But,
with no sign of peace, and huge expansion plans already in place, it soon became clear that
many more flying personnel were needed. By October 1914, GQG was
already circularising the armies in search of suitable candidates for
training: 'For the duration of the hostilities, the minister has
decided to authorise the training of military pilots. To guarantee
recruitment into this category of personnel, I ask you to identify
those among the officers, NCOs and men under your command desirous of
becoming a member of aircrew and capable of serving quickly. Only
those candidates with previous pilot training, good vision and a
robust constitution should be nominated.' All
candidates had to be
in perfect health, physically fit, and weigh (clothed) no more than 85kg
(pilots) and 75kg (observers). Lenoir volunteered again and was
accepted, receiving his military wings in December 1914. 
Throughout
the war, many of those who volunteered for aviation were attracted by the thrills
and glamour of it all. 'The period before the 1914 war was the time
of the first flights, and like all young men of my age I thought it
all very exciting,' recalled André Luguet,
later one of France's leading film actors. 'I knew [pilots] like
[Hubert] Latham, [René]
Labouchère [and] Louis Chatelin, who all became close friends of
mine. … I spent a lot of time at the airfields, [including]
Mourmelon, where I watched the Wright brothers make their early
flights. Because I had aviators to take me onto the airfields at
Villacoublay, I was present at the first trials conducted by what we
then called “flying men” before they were renamed aviators.'
The
numbers required were partly met by incorporating dismounted
cavalrymen, and
in 1915 most volunteers came from that arm. As the war progressed,
however, the cavalry was eclipsed as a source of aircrew by both the
infantry and the artillery. Further
recruits were found amongst men whose wounds had left them unfit for
front-line service. The celebrated film director Jean Renoir,
originally a cavalryman, suffered a leg wound and developed gas
gangrene while serving in the Vosges with the chasseurs alpins. He
was passed fit as an observer, although to his disappointment not as
a pilot, and transferred to aviation in 1916 (he later tried again, and got his wings).
Dr
Guilbert, the MO at the flying school of Le Crotoy, felt 'that
trainees recruited among the sick and the wounded should comply [with
medical standards] even more strictly than the others.' But for many
of the injured and wounded, experience and talent seems to have
weighed more heavily. Lieutenant
Paul Tarascon, for example, had lost a foot in a
pre-war crash landing. Fitted with an artifical replacement, he
rejoined the aviation service in 1914 and finished the war with
twelve victories. Roland
Garros was so short-sighted that he wore glasses beneath his goggles.
François Coli continued to serve after losing an eye in a
crash in March 1918, and in the same year Raymond Berthelot qualified as a night bomber pilot after heart problems had driven him
from the artillery!
Most
of those who served as members of aircrew between 1914 and 1918 were
in their early twenties, aged between 21 and 26, and more than 80% of
them were unmarried. But
on the
outbreak of war, the typical airman was somewhat older than this. The
squadron commander, a lieutenant, tended to be in his mid-thirties,
while his four or five junior officers were normally slightly
younger, in their mid-twenties or early thirties, with around four
years' service. NCOs were a mixture of long-service personnel, in
their late twenties, and the current classes of conscripts
(1911-1913); many of them had transferred to aviation within a month
of their call-up, while others had entered direct. By
1918, casualties had wrought considerable changes,
and the war in the air had become a young man's game. 'Youngsters,'
said pilot Marcel Jeanjean. 'By and large they're just
big kids.' The
NCOs were drawn almost exclusively from the wartime classes of 1914
to 1918 (i.e. aged between 18 and 20 on call-up), while their
commanding officer was just a couple of years older, often from the
class of 1912.
Pictures (top to bottom): Maxime Lenoir (from Wikipedia); André Luguet learning to fly at Buc (from the ever-excellent albindenis), and, below, second from the right, the dapper leading man he became (in the 1931 French-language Buster Keaton film Buster se marie); Jean Renoir, later in life (his masterpiece La Grande Illusion was surely informed by his experiences in Aviation); Paul Tarascon (left) and François Coli in 1925; William Wellman (who also became an actor, then a film director - what was it with the film industry? Could it be that aircrew were all basically show offs?)
The penguins? They appear in part 2!