Célestin Adolphe Pégoud (June 13, 1889 in Montferrat (Isère), France - August 31, 1915 in Petit-Croix, (Territoire de Belfort), France) was a famous French aviator of the First World War.
The third child of a peasant family, intelligent and active, young Adolphe dreams of traveling and abandons working the land to join the army. He began his military career on August 8, 1907 as a cavalryman in the 5th Regiment of Chasseurs d'Afrique and in 1908 took part in the Moroccan campaign. Back in mainland France, he was transferred to the 3rd Colonial Artillery Regiment in Toulon after spending a few months in the 2nd Hussar Regiment of Gray (Haute-Saône). It was there that he discovered - and immediately fell in love with - aviation thanks to an aviator officer, Captain Louis Carlin, who gave him his first flight at the Satory camp, near Versailles.
Adolphe Pégoud receiving the Croix de Guerre.
Adolphe Pégoud receiving the Croix de Guerre.
Returning to civilian life at the end of his five-year commitment in February 1913, he learned piloting, obtained his patent on February 28, 1913 and was hired by Louis Blériot as a test pilot to test all new solutions and improvements. techniques.
On August 19, 1913, he succeeded in a parachute jump by abandoning a plane sacrificed for the occasion; he is thus one of the first, with the Russian Nesterov, to prove the effectiveness of a parachute in the event of a serious aircraft breakdown. Shortly after, on August 31 in Buc (Yvelines) and September 1, 1913 on the Juvisy field in Viry-Châtillon, he was also the first to complete a complete loop (a “looping”), which made him famous throughout the Europe.
Mobilized at the start of the First World War, he was first assigned to the defense of Paris before joining the 2nd Aviation Group in Reims in April 1915. He won six aerial victories before being shot down in the skies of Petit-Croix, east of Belfort, on August 31, 1915, at the age of twenty-six. Adolphe Pégoud, hit by a bullet in the heart, had just fallen. He never knew that he had just been named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. A German plane came to lay a wreath of flowers on the place where the second lieutenant fell.
Adolphe Pégoud rests in the Parisian cemetery of Montparnasse.
Honors
Adolphe Pégoud, knight of the Legion of Honor, holder of the military medal and the war cross with several citations at the order of the army for his many victories, also had the commemorative medal of Morocco with the "Casablanca" clasp .