Marcel Albert - French pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union
Marcel Albert was one of the first French military pilots who voluntarily went to the Soviet Union to participate in repelling the aggression of Nazi Germany. He arrived in the Soviet Union in November 1942, at the age of twenty-five. Marcel Albert had already had four years of service in the French Air Force. Unlike many other regiment officers who came from aristocratic or at least wealthy families, Marcel Albert was originally from the working class. He was born on October 25, 1917 in Paris into a large working-class family, and after graduating from school he worked at the Renault factory as a simple mechanic worker. At the same time, the young man did not abandon the romantic dream of the profession of a pilot. In the end, he found paid flight courses and, for his laziness earned at the plant, learned them at his own expense, after which he entered the Air Force School and in 1938 was enrolled in the French Air Force with the rank of sergeant (then still pilots aviation in training, they received not the officer rank, but the rank of non-commissioned officers).
At the time of the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Albert served in a flight school in Chartres as an instructor. 15 February 1940, he was transferred at his own request to the existing aviation unit - fighter group, armed with "Devuatina-520". 14 May 1940, Albert, then still a senior sergeant, shot down his first plane, the Me-109. The next downed enemy plane was He-111.
Then Albert was transferred among other pilots to the air base in Oran - in the then French colony of Algiers. It was there that Marcel found the news of the truce of France with Nazi Germany and the coming to power of the Vichy Collaborative Government. Not all French officers and soldiers agreed to acknowledge the defeat of their homeland and serve the new masters. Among the opponents of the Vichy regime was a twenty-three-year-old lieutenant of aviation, Marcel Albert. Like other patriotic French soldiers, he was just waiting for the moment to leave the command of the Vichyists and go over to the side of “Fighting France.”
Together with two colleagues - twenty-two years old lieutenant Marcel Lefebvre and twenty-two years old graduate student (the youngest officer rank in the French army) Albert Durand, Marcel Albert on D-520 aircraft during a training flight fled from an air base in Oran. The pilots headed for the British colony of Gibraltar - the nearest territory of the allies. From Gibraltar on the ship "Oranian fugitives", as they were later nicknamed in the regiment, went to the UK. On English soil, French pilots joined the Free France movement and were enrolled in the emerging Ile-de-France aviation squadron. In turn, the Vichy government for "desertion" in absentia sentenced Albert, Lefebvre and Durant to death.
In 1942, the leader of the Free France movement, General Charles de Gaulle, agreed with Joseph Stalin on the participation of French military pilots in combat operations on the Russian front. The Soviet side was entrusted with the responsibility for the material and military-technical support of French aviators. The Chief of Staff of the Air Force of the Fighting France, General Marcial Valen, and the Commander of the Air Force of the Fighting France in the Middle East, Colonel Cornillon-Molinier, directly engaged in the formation of a combat group of reliable French pilots. So began story famous regiment "Normandy - Neman" - the glorious page of the Franco-Russian military cooperation in the Great Patriotic War.
After 25 in November 1942 was signed an agreement on the formation of the French aviation squadron in the USSR, the first group of pilots was transferred to the Soviet Union. December 4 A fighter aviation squadron was formed in the city of Ivanovo, called the Normandy, in honor of the famous province of France. The coat of arms of the squadron was the coat of arms of the province of Normandy - a red shield with two golden lions. The first commander of the squadron was Major Puliken, but already on February 1942, Major Tyulyan took command. Lieutenant Marcel Albert was among the first French soldiers to begin service in the Normandy squadron.
Francois de Joffre, author of the popular Normandie-Neuman book published in the Soviet Union and a regimental veteran, described his colleague Marcel Albert in the following manner: “Albert (later the famous“ Captain Albert ”) is one of the most prominent figures of the French air force. An apprentice apprentice, a mechanic at Reno’s factories in the past, this man later became an aviation fanatic, an air-raiser. He began with the fact that he began to extract money from his small earnings to pay for his flight hours at the airport in Tussus-le-Noble near Paris. This Parisian guy, modest and shy, blushing for no reason, very quickly reached the zenith of fame. Now we can say with firm confidence that Albert was the soul of the "Normandy" and made a great contribution to the regiment's glorious deeds. " On the pages of the book "Normandy-Neman" Albert often appears as a cheerful person, with a sense of humor, and, at the same time, one can see a deep degree of respect for the author - the most military pilot of "Normandy" for this hero.
