My grateful thanks to Marianne Fevrier who works extremely hard putting posts on various English and French Facebook WW1 Commemorative Pages for bringing to my attention the fact that I had not yet mentioned Women Pilots on this weblog, although they have been featured in several of the exhibitions.
WOMEN PILOTS OF WORLD WAR ONE
A lot of people seem to be surprised when we mention
bombing raids and women pilots during the First World War, however there were
indeed both.
Balloons had been used in combat since the French Revolution. Artillery batteries had become used to
firing in the air during the Franco-Prussian War. Italy used planes for bombing raids for the first time in Libya
from 1910 – 1911 and in The Balkans 1912 – 1913.
Air travel was taking off during the years before the
First World War – there were flying clubs in towns all over Britain and
experiments were made with local passenger flights.
Charles Rolls of Rolls Royce fame, achieved a
non-stop double flight crossing the English Channel and back on 2nd
June 1910.
The first woman to fly across the English Channel was an American - Harriet Quimby - who made the flight in
59 minutes, taking off from Dover on 16th April 1912 – but little was known about her amazing accomplishment. Harriet was killed in a flying accident
on 1st July 1912.
Helene Dutrieu was born in Tournai in Belgium on 10th
July 1877. Her Father was an Army
officer. Helene DUTRIEU (1877 - 1961) was a truly Inspirational Woman. She is described as having been a 'cycling world champion, stunt cyclist, stunt motorcyclist, racing car driver, pioneer aviator, WW1 ambulance driver and Director of a military hospital'.
Helene left school at 14
to go out to work. She became a track cyclist and in 1895 won the women’s world
record for distance cycled in an hour.
In 1908 Helene was invited to pilot a Santos-Dumont
monoplane. She crashed on take
off, wrecking the plane. On
19th April 1910, she was the first woman pilot to fly with a passenger. The same year, Helene flew from Ostend to
Bruges in Belgium.
During the War, Helene drove ambulances and later
became the Director of the military hospital in Val-de-Grace, Paris 5e, France. She was sent to the
USA in 1915 by the French Red Cross for propaganda purposes. In 1956 Helene created the Helene
Dutrieu-Mortier Cup with a prize for the French or Belgian woman pilot who made
the longest non-stop flight each year. Helene died in Paris on 26th June 1961.
Notable American women pilots include Katherine Wright (sister of the Wright
Brothers) who flew in 1909, Baronesse
Bessica Raiche – 1910, Blanche
Stuart Scott, Matilde Moissant, Katherine and Marjorie Stinson and Ruth Law who
took part in fund-raising activities.
Tiny Broadwick was the first woman to parachute from a
plane in 1915.
Amelia Earhart interrupted her university studies to
nurse in a military hospital in America during WW1.
Marie was born in Aurillac, Cantal. The family moved to Metz which, it should be noted was German
at that time, where they lived from 1880 – 1889. After her Mother’s death, Marie at the age of
fourteen. took charge of the family and they moved to Nancy.
Encouraged by her Father, Marie became an
accomplished athlete, winning medals in swimming, fencing, shooting, ski
jumping, speed skating, sledging and bobsleighing. She also excelled at water polo, horse riding, athletics,
boxing, martial arts, fencing, tennis, golf, hockey, football, mountaineering
and circus skills. In 1890,
at the age of fifteen, Marie canoed from Nancy to Koblenz in Germany – more
than 400 kilometers (250 miles).
In 1901 Marie made her first balloon flight as a
passenger and in 1907 she piloted a balloon herself, going solo in September
1909. She piloted a balloon
across the English Channel on 26th October 1909. That same year, Marie flew in a
plane as a passenger and then studied fixed-wing aviation with Hubert
Latham. She was the second
woman to be licensed to fly a monoplane.
During the First World War, Marie disguised herself
as a man, something that she had to do because woman were not taken seriously
when they tried to sign up. Helped
by a French Infantry Lieutenant, she served at the Front as a Soldier, 2nd
Class in the French 42nd Battalion of Foot Soldiers. She was discovered and sent home.
Marie was the first woman to fly missions as a bomber
pilot. She was also a qualified
nurse and worked tirelessly to try to establish a global air ambulance
service. In 1915, Marie became the
first woman in the world to fly combat missions when she took part in a bombing
raid on a German military base in Metz, for which she received the Croix de
Guerre.
Marie’s efforts would appear to have begun to bear
fruit for in 1915, during the retreat of the French Army from Serbia a group of
wounded men were saved from capture by being flown out on combat aircraft
For the remainder of the war, Marie served as a Red
Cross nurse.
Between the Wars Marie travelled extensively
lecturing about the concept of ‘aeromedical evacuation’.
On her 80th birthday, Marie was flown over Nancy in
an American jet fighter. She began to study the piloting of helicopters but
never earned her licence. At the
age of 86 she cycled from Nancy to Paris.
Marie died at the age of 88 at Laxou in North-Eastern
France.
Notable Russian
women pilots of World War One included Princess
Eugenie M. SHAKOVSKAYA who was the first Russian woman to become a military
artillery and reconnaissance pilot, Lyubov
A. GOLANCHIKOVA, an actress who flew during the Russian Civil War and flew
sorties for the Reds and was also a test pilot, Helen P. SAMSONOVA, a reconnaissance pilot, Princess Sophie A. DOLGORUKAYA, a pilot and observer with the 26th
Corps Air Squadron until the October Revolution when she was demobilised and Nadeshda DEGTEREVA, who flew
reconnaissance missions on the Galician
Front (The Eastern Front) -
Poland, Russia, Hungary and was the first woman pilot to be wounded in combat
while on a reconnaissance mission over the Austrian Front.
ELFRIEDE RIOTTE (1879 - 1960)
GERMAN was the first
woman Zeppelin airship pilot.
Elfriede was born in Alsace on 12th April 1879, daughter of a
senior civil servant. Alsace was part
of the German Empire at that time.
In April 1914, Elfriede took her tests on the
Parseval-Luftschiff P VI. In July
of that year she gained her pilot’s licence. Elfriede was not allowed to fly airships during the First
World War so she concentrated on lecturing about flying.
Elfriede moved to Berlin after the War, built a
guesthouse on the Island of Ruegen in the Baltic Sea an gave lectures about
aviation.
POST SCRIPT
A report circulated by Associated Press during WW1
states: “That the Germans are
using women as military aviators is indicated in a report that in a machine
recently brought down by the Americans, the pilot, who was killed, was a
woman. The Captain of the
Company of the One Hundred and Sixty-seventh Infantry reported that the pilot
of a German aircraft brought down near Sergy on 28th August by Lieutenant
Millar Thompson of the American Air Force was a woman. The discovery of the sex of the aviator
was made, the Captain says, when his men buried the enemy pilot and her
observer.”
