Paul Goffeny

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Paul Goffeny (* 27. August 1907 in Carnac ( Brittany ); † 1. January 1945 at La Tremblade ( Charente-Maritime )) was a highly decorated French military pilot , who in January 1945 in the fighting around the still of the German Wehrmacht occupied Royan lost his life.

Goffeny went in 1927 as a volunteer to the naval aviation (Aviation Navale) of the French Navy and received in 1929 his naval aviator patent. He rose steadily through the team and non-commissioned officer ranks, and on January 1, 1940 he was "Premier Maître Pilote" (staff sergeant). In 1941 he was involved in the fighting against the invading British troops in Syria , where he shot down a Bristol Blenheim in aerial combat and forced a Curtiss P-40 to crash land.

In 1944 Goffeny, meanwhile as "Officier d'equipage" (boatswain), belonged to the Navy Squadron 4FB, a unit in Cognac equipped with Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless reconnaissance bombers . He was shot down in an attack on German positions on the Atlantic Wall , but managed to get back to French positions through minefields.

On January 1, 1945, he led six SBDs in a bombing raid on a tanker lying northwest of Royan in the roadstead in front of the Pointe Coubre . One of his bombs did not come loose during the attack and exploded shortly afterwards. Goffeny's machine fell on fire in a forest south of La Tremblade. The bodies of Paul Goffeny and the gunner Michel Chauvin were recovered by German soldiers and buried with military honors in the Royan cemetery.

Honors

  • Goffeny was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Legion of Honor ("Croix de Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur").
  • The French Navy named the former German air traffic control ship Max Stinsky , which was handed over to France after the war, in his honor OE Paul Goffeny (F754) and later simply Paul Goffeny (A754) .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Warship International . tape 26 . International Naval Research Organization, 1989, p. 204 ( preview in Google Book search).
  2. ^ Bernard Estival: Un siècle de navires scientifiques français . Le gerfaut, 2003, ISBN 978-2-914622-21-9 , pp. 101 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Goffeny, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French pilot
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Carnac
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1945
Place of death La Tremblade