Henri Guillaumet (29 May 1902 – 27 November 1940) was a French

aviator An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

. Guillaumet was born in Bouy, Marne. He was a pioneer of French aviation in the Andes, the South Atlantic and the North Atlantic. He contributed to the opening up of numerous new routes and is regarded by some as the best pilot of his age. "''Je n'en ai pas connu de plus grand''" (I've never known a greater one), said Didier Daurat, operations director of the Aéropostale. Guillaumet carried the mail between Argentina and Chile. On Friday 13 June 1930, while crossing the Andes for the 92nd time, he crashed his

Potez 25 Potez 25 (also written as Potez XXV) was a French twin-seat, single-engine biplane designed during the 1920s. A multi-purpose fighter-bomber, it was designed as a line aircraft and used in a variety of roles, including fighter and escort mission ...

Laguna del Diamante ''Laguna del Diamante'' (Spanish for "lake of the diamond") is a lake located in the province of Mendoza, Argentina, in the San Carlos Department, some 198 km from Mendoza. It covers a surface area of about 14.1 km2 and is one of the ...

in Mendoza, Argentina, because of bad weathe

He walked for a week over three mountain passes. Though tempted to give up, he persisted while thinking of his wife, Noëlle, until June 19 at dawn when he was rescued by a 14-year-old boy named Juan García. He reached a village whose inhabitants could not believe his story. This exploit made him stand out among the 'stars' of Aéropostale. To his friend

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry, simply known as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ; 29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of s ...

, who had come to find him, he said, "''Ce que j'ai fait, je te le jure, aucune bête ne l'aurait fait''." (What I have done, I swear to you, no animal would have done.) Saint-Exupéry tells the adventure of Guillaumet in his 1939 book ''Terre des hommes'' (published in English as '' Wind, Sand and Stars). After a number of south Atlantic crossings, he was appointed managing director of Air France. On 27 November 1940, while flying to

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

with Jean Chiappe, the new French High Commissioner to the Levant, his four-engined Farman F.220 NC.2234 airliner ''Le Verrier'' was shot down by an Italian fighter over the Mediterranean Sea.

In popular culture

Film

The 1995 docudrama ''

Wings of Courage ''Wings of Courage'' is a 1995 American-French drama film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring Craig Sheffer, Val Kilmer, Elizabeth McGovern and Tom Hulce. The 40-minute film was written by Annaud with Alain Godard. It was the first dramat ...

'' by French director

Jean-Jacques Annaud Jean-Jacques Annaud (; born 1 October 1943) is a French film director, screenwriter and producer, best known for directing ''Quest for Fire'' (1981), ''The Name of the Rose'' (1986), '' The Bear'' (1988), '' The Lover'' (1992), '' Seven Years in ...

was an account of early airmail pilots including Henri Guillaumet (played by Craig Sheffer), Saint-Exupéry played by Tom Hulce">Craig_Sheffer.html" ;"title="Henri Guillaumet (played by Craig Sheffer">Henri Guillaumet (played by Craig Sheffer), Saint-Exupéry played by Tom Hulce. The movie was the world's first dramatic picture shot in the IMAX-format

Literature

Guillaumet was a major character in Antonio Iturbe’s 2017 Spanish language novel ''A cielo abierto'' which was translated into English and published in 2021 with the title ''The Prince of the Skies''.

External links

Biography of Henri Guillaumet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guillaumet, Henri 1902 births 1940 deaths People from Marne (department) French aviators Aviators killed by being shot down French civilians killed in World War II