Normandy Nyemen
Normandie- Nyemen ( Russian Нормандия-Неман ) is the name of a French hunting regiment that fought on the side of the Red Army of the Soviet Union against the Axis powers during World War II . A hunting regiment of the Armée de l'air , which was dissolved in the meantime but was reorganized in 2012 and equipped with Dassault Rafale F3 , still bears this traditional name to this day.
history
The unit was formed on the basis of an agreement reached in March 1942 between the Soviet government and the government of Free France under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle from the personnel of the Normandy Air Force deployed in Syria in 1942 . On November 25, the first 15 French pilots and 40 mechanics were flown from Tehran to the Soviet Union by transport aircraft. From December 2, the group in Ivanovo was familiarized with the handling of the Soviet Yak-1 fighter aircraft . Later "Normandy" received the more modern designs Jak-9 and Jak-3 . On December 8th, the Fliegerstaffel, completed with 17 Soviet technicians, was officially incorporated into the Red Army as part of the 18th Guards Air Regiment . Major Jean Louis Tulasne became the commanding officer . The unit, which had meanwhile grown to squadron strength, was deployed for the first time on March 22, 1943 as part of the 303rd fighter division of the 1st Air Army ; the first aerial battles with German aircraft took place on April 16 at Moshaisk . By increasing the number of crews by newly arriving French, the 1st Fighter Regiment could be formed from the unit on July 5, 1943. The technical staff was completely replaced by Soviet mechanics. The French technicians were either flown out or retrained to become pilots. On July 17, 1943, Major Pierre Pouyade became the new commander in place of Jean Tulasne, who had fallen on the same day. His successor was Major Louis Delfino on October 25, 1944 .
In 1944 the squadron was equipped with more powerful Yak-9 fighters and took part in Operation Bagration in the summer . After a comparison flight for a successor with the Supermarine Spitfire and US fighters, the Normandy Regiment decided on the Soviet Yak-3, which it received in October. On November 28, 1944, the unit was awarded the honorary title Normandy-Nyemen after the heavy fighting on the River Nyemen (not far from Alytus Airport). In total, the squadron flew 5062 sorties until the German surrender on May 9, 1945 and destroyed 273 enemy aircraft in 869 air battles. 42 of the 96 French pilots were killed in the fighting, 79 received high Soviet awards, four of them (Marcel Albert, Jacques André, Roland de la Poype and Marcel Lefevre) the title Hero of the Soviet Union . At the end of the fighting, the pilot regiment consisted of the three squadrons " Rouen ", " Le Havre " and " Cherbourg ".
On February 19, 1945 the regiment received the Order of the Red Banner and on June 5 the Order of Alexander Nevsky . After the end of the war, Normandy-Nyemen was briefly relocated to Elblag on May 12, 1945 and to Moscow on June 1. On June 11th, the return to France began and on June 20, 1945 the remaining 41 pilots arrived in Le Bourget (Paris) with their Yak-3 aircraft . One of the planes can be viewed in the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace .
Unit veterans attended the celebrations marking the 65th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War on May 9, 2010 in Moscow's Red Square as guests . The former squadron commander Pierre Pouyade was awarded the international Lenin Peace Prize in 1977 .
The association was re-established in 2012 under its traditional name as Régiment de chasse 2/30 (RC 2/30) and is stationed on the base in Mont-de-Marsan . The term "Régiment" also comes from the Soviet era, normally the flying squadrons of the Armée de l'air are called "Escadron".
literature
- Wilfried Copenhagen : Lexicon Soviet Aviation . Elbe – Dnjepr, Klitzschen 2007, ISBN 978-3-933395-90-0 .
- Rainer Göpfert: 1942–1945: French in Soviet yaks. "Normandy-Nyemen" fighter squadron . In: FLiEGERREVUE X . No. 39 . PPVMedien, 2013, ISSN 2195-1233 , p. 44-57 .
- Martine Monod: Normandy-Nyemen . Culture and progress, Berlin 1964 (novel).
Movie
Based on historical facts, the Soviet feature film Normandie-Nyemen, produced in 1959, was made .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Yakovlev Yak-3. In: Collections. Musée de l'air et de l'espace, accessed on July 20, 2018 (French): "Numéro de constructeur 2530, il était alors codé 25. Il arriva au Bourget le 20 juin 1945 avec le n ° 18."
- ^ Wilfried Copenhagen: Soviet-French Brotherhood of Arms in World War II: the "Normandie-Nyemen" squadron. In: Flieger Jahrbuch. Volume 24, 1982, p. 69, ISSN 0428-5697
- ↑ Normandie-Nyemen in the Internet Movie Database (English)