The french animals

[gregoire]

The 11/11/18 the french army had a total of 247 squadron all of them with an insigna
that insigna coule be simple (the spad 80 for exemple only have a single blue line) or complex like for the marianne of the 21, it could be patriotic (the head of Jeanne d'arc of the spa 124) or comic or related to his commanding officer (the 33 have an axe because the name of its first commanding officer Bordage and that make la hache d'abordage not that funny in english)
but animal and birds play a large part we can roup the animal in 3 category Birds, the land animals(that will include real animal that were winged for the purpose like the winged snail of the 1 and the fish) and mythical and mythological (egyptian and roman) one

bird (and flying insect and bat)
there are a total of 81 unit
including 6 stork 7 parrot 7 sea bird (seagull and other) 12 rooster of any kind (including chicken heen ...) 6 swallow (and similar bird) 6 duck and 21 bird of prey of various nature (falcon eagle ) and 7 night bird and 4 bats

of the other animal represent 44 animals (only the cat, the dog and the elephant are represnted more than 3 time)

there are also 11 dragoon and other grifon and chimera
3 pegasus
8 of egyptian inspiration
a single roman she wolf
and two Lyon of Belfort

NB some unit have changed insigna during the war as a result they may be counted more than one but only if they changed of animal

[Philippe JOURDAN]

Hi Gregoire,

Nice work and they are always some units with unknow insignia and some insignias know but without attach to an unit.
It is again a lot of work for historian. My dream would be a corrected edition, in modern design of the famous "Moreau Berillon".

yours philippe.

Nota: Do you know the book of Philippe Bartlett " Les insignes de l'aeronautique Militaire Française jusqu'en 1918" What do you think about?

[gregoire]

Bartlett book is good in some aspect it correct a few error of the MB then it is in an acceptable price range (I have insured my MB last year for more than a month salary)
the only trouble I have with it is its design (you have color page and the legend on an other part then you have at 3 differents place to find what you want (the biographie of the various squdron are unegual from good to inexistance) the last trouble is it spend for my taste too much time introducing the french aviation and on some part it took the MB without checking (and the MB is not always correct)
all in all its a good book and I do not regret having baught it

[Philippe JOURDAN]

Yes, I have same comments as you, I would add also that if some time he is giving some works to say that " we don't know nothig about these units", somrtime he said nothing, and we know that Nb squadons are missing.
I knew Mr Bartlett father, I knew that he was a great enthusiat and very competent in militarism heraldism and medals, not only for airforce but for armies etc... and, with this book, I have a taste of "non finished cooking" his son presented father's collection with a minimal of research work.

I am always dreaming to a new version of "MOREAU BEILLON" with metal medals, more informations about escadrille etc... British authors are able to do such work and find editors , but in France, it is an other "story"!!!! and we have all materials at SHAA and MAE :'(

[gregoire]

Well it is not that easy a lot of data are missing (if you look into the SHAA you will find that for half of the unit they have no documentation for some other there are no picture I have a nice article on a french army cooperation squdron I can not publish it there is not picture for an other unit I have a lot of picture but not a single line of text

[Philippe JOURDAN]

Yes Gregoire, you say true, but I know, by experience, that it is 2 ways for materials, 1st by normal way, you may have only official materials and by the second, by friends working in these "museum", you may have more!

Now, I don't know if you are living in France or not, but since the closing of national military time for young frenchmen, the SHAA had big problems for work, it is missing +/- 40% of workers ( these workers,was young frenchmen). The good way would be to have a parallel team of enthusiasts to work on archivs ( several tons, photos and documents, it's true ). But SHAA is a military department and it is not yet in "moeurs" to work with civilians.

For MAE, it is now an other situation, MAE is now in the "giron" of national museums, and of course, for to be able to work in and have responsability, you must come from university and to be graduate in history or "conservation", and we are unlucky, because a majority of these peoples who are working in are not really air-enthusiasts, they are here, because it is nescessary to have a job for eat, also: " not too fast on morning and slowly in the afternoon". Of course, it is several parallel association close the museum, but only for put hands in oil and benzine for aircrafts preservation ( these peoples do this very seriously and with enthusiasm ) but it is not question for them to put hands in the stocked tons of documentation materials, they don't have diplom for that!!!!!

they are also several other places where materials are stocked, not accessible for public of course, as Chatelrault, where are stocked all technical materials documentation of armIES. I remember, when I was in charge of HELLER marketing, I received a special autorisation to pay a visit at this "caserne" for check 75 gun drawings. It was a sort of "pleasant dream and nightmare" in same time for the historian. Imagine a great hall, around 150m x 25m, full of special cases for documents, this is only for one floor and it was maybe 6/8 buildings, maybe more, of 4 or 5 floors each!!!!!!!!!

I worked for 10 years in HELLER marketing Dept and one of my job, was to find materials for models, also, I know that all the materials is stocked.

Now, these, documents must be available for all, and here, "c'est une autre histoire".