Timeline in 1986; the plane nearest the camera belonged to the squadron. • 1 September 1942: Creation of the Groupe de Chasse Normandie n° III (GC Normandie 3) in
Riyaq, Lebanon. • 7 February 1944: GC Normandie 3 becomes the Régiment de Chasse Normandie (RC Normandie), with four
escadrilles. • 21 July 1944: The Régiment de Chasse Normandie receives the designation
Niémen, becoming the Régiment de Chasse Normandie-Niémen (RC Normandie-Niémen). • 1953: RC Normandie-Niémen is split in two parts, one becoming the Escadron de Chasse 2/6 Normandie-Niémen • 1962: The 6th Escadre de Chasse is dissolved, attached to the
30e Escadre de Chasse, and renamed Escadron de Chasse 2/30 Normandie-Niémen (EC 2/30). • 13 October 1993: EC 2/30 is dissolved and renamed Escadron de Chasse 1/13 Normandie-Niémen. • 1 July 1995: The squadron returns to its name of Escadron de Chasse 2/30 Normandie-Niémen. • 27 June 2008: Renamed Régiment de Chasse 1/30 Normandie-Niémen. • 1 September 2011: The squadron becomes Regiment de Chasse 2/30 Normandie-Niémen.
Creation When General
Charles de Gaulle called on Frenchmen to join him in London in his
appeal of 18 June 1940, some went to
Great Britain to fight with the Allies. Britain became an important Free French military base and rallying point. When
Operation Barbarossa broke the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on 22 June 1941, Soviet authorities declared their representatives of
Vichy France persona non grata and asked them to return to France. Colonel
Charles Luguet, the air attaché of the Vichy government in Moscow, changed his allegiance to
Free French. De Gaulle, believing in the importance of French soldiers serving on all fronts of the war, decided to engage forces on the
Eastern Front in 1942. He initially proposed to send a mechanized division (the future
1st Free French Division, under General
Edgard de Larminat) to the Eastern front. British opposition and the advice of
Free French Air Forces commander
Martial Henri Valin, however, made him opt for an air unit instead of a division. Soviet diplomats liaising with the
French National Committee, primarily Ambassador
Alexander Bogomolov, announced that the Soviet government welcomed French aviators on the Eastern Front. On 19 February 1942, de Gaulle designated Luguet and Captain Albert Mirlesse (under the authority of General Valin) to negotiate with the Soviet Union. Negotiations were lengthy, and Colonel Pougachev (military chief of the mission in London) opposed a separate French group near the Red Army. Parallel negotiations in Moscow and
Kuybyshev, the alternate Soviet capital, were fruitless. On 25 February 1942, the first list of pilots was given to the Soviets. The first commandant, Joseph Pouliquen, was tasked by De Gaulle with forming and commanding Fighter Group 3 (GC 3) in
Lebanon while awaiting Soviet approval. Fighter Group Normandie was created in late 1942 (the first date mentioned in the Marching Journal was 15 September) as "Normandie". Joseph Pouliquen suggested the name for GC 3; he had wanted to use the name of his province,
Brittany, but it was already in use by a bombardment group. The first volunteer group consisted of 14 French fighter pilots and 58 mechanics, joined by 17 Soviet mechanics. The first 14 fighter pilots of GC 3 came from units of the
Royal Air Force or from the Île-de-France fighter group in England and from the Alsace Fighter Group North Africa. The eight British pilots were
Aspirants , Yves Mahé,
Marcel Albert, Marcel Lefèvre,
Albert Durand,
Yves Bizien,
Roland de la Poype, and Lieutenant Didier Béguin. The six "Libyans" were Aspirant
Noël Castelain, Lieutenants
Raymond Derville,
André Poznanski and Albert Preziosi, Captain
Albert Littolff, and commander
Jean Tulasne. De Gaulle ordered the creation of GC 3 on 1 September 1942, commanded by Pouliquen. Mechanics, pilots and hardware travelled by rail and air via
Tehran to
Baku. After lengthy negotiations with Colonel Levandovich, the military ''
chargé d'affaires'' of international relations at the Soviet Air Ministry general staff headquarters, the group left
Riyaq airfield on 12 November 1942 and arrived on 28 November at
Ivanovo air base (250 km north-east of Moscow), via
Iraq and
Iran. The group were trained at Ivanovo in handling their first aircraft: the
Yakovlev Yak-1.
