Charles Nungesser

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Charles Nungesser : biography

15 March 1892 – on or after 8 May 1927

World War I exploits

Enlisting in the cavalry

When World War I broke out, Nungesser returned to France where he enlisted with the 2e Régiment de Hussards. During one patrol, he and several soldiers commandeered a German Mors patrol car after killing its occupants. This impressed his superiors, and he was subsequently awarded the Medaille Militaire and granted his request to be transferred to the Service Aéronautique.

Serving in the Service Aéronautique

His silver Nieuport 17 plane was decorated with a black heart-shaped field, a macabre Jolly Roger, and a coffin and candles painted inside. He had adopted the title "The Knight of Death," paraphrasing the French word mort ("death"), a play on words for the German Mors vehicle, like the one he had earlier captured while as a cavalryman.

In early 1917, Nungesser had to return to hospital for treatment of injuries but managed to avoid being grounded. He had pushed his score to 30 by 17 August 1917, when he downed his second Gotha bomber. Injuries from a car crash in December got him a month’s respite as an instructor before he returned to flying combat with Escadrille 65. He still flew a Nieuport, even though the squadron had re-equipped with Spads. By May 1918, he had 35 victories, including a shared victory each with Jacques Gérard and Eugène Camplan, and was raised to Officer of the Legion d’Honneur.

By August 1918, he finally made a radical upgrade to the most recent Spad, the Spad XIII, and began to win again. On 14 August, he shot down four observation balloons for wins 39 through 42. The following day, he shared a win with Marcel Henriot and another pilot and finished the war with 43 official victories, the third highest number among French fliers behind René Fonck and Georges Guynemer.http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/index.php Retrieved 28 March 2010.

In his flying career, Nungesser received dozens of military decorations from France, Belgium, Montenegro, United States of America, Portugal, Russia, and Serbia.

Wounds and injuries

By the end of the war, a succinct summary of Nungesser’s wounds and injuries read: "Skull fracture, brain concussion, internal injuries (multiple), five fractures of the upper jaw, two fractures of lower jaw, piece of anti-aircraft shrapnel imbedded [sic] in right arm, dislocation of knees (left and right), re-dislocation of left knee, bullet wound in mouth, bullet wound in ear, atrophy of tendons in left leg, atrophy of muscles in calf, dislocated clavicle, dislocated wrist, dislocated right ankle, loss of teeth, contusions too numerous to mention."http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/france/nungesser.php Retrieved on 5 May 2010.

Commemoration

In 1928, the Ontario Surveyor General named a number of lakes in the northwest of the province to honour aviators who had perished during 1927, mainly in attempting oceanic flights. p 14. Amongst these are Nungesser Lake () and Coli Lake ().

For details of other memorials, see The White Bird#Legacy.

Charles Nungesser in film

In the scenes of the first American air fighting super production film, The Dawn Patrol (1930), Nungesser was flying himself in his own plane with The Knight of Death emblem on it. The plane was not a Nieuport 17, however, but a Hanriot HD.1 type. The film became a success due to the many scenes of spectacular dogfighting shot four years before the film was released and when, of course, Nungesser was still alive. A number of other aces of World War I of various nationalities have been used as well to fly planes in similar film productions or airshow demonstrations.

Contrary to rumor, Nungesser was not one of the stunt pilots killed during the filming of Hell’s Angels (1930), the epic aviation movie by Howard Hughes.

In the 1970s, a French film with the same title (Les as des as) starring Jean-Paul Belmondo extensively used many anecdotes on Nungesser’s life. In addition to dogfighting, his night life in Paris had become a legend of sorts.