralty ("Chef d'Etat-Major Général de la Marine" [CEMM] ) appointed. This made him the last chief of staff to date who did not have the rank of four-star admiral. He was only promoted to Vice-Amiral d'Escadre ("Three-Star Admiral") in December 1951 and to Amiral ( Admiral ) on September 1, 1953 . Nomy remained chief of staff for nine years, until he retired from active service in July 1960. During this time he campaigned vigorously for the renewal of the navy, which had been badly damaged in the war, and in particular for the expansion of naval aviation. Thanks to his initiative, the two aircraft carriers Clemenceau and Foch and the helicopter carrier Jeanne d'Arc were built.

Nomy knew that the age of the battleships had come to an end. At the end of the war, however, the French navy only owned the Béarn , which was converted into an aircraft carrier in the 1920s , and since its modernization in 1943/44 had only been an aircraft transport ship. The aircraft mother ship Commandant Teste was still aground in Toulon and had not yet been lifted again. After several unsuccessful attempts by the Americans , Great Britain was finally ready to hand over two carriers to France, in April 1946 the escort carrier Dixmude (A609) (ex HMS Biter (D97) , an American freighter converted in 1941 and ceded to Great Britain in 1942) and in August 1946 the light carrier Arromanches (R95) (ex HMS Colossus (R15) , commissioned in 1944). As a result, Rear Admiral Nomy also succeeded in persuading the British to train French pilots and landing officers on Royal Air Force bases . In the NATO alliance , the US Navy finally handed over two carriers built in 1943, first the La Fayette (ex USS Langley ) in June 1951 , then the Bois-Belleau (ex USS Belleau Wood ) in September 1953 . The US also left fighter planes ( Corsair and Hellcat ), dive bomber ( Helldiver ) and submarine fighter ( TBM Avenger ) to French naval aviators , a total of about 100 of each of these three types, and from April 1950 to September 1957 there were 630 pilots in the US educated.

When parliament approved the construction of the first and the following year a second aircraft carrier in 1954, Nomy had achieved his goal. By the time it was passed, the two carriers had been launched - the Clemenceau on December 21, 1957, the Foch on July 23, 1960 - and the helicopter carrier Jeanne d'Arc had been under construction since 1959.

President Charles de Gaulle awarded Henri Nomy the Médaille militaire , the highest and rarest distinction that can be given to a general or admiral.

literature

• Etienne Taillemite: Les Hommes qui ont fait la marine française. Perrin, 2008, ISBN 978-2-262-02222-8

Web links

• http://www.drimm.fr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=78&Itemid=169
• http://ecole.nav.traditions.free.fr/officiers_nomy.htm

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Named after the airship and aircraft manufacturer Alberto Santos Dumont (1873–1932).
2. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from February 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ^ Together with Dominique Ponchardier , Pierre Ponchardier , Georges Groussard and André Devigny
4. ↑ http://www.postedeschoufs.com/aeronavale/1939_1945/5%20La%20reconstitution/la_reconstitution.htm