Second World War The squadron's training on the
Yakovlev Yak-7 and
Yak-1 lasted from 2 December 1942 to 14 March 1943. On 20 March, French mission military chief in Moscow Ernest Petit, Ivanovo base commander Shumov, commander of the aerial base of Ivanovo, and Colonel Levandovich of the Soviet air force high command reviewed the group for two days. According to the reviewers, "By its military qualities and morals, this unit is ready to be sent to the front"; it became operational on 22 March 1943.
First campaign (22 March6 November 1943) GC 3, equipped with the Yak-1 fighter, saw combat between
Polotnyany Zavod and
Monastyrshchina. It became the fourth squadron of the
18th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. The squadron was part of the
1st Air Army. Pilots Albert Preziosi and Albert Durand shot down two
Fw 190s on 5 April near
Roslavl while escorting a
Petlyakov Pe-2 bomber. Eight days later, three pilots were shot down; three Fw 190s were also shot down. The squadron fought in the July
Battle of Kursk, in which group commander
Jean Tulasne and deputy commander
Albert Littolff were killed.
Pierre Pouyade, who joined the squadron after deserting from Vichy in Indochina, became commander. It became the focus of Soviet propaganda, and
Wilhelm Keitel decreed that any French pilots were to be shot on sight. In August, the French mechanics commanded by Alex Michel and Louis Duprat were sent to the Middle East and replaced by Soviet mechanics at the order of Captain Sergueï Agavelian. On 11 October, de Gaulle awarded the squadron the
Order of Liberation. Only six pilots remained from the original group, which had 72 air victories, by the time GC 3 moved to
Tula on 6 November. In their first year at the front, they claimed 86 kills (77 confirmed, 9 "probables") and 16 enemy aircraft damaged against a loss of 25 Yak fighters.
Second campaign (1944) The squadron became a regiment in 1944, with a fourth
escadrille reinforced by North African pilots. After training on the
Yakovlev Yak-9D fighter in Tula, the regiment rejoined the front for its second campaign. The campaign was fought near Dubrovka and
Gross-Kalweitchen (in
East Prussia) until 27 November 1944. The following day,
Joseph Stalin gave the regiment the name
Nieman (making it
Normandie-Niemen) in recognition of its participation in the battles to take over the
Neman River region; it was common to give Soviet units the
battle honour names of places at which they had fought. On 16 October, the first day of an unsuccessful offensive against
East Prussia, the regiment's pilots claimed 29 enemy aircraft destroyed with no losses; twelve more German aircraft were shot down the following day, again with no losses, for a two-day record. The regiment was based in Germany by November, the first French troops in Germany since the September 1939
Saar Offensive. At the end of the month, Colonel
Pierre Pouyade ordered the 303rd Aerial Division emblem (to which Normandie-Niemen belonged) painted on the Yaks. Pouyade was released from command at the end of the year; replaced by commander
Louis Delfino, he returned to France with other veteran pilots. By the end of 1944, 201 kills were claimed. The regiment went to Moscow in early winter for de Gaulle's diplomatic visit with Stalin; one-quarter of the pilots were given leave in France, reducing it to three
escadrilles.
Third campaign (1945) in 1945 The squadron began its third campaign (from
Dopenen to
Heiligenbeil) on 14 January 1945, concentrating on
East Prussia. From January to May 1945 (
V-E Day), it participated in the invasion of East Prussia and the siege of
Königsberg (now
Kaliningrad). In June 1945,
Joseph Stalin decreed that combatants could return home with their arms. The squadron flew to
Posen on 15 June, and to
Prague the following day. They were received by
General de Lattre de Tassigny in
Stuttgart on 17 June. On 20 June, the squadron arrived at
Saint-Dizier three days later. They were welcomed at
Paris–Le Bourget Airport, and their 38 Yak-3s paraded down the
Champs-Élysées.
