Jean Sauvage ( French: Jean Sauvage ; April 8, 1917 , Paris - August 20, 2014 , Annecy ) - French pilot who served in the Normandy-Niemen squadron during the Second World War.
| Jean Sauvage | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| fr. Jean sauvage | ||||||
| Nickname | Papa jean | |||||
| Date of Birth | April 8, 1917 | |||||
| Place of Birth | Paris , France | |||||
| Date of death | August 20, 2014 (97 years old) | |||||
| Place of death | Annecy , France | |||||
| Affiliation |  France /  the USSR | |||||
| Type of army | aviation | |||||
| Years of service | 1935-1946 | |||||
| Rank | captain | |||||
| Part | 3rd fighter group 1st transport group Normandy-Neman Fighter Aviation Regiment | |||||
| Battles / wars | The Great Patriotic War | |||||
| Awards and prizes |
| |||||
| Retired | Air France civilian pilot | |||||
Biography
Born April 8, 1917 in a family of immigrants from Martinique. He was enlisted in the French Air Force in 1935 as the 5th Air Battalion, having graduated from a flight school in Bourges. At the beginning of the war he was a senior aviation sergeant (received the rank of October 1, 1939 ), served in intelligence units. March 19, 1940 enrolled in the 3rd fighter group, 3rd squadron.
He was baptized on May 12, 1940 , when his MS.406 crew managed to knock down two German He 111 bombers. On May 20, they won a third victory when another He-111 was shot down. After the defeat of the French troops, Sauvage flew to North Africa , where as part of the first British, and then the British-American troops continued to fight. He served first in the 6th, and then in the 5th squadron, on December 20, 1941 he was promoted to lieutenant. On October 14, 1943, on an American P-39, Airacobra shot down a He-111 at Cape Tené (Algeria) and damaged another one.
January 7, 1944, Jean joined the service in the fighter regiment "Normandy - Neman" [1] . October 27, 1944 won his first and only victory in the regiment (and the fifth personal): on his Yak-9 he shot down the German FW-190 over Walterkemen (now Olkhovatka, Kaliningrad Region) and thereby became an ace pilot [2] ( according to French military laws, the ace pilot recorded among his victories and victories as part of his crew).
On December 12, 1944, Sauvage resigned from the regiment and on June 1, 1945 moved to the 1st transport group. After the war in 1946, he quit the rank of captain of the French Air Force and continued to serve as a civilian pilot for Air France . He lived in Paris for a long time.
He was awarded the French Order of the Legion of Honor and the Military Cross of World War II, the American Air Medal, the Soviet medal "For Victory over Germany" and the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree.
On August 20, 2014, Jean Sauvage passed away in his 98th year of life, being at that time one of the two living squadron veterans (the second was Gael Taburet ).