Our man in the Orient
Posted on Samedi 20 février 2010 at 8 h 55 min and filed under Magazine.In the early 1920s, Maurice Noguès pursued a single-minded dream: to create an air link between France and the Far East. Step by step, he established a route to Saigon. By Marc Branchu
Their names were Henri Guillaumet, Jean Dagnaux and Pierre-Georges Latécoère. They were aviators or captains of industry. Flying primitive aircraft, they risked their lives to create air links between France and the rest of the world. Maurice Noguès was one such pilot, although his accomplishments were eclipsed by the Aéropostale era.
Noguès was born in Rennes in 1889. His first flight, at Issy-les-Moulineaux, was also his first accident, though he emerged unscathed. He bought another plane, a Voisin, and learned to fly solo, earning his license on June 21, 1910. When war broke out in 1914, he was then mustered into the military as a pilot.
Pioneer in the USSR — Back in civilian life, he married Magdeleine and started a lifelong habit of penning a long letter to her every day. During his missions for the Compagnie Franco-Roumaine (soon to be renamed CIDNA), which he joined in 1922, for example, he wrote: “Bucharest, April 4, 1924. The first three hours were very hard. This large aircraft was doing actual pirouettes in the violent winds of the Balkans, and despite the cold and the altitude, my clothes were soaked in sweat, as I struggled constantly to hold the plane steady. My arrival, after the Balkans, was superb. The Black Sea belies its name, it’s a soft blue.”
During the three years he worked for CIDNA, Noguès found, negotiated and tested new routes. He was responsible for the first commercial night flight between Paris and Strasbourg. In 1924, he carried the act of recognition from the French government to the newly created USSR. “Moscow, November 17, 1924. Our days go by, filled with visits. Yesterday, we saw the Minister of Aviation and held a long conversation, laying the foundations for an agreement.”
Reconnaissance pilot — Noguès became disenchanted: he did not live to see the creation of the Paris-Moscow route (1958). He was asked to find itineraries that would bypass Germany, notably via the Tyrol. It was a high-risk mission. “Innsbruck, 1925. All the peaks were covered, and I flew my aircraft through corridors, not knowing if the coast was clear at the other end. I had to bank sharply several times; these turns between snow-covered walls on each side were quite a sight.”
In October 1925, his adventures took him to Iran on a test flight for a Paris-Tehran route. He flew in abominable weather conditions, with snow and sandstorms, not to mention the diplomatic obstacles presented by flying over Turkey. Noguès came down with malaria, and was sometimes flying with a high fever. He and his mechanic were taken prisoner by Bulgarian peasants. And to top it all off, the return flight ended in the Bay of Naples, much to the dismay of his daughter. He wrote: “My apologies to Monique for not bringing back her toy, but the airplane sank too quickly and everything is at the bottom of the sea, luggage, souvenirs, hat and all.”
Work of a lifetime — Noguès left the CIDNA with a single-minded goal: to create a route between France and the Far East. This would be his life’s work; indeed, it was called the Noguès route. He joined forces with his friend André Faure to form what would become Air Orient.
He concentrated on his plan for five years; he even declined the tempting offer to cross the Atlantic in 1927. “The ideal for an airline pilot is not to acquire fame, but to establish a program that brings our country a range of discoveries that will facilitate our relationships with the rest of the world.” Noguès built up his airline patiently. He pushed each stopover farther east: Marseille, followed by Naples, Corfu, Athens and Beirut. Soon, the Marseille-Beirut section was operating like clockwork. Noguès continued eastward: Damascus, Baghdad, Karachi, Jodhpur.
“Never tire of being a bird” — Finally, on March 9, 1930, Noguès achieved his goal: linking France with its colony Indochina. The Noguès route was officially opened between Marseilles and Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) on January 1931. The 12,000-kilometer flight took 10 days, and crossed 8 rivers, 11 seas, 13 mountain chains and 3 deserts. But Noguès had set his sights farther, much farther: “I don’t intend to stop there. It would be good for Europe to have an air link with Japan.“ Unfortunately, Noguès would not live to see his dream come true.
On January 14, 1934, when he was working as the assistant director of the brand new national airline, Air France, his Dewoitine 332, Emeraude, crashed in the Morvan on a return flight from Saigon. One of the greatest French pilots of all time, on a par with Jean Mermoz and Guillaumet, disappeared at the age of 45. Flying was second nature to him. “I had a superb flight,” he wrote to his wife one day. “I felt like I was a bird in the wind. And the wings of the aircraft were my own. I see that I am still in love with flying and never tire of being a bird.”
