What if the Americans had shot the White Bird?

12/04/2022 By gifsauce 625 Views

On the fuselage of the White Bird, the airtight hull plane which was to take him with the navigator François Coli from Le Bourget to New York, the pilot Charles Nungesser had his wartime coat of arms painted: a skull and crossbones dominating two shins crusaders as well as two candlesticks on either side of a coffin. A pirate insignia that can be confusing when flying over the archipelago of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon on May 9, 1927, the hub of liquor trafficking flooding America in the midst of prohibition.Pioneers of the AtlanticIn a thrilling book, which appears on Wednesday, Bernard Decré, president of the association La recherche de l'Oiseau blanc, and our collaborator Vincent Mongaillard defend a completely new thesis on the circumstances of the disappearance of the two airmen. According to them, based on the accounts of fifteen witnesses, the biplane sank off Saint-Pierre. On the other side of the ocean, therefore, which makes the duo pioneers of the Atlantic, twelve days before the feat of the American Charles Lindbergh. no choice but to ask. It is the fog, extremely dense that morning, which remains the cause of their failed and fatal landing. But the two authors evoke scenarios - incredible and substantiated - which could have destabilized the crew before the crash. Second hypothesis, by far the most explosive, that of a salvo - intended to scare away and not to shoot down - coastguards confusing the single-engine and its macabre coat of arms with the device of bootleggers (traffickers). The provocative crest had already hurt Nungesser. During the 14-18 war, he was machine-gunned by an English ally who took him for a German. If a burst of US coastguards targeted them well, it is to be put down to the error. A regrettable blunder, certainly, but forgivable insofar as it further enriches the legend of the White Bird and its immortal heroes, nearly a century after their eclipse.

Et si les Américains avaient tiré sur l'Oiseau blanc ?

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