Initially, the Normandy squadron included 72 French aviators (14 military pilots and 58 aircraft mechanics) and 17 Soviet aircraft mechanics. Armed with the unit were the Yak-1, Yak-9 and Yak-3 fighters. 22 March The 1943 squadron was sent to the Western Front as part of the 303 Fighter Division of the 1 Air Army. 5 April 1943, the squadron personnel began combat sorties. Already 5 July 1943, after another volunteer recruitment by French pilots, the Normandy squadron was transformed into the Normandy regiment, which included three squadrons named after the main cities of the Normandy province - Rouen, Le Havre and Cherbourg. As one of the most experienced pilots, it was Albert who commanded the squadron "Rouen". His friend and colleague in the "Oranian Flight" Marcel Lefebvre took on the Cherbourg squadron.
Beginning in the spring of 1943, Marcel Albert began to take part in air battles, almost immediately proving himself to be a very skilled and courageous pilot. So, 13 June 1943, after hitting a German projectile, damaged the fuel supply system of an aircraft piloted by Marcel Alber. The lieutenant, using a hand pump feeding the engine of the aircraft with gasoline, flew 200 kilometers and landed on the airfield. During the summer of 1943, Albert participated in many air battles, as did other pilots of the squadron. Recalling this period, he himself stressed that only the insufficient organization of the squadron kept her from more active struggle with the enemy — instead of five combat sorties a day, only one was made. In February 1944 of the year for victories in air battles in the summer of 1943, Lieutenant Marcel Albert was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
October 1944 was celebrated with the famous battle of a group of eight Yak-3 planes under the command of Marcel Albert against thirty German Junkers, covered with 12 fighters. Personally, Albert in this battle was shot down 2 enemy aircraft, his fellow - five more. The French pilots suffered no casualties. October 18 1944 fighters of the Normandy attacked 20 German bombers and 5 fighters. As a result of the battle, 6 bombers and 3 fighters were shot down, and Marcel Albert personally shot down 2 of enemy aircraft. October 20 The eight Yaks of Marcel Albert was attacked by German bombers who bombed the positions of Soviet troops. And there are quite a few such pages in the combat biography of the French pilot.
27 November 1944, Senior Lieutenant Marcel Albert, commander of the 1 Squadron "Rouen" regiment "Normandie-Neman", was awarded the highest award of the USSR - the golden star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. At the time of the award, Albert made 193 combat sorties and shot down an enemy aircraft 21. By the way, the next day after the award of Albert, Stalin signed a decree conferring the honorary title “Nemansky” on the air regiment “Normandy” - in honor of the air battles during the liberation of the territory of Lithuania from Hitler’s troops. In the middle of December, 1944, the Hero of the Soviet Union, Marcel Albert went on vacation to France, when he returned from where he was assigned to serve in the formed France aviation division in Tula and no longer returned to service in the Normandy-Neman regiment.
After the war, Marcel Albert continued to serve in the French Air Force for some time. He held the position of French military air attache in Czechoslovakia, then retired from military service in 1948. Married to a US citizen, Marcel Albert moved to the United States. Yesterday’s military pilot and air battles hero dedicated himself to one of the most peaceful professions - he became restaurant manager. And in the status of restaurateur, Captain Albert proved himself to be no less effective than during his service in the Air Force. In the state of Florida, Marcel Albert lived a long and happy life. He passed away on 23 in August 2010 at a nursing home in Texas (USA) at the ninety-third year of life.
The fate of the other “Oranian fugitives,” with whom Marcel Albert escaped from an air base in Algeria and through England got into the Soviet Union, was far less happy. 1 September 1943 in the Yelni area did not return from the departure of the flight Lieutenant Albert Durant. By that day, he managed to shoot down six enemy aircraft. 28 May 1944, the aircraft was shot down by Marcel Lefebvre. On a burning plane, the pilot managed to get off the front line and return to the airfield. But 5 June 1944, Senior Lieutenant Marcel Lefebvre died from his burns. They were shot down by the time the enemy aircraft were hit by 11. 4 June 1945, he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).
The French aviation regiment "Normandy-Neman" became the most famous example of the military cooperation of Soviet military aviation with foreign pilots. Despite the many decades that have passed since the end of the Great Patriotic War, both in Russia and in France they try to preserve the memory of the military feat of the French pilots who fought on the side of the Soviet Union. Monuments to the pilots of the regiment are in Moscow, Kaliningrad, Kaluga region, the village of Khotenki in the Kozelsk region, the streets in Ivanovo, Orel, Smolensk, Borisov are named after the regiment. The museum operates the regiment "Normandy - Neman". In France, the monument to the regimental pilots stands at Le Bourget. It so happened that the Soviet Union recognized the merits of the hero of our article much earlier than his native France. If Marcel Albert received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1944, the Order of the Legion of Honor - the highest state award of the French Republic - the renowned military pilot was awarded only 14 on April 2010 of the year, at ninety-two, a few months before his death.
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