de Turenne

[spad]

did de Turenne fly a SPAD VII marked as a SPA48 machine while commanding SPA12?

[gregoire]

Armand de Turenne was flying a Spad 13 with the singing cokrel of the spa 48 as his personal insignia. it was not a 7 but a 13

here are a couple of picture
http://gaubs.free.fr/ESCADRILLES/SPA48/Pho...hotos/SXIII.htm

[spad]

thanks gregoire, but the photograph still doesn't prove this, as it's a photo of SPA48. I know he flew the Nieuport 11, 17 and SPADVII (and indeed probably the SPAD XIII) with SPA48 but it still doesn't prove he flew a cockerell-marked SPAD with SPA12.

[Gregvan]

Hi Gentlemen,

According to Jon Guttman, who corresponded with de Turenne, the well-known photo of de Turenne standing in front of an early-model uncamouflaged Spad XIII shows him in command of Esc SPA 12, and not 48. In the new Osprey book, "Spad XII/XIII Aces of World War 1" (which I highly recommend), Jon quotes a letter he received from de Turenne:

"Personally, I believed that I had to keep my 'Chant et Combat' . After leaving SPA 48, I did not have a personal number, but I always kept the cockerel."

The early-model Spad XIII thus lacked SPA 12's blue and white pennant insignia, but did have that unit's white radiator cowl.

I guess you'll just have to take deTurenne's word for it.

Greg VanWyngarden

[spad]

hello Greg, (I have the SPAD book on order) I had seen a photograph giving some of this information but wasn't too sure of it's accuracy. thanks for the confirmation.