WWII statistics is the French
tricolour. The squadron claimed 273 enemy aircraft shot down (37 probable), with a loss of 87 aircraft and 52 pilots. About 5,240
sorties were flown, and the unit took part in 869
dogfights. It destroyed 27 trains, 22 locomotives, two
E-boats, 132 trucks, and 24 staff cars. Forty-two of the squadron's pilots were killed, and 30 were
flying aces. Four pilots (
Marcel Albert, Marcel Lefèvre, Jacques André and
Roland de la Poype) became
Heroes of the Soviet Union. Forty-seven Axis planes were damaged, and eight train stations, five airfields, four garrisons and three factories were attacked. Its battle honours included
Bryansk,
Orel,
Yelnya and
Smolensk (1943);
Orsha,
Berezina and
Niemen (1944), and Insterburg (later renamed
Chernyakhovsk),
Königsberg (later renamed
Kaliningrad) and Pillau (now
Baltiysk) in 1945. Members of the squadron received the
Légion d'Honneur, the
Croix de la Libération, the
Médaille militaire and the
Croix de Guerre (the latter with six
palmes) from France, and the
Order of the Red Banner and the
Order of Alexander Nevsky (with eleven citations between the two) from the Soviet Union.
Aircraft fate The squadron was part of the French Air Force, which ordered the transfer of its aircraft to
Toussus-le-Noble in early February 1946; the civilian base had a zone reserved for the air force. As training aircraft, without spare parts, the planes were gradually
cannibalized. A restored specimen is at the Paris–Le Bourget Airport's
Musée de l'air et de l'espace. Soviet
Chief Marshal Alexander Novikov wrote,
1947 and after , flown by the squadron in Indochina
Su-27 at Air Base 112 (BA112) in 1992 After postings at Bourget and
Toussus-le-Noble, the regiment was assigned to
Rabat-Salé Airport in
Morocco in 1947. It was stationed in
Saigon during the
First Indochina War (1949–1951) before returning to
Algeria. The regiment was split in two in 1953, and one of the two squadrons became the Escadron de Chasse 2/6 Normandie-Niémen. After the dissolution of the
6e Escadre de Chasse, the squadron was attached to the
30e Escadre de Chasse and became the Escadron de Chasse 2/30 Normandie-Niémen. It returned to
Orange, Vaucluse on 13 March 1962. The squadron moved to
Reims – Champagne Air Base (BA 112) in June 1966, remaining there for almost 30 years as part of the 30e Escadre de Chasse. On 18 September 1992, the squadron celebrated its 50th anniversary. The celebration included a visit by
Sukhoi Su-27s from the
Russian Knights aerobatics team and a delegation of military veterans from the former
Soviet Union, organized by French
Defense Minister Pierre Joxe and the commander-in-chief of the
Russian Air Force. On 13 October 1993, the squadron was renamed Escadron de Chasse 1/13 Normandie-Niémen. It later left Reims for
Colmar–Meyenheim Air Base (Air Base 132) in
Meyenheim, near
Colmar in
Alsace. In 1994, the squadron participated in
Opération Turquoise in Rwanda and Opération Crécerelle in
Bosnia and Herzegovina. On 9 May 1995, the 50th anniversary of
Victory Day, the
18th Guards Assault Aviation Regiment of the Russian Air Force was renamed Normandiya-Neman. Based in
Galenki,
Primorsky Krai, in the
Russian Far East as part of the
11th Air Army, the regiment flies
Sukhoi Su-25 ground-attack aircraft. On 1 July 1995, the squadron was renamed Escadron de Chasse 2/30 "Normandie-Niemen". Four years later, it participated in Operation Allied Force (). Presidents
Nicolas Sarkozy and
Vladimir Putin unveiled a monument by Russian sculptor
Andrey Kovalchuk commemorating the squadron in Moscow's Lefortovo Park on 10 October 2007. The squadron was decommissioned on 3 July 2009, with the last takeoffs for Reims and Châteaudun in mid-July; after 17 July 2009, no aircraft flew out of
Colmar–Meyenheