Adolphe Pégoud

Célestin Adolphe Pégoud , born with Montferrat (Isere) the June 13rd 1889 and died in Petit-Croix (Territory of Belfort) the August 31st 1915, is famous a Aviateur French of the First World War.

Biography

Third child of a family of peasants, intelligent and active, the young Adolphe dreams of voyage and forsakes the work of the ground to engage in the army. He begins his military career on August 8th 1907 like rider with the 5th Regiment of hunters of Africa and takes part in 1908 in the Campagne of Morocco. Of return in metropolis, it is transferred to the 3rd colonial artillery Regiment with Toulon after a passage of a few months to the 2nd Regiment of hussard S of Gray (Haute-Saône). They is there that he discovers - and impassions itself at once - for aviation thanks to an officer aviator, the captain Louis Carlin, who gives him his first flight to the camp of Satory, close to Versailles. From return to the civil life at the end of its five years engagement in February 1913, it learns piloting, obtains its patent on February 28th 1913 and is engaged by Test pilot Louis Blériot like to test all the new solutions and technical improvements.

August 19th 1913, it makes a success of a jump in Parachute by giving up a plane sacrificed for the occasion; it is thus one of the first, with Russian Nesterov, to prove the effectiveness of a parachute in the event of serious breakdown of a plane. A little later on August 31st with Buc (Yvelines) and on September 1st 1913 on the ground of Juvisy with Viry-Châtillon, it is also the first to carry out a complete loop (a “loop”), which makes it famous in all the Europe. Mobilized at the beginning of the First World War, it is initially affected with the defense of Paris before joining in April 1915, the 2nd Group of aviation to Rheims. It gained six air victories before being cut down in the sky of Petit-Croix, in the east of Belfort, on August 31st, 1915, at the age of twenty-six years. Adolphe Pégoud, reached of a ball in full heart, had just fallen. He never knew that he had just been named Chevalier of the Légion of honor. A German plane threw a crown of flowers on the place where the second lieutenant fell.

Adolphe Pégoud rests with the Parisian cemetery of Montparnasse.

Honors

Adolphe Pégoud, knight of the Legion of honor, holder of the Military decoration and the Military Cross with several mentions in dispatches for his many victories, had also the medal commemorative of the Morocco with staples “Casablanca”.

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