Jean Navarre On Film?

[margaret smith]

Does anyone know of any news footage of Jean Navarre exists or did the French pilots get as much publicity as the Germans?

[Gregvan]

Dear Margaret,

The French were very publicity conscious when it came to their aces, but to my limited knowledge there is no film footage of Navarre. At least, I've never seen any.

I think Navarre may have come along too early, and his spectacular career was all too brief. Later on, the French propaganda machine went to work, and there may be more extant film of French aces than for those of any other nation (except maybe the USA?). Anyway, there is considerable footage of Guynemer, Nungesser, and Fonck - all three were filmed climbing into their SPADs, taking off, etc. The "Cigognes" were paid a visit by (I presume) official cine-photographers, and we have brief snippets of many aces such as Dorme, Duellin, De la Tour, Sanglier, etc etc.

I think it was largely a matter of being at the right place at the right time in order to be filmed. Tony Fokker filmed Richthofen and his boys of Jasta 11 in September 1917, and Voss, too - and of course Goering, Loerzer, Lothar von R, Kirschstein and others were filmed in Berlin at the summer 1918 fighter trials. There is brief extant footage of Immelmann and Boelcke, but I imagine there was a good deal more that has been lost. The vast majority of German aces never appeared on cine-film.

As for the Brits, an official photographer paid a visit to 60 Sqn, so we have the footage of Bishop, Caldwell, Molesworth and others mugging for the camera (reportedly more film was shot that day, but I've never seen it). While there is footage of No 2 Sqn AFC and No 40 Sqn SE5's, I know of no film at all of the greats such as McCudden, Mannock, Barker, etc etc.

As for us Yanks, well - there's considerable footage of the 94th Aero (Rickenbacker, Meissner, Campbell, Winslow, Chambers), and of course, the Lafayette Escadrille and a bit of the 103rd Aero.

Greg VanWyngarden

A friend of mine has a VHS copy of footage of Albert Ball probably taken at the Freedom of Nottingham award ceremony. His brother and father appear too. Sometimes regional film-makers would record events pertaining to their local hero.

Mary Brigid

There is also a very brief clip of Ball (no more than 3 secs) on the WW1 in Colour programme (Channel 5) which was aired within the last 2-3 years.

Mary Brigid

[DTB]

To Mary and Greg :

If you have the occasion to visit Paris, go to "Etablissement de Communication et de Production Audiovisuelle de la Défense" (ECPAD).
http://ecpad.fr

They have all the WW1 films stored. The web site is not complete and does not permit to investigate all their database. I went there once and I was amazed to discover a short movie showing pilots of N 561 defending Venice !

I had a kick look and also discovered that they have some movies on Guynemer and Cigogne pilots, and one showing Charles Nungesser shacking hands of king of belgium during an official ceremony. There is also a movie showing him with Maréchal Pétain in the cathedral of Strasburg with Marechal Pétain.

I don't know about Navarre, but army reporters were in big numbers in Verdun and Navarre was a very good subject to be taken in pictures...

Regards,
DTB