Jean Marie Dominique Navarre, more simply called Jean Navarre, was born on August 8, 1895 in Jouy-sur-Morin in Seine-et-Marne and was one of the aces of the First World War. He was the son of a very large paper manufacturer and the twin brother of Pierre, in a family that included eleven children.
Very undisciplined in his youth, systematically expelled from the colleges he attended, like his brother Pierre, he was entrusted in 1910 to a tutor, Abbé Barges, then sent to an English boarding house, and again entrusted to Abbé after his escape from England. Tired of his misconduct, his father made him enter the factory where he did not stay. The young Jean then attended a school of mechanics from which he was expelled, then in 1913 a technical school. He then nourished the project of entering the Graduate School of Aeronautics, having taken with his brother Pierre a great admiration for the nascent aviation.
In June 1914, he entered the aeronautical school of the Caudron Brothers, aircraft builders, two months before the war broke out. Under cover of lies about his age and his ability to fly, he then managed to get himself incorporated into the army, at the base of Saint-Cyr-l'École to become a pilot. He does not have any civil patent, yet compulsory to be recruited. His apprenticeship completed at Lyon-Bron, he was assigned to a squadron equipped with Farman, was fired for indiscipline and found himself in Villacoublay to learn piloting on Morane-Saulnier.
At the beginning of 1915, he joined in Muizon, near Reims, a reconnaissance and hunting squadron, the M.S.12. On April 1, with his teammate, Second Lieutenant Robert, he experienced his first success, forcing a German plane to land in the French lines. He is named sergeant and receives the military medal. During the same month, he will win 6 victories, of which only 2 will be approved. Then in June, after completing three "special missions" behind enemy lines, he was awarded the Legion of Honor.
In the spring of 1916, Jean Navarre bravely participated in the great battle of Verdun, attacking German planes regardless of their number, very often forgetting to ask for permission to take off. He was then nicknamed:"Navarre, the sentinel of Verdun". On April 1, he was named second lieutenant and entered the club of aces (pilots with more than 5 approved victories). One of his techniques consists of attacking the wheels in the air, taking advantage of the surprise of the enemy to strafe him.
When he's not flying, Navarre loves to party, drinks too much and commits many pranks, so he frequently (but very temporarily) finds himself arrested or in prison. In fact, the man fears no one, neither the Germans nor his hierarchy. In May 1916, he was the first French pilot to count 10 approved victories (victories for which there are several witnesses or when the enemy plane fell back into French lines). These will be his last fights because in June he is very seriously injured in a duel above the Ardennes, however managing to land his plane in Sainte-Menehould. He then has 12 approved victories but in reality he has obtained more than double. Some five months later, on November 15, 1916, he was once again very affected by the death in combat of his twin brother, Pierre, who had followed him into the air force. Drinking a lot, nervously very exhausted, he resumed his training in 1917, but had to go to a rest home. He only found himself fit to fly in 1918, when the armistice was signed. Without his accident, it is almost certain that Navarre would have equaled the number of victories of a René Fonck or a Guynemer.
The war over, Navarre refuses to leave the air force and nurtures several projects, each crazier than the other, but which will not have time to see the light of day. Hired as chief pilot at Morane-Saulnier, he performs demonstration flights for customers on the Villacoublay airfield, but he is also an acrobatics pilot whose exhibitions people come from afar to admire. Jean Navarre's destiny was to end on July 10, 1919, however, during a gliding descent, his plane hitting the wall of a farm near the aerodrome. Navarre was killed. He was not yet twenty-four. He rests in the cemetery of Tartas, in the Landes.
His father, André Navarre, is the founder of the Navarre paper mills