Charles Eugene Jules Marie Nungesser was born in Paris on the 15th of March, 1892. He was France's third leading ace with 45 victories. As a child, Nungesser became very interested in competitive sports. One of his interests was boxing. He attended the Ecole des Arts et Meiers where he was a fair student but excelled in sports. After a time at the school, he dropped out and sailed to Brazil. Nungesser had an uncle that lived there and went to meet him to get a job on his sugar plantation. When the ship arrived at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the uncle was no where to be found so, Charles went on to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In Argentina, Nungesser found work as an auto mechanic, and became interested in racing cars. When he was just seventeen, he started racing cars professionally. While racing, he met another Frenchman that had access to an airplane. Nungesser talked his new found friend into letting him take the Bleriot into the air by himself, as it was a single seat aircraft. After flying the plane around for a few minutes, he made a successful landing. Nungesser flew for two weeks, learned to fly and started an aviation career.
After five years, Nungesser finally found his uncle and worked for him at his plantation. World War I broke out and Nungesser returned to france where he joined the Second Hussars. While on patrol one day, Nungesser and several fellow soldiers, stopped a German staff car, shot the occupants, and drove back behind their lines. His superiors were so impressed, they gave him the car and the Medaille Militaire. At this time Nungesser requested and was approved for a transfer to the Service Aeronautique. He received his brevet March 2, 1915.
Nungesser shot down his first plane, an Albatros, when he left his field without permission. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre and given eight days in house arrest. After this he requested to be sent to a fighter group and this was granted at the end of 1915.
While there, he did a bunch of wild flying over the nearby town, and many people complained. The commander of the squadron told Nungesser that he was going to do aerobatics, do them over the German lines. Nungesser jumped into his plane, flew to the nearest German field, and gave them quite a show. He reported back to his commander, told him what he did and was put under arrest again.
In January 1916, Nungesser had a very bad crash, breaking both legs, piercing the roof of his mouth with the planes control stick, and dislocating his jaw. His wounds were nursed back to health and he started flying again, March 29, 1916. One leg did not heal properly, so he underwent surgery and insisted that no anesthesia be given him. During his fighting career, he was wounded many times. He had many internal injuries, a scull fracture, concussion, fractures of the upper and lower jaws, dislocated wrist, clavicle, and ankle, cuts, bruises, and the loss of his teeth.
NUNGESSER'S NIEUPORT 17, N 1895, EARLY SUMMER 1916
Nungesser became a member of the Lafayette Escadrille, and got into a fierce competition with Rene Fonch. Nungesser's mechanics would carry him to his plane so he could fly. After his patrol, they would carry him back to the hospital. Because of his repeated hospital stays, Nungesser slowly lost ground in the contest and Fonch finished the war with 75 downed aircraft.
One of Nungesser's drinking buddies was Jean Navarre, another flamboyant ace. The two of them almost created the image of fighter pilots as handsome, reckless, hard-living, womanizing rakes. They disliked military discipline and enjoyed Paris' many attractions as often as possible. Nungesser was known to show up for a morning patrol in a tuxedo, perhaps with his woman still on his arm. Once, Nungesser was driving into Paris, amidst heavy traffic, when he spotted his own aircraft heading that way. It was Navarre! He had borrowed Nungesser's airplane; he explained that his own had been shot up and that he "had forgotten what a woman looked like."
Paris was crawling with French, British, Canadian, and American pilots during the war. They lived fast and died fast. It has been reported that Nungesser crossed paths with at least two, one an American, and one an Irishman, that became famous more or less anonymously in the the book by former World War I battlefield Ambulance Driver and British author W. Somerset Maugham titled The Razor's Edge. The American was the role model for the novel's main character Larry Darrell. The Irishman died following a dogfight with the Germans. He was twenty-two. (see)
Charles Nungesser received many medals for his service for France and was very well liked by his countrymen. After the war, he opened a flying school in France but could not get that many students. He then got into barnstorming for a while, came to the U.S. and appeared in several movies as a combat pilot. Some people have thought that Nungesser was one of the stunt pilots killed in the filming of Hell's Angels, the Howard Hughes epic movie of RAF pilots battling Zeppelins over England. He wasn't. While traveling in the circles of high society and the Hollywood elite he met and married a woman of some flash by the name of Consuelo. He was married to her when he decided to try his hand at crossing the Atlantic ocean. On May 8, 1927 Charles Nungesser left Le Bourget airfield in France with Captain Francois Coli, his navigator. The plane, a Levasseur P.L.8 biplane, painted with his World War I insignia of a black heart, two burning candles, a coffin, and skull and cross bones, set out over the Atlantic ocean. Lieutenant Charles Nungesser, Captain Coli, and their plane, the Oiseau Blanc (White Bird), were never officially seen again. In fact, however, his plane was reported over Newfoundland and sighted over Maine. While he no doubt crashed, Nungesser did make the crossing before Lindbergh. As far as it is known, remains of the plane or occupants have never been found and are still lying in the woods of the Penobscot.(see) So ended the life of one of France's famous Aces. Before totally disappearing from the pages of history Consuelo went on to some notoriety herself a few years later as recorded in the the book Here Lies the Heart by feminine seductress Mercedes De Acosta in their quest to meet the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi and find Enlightenment.
(AVIATION ANIMATION COPYRIGHT JAMES M. SELF)
SEE:
LEONARDO DA VINCI AND HIS FLYING MACHINES
With thanks to:
Mark Lewis
WORLD WAR I AVIATION HOMEPAGE
The Disappearance of Charles Nungesser
Nungesser's plane, the White Bird, simply vanished and was never seen again. It was not until 1980 when Gunnar Hanson, a freelance writer, researched and published an article on a man by the name of Anson Berry who was living near Machias, Maine, in 1927 and who claimed to hear an aircraft fly over his isolated camp late in the afternoon of May 9th, 1927. Anson, told several friends and neighbors he had heard the plane overhead in the overcast and but could not see it. He also stated the engine sounded erratic and it sounded to him as if the plane crashed in the distance.
Gunner dug deeper and found a number of other reports and a few sightings beginning in Newfoundland and traveling on a line south past Nova Scotia and into the coastal region of Maine. He then ran onto a report by a hunter who said he'd found an old engine buried in the ground sometime in 1950. The site was within a mile of where Anson Berry heard the plane pass. (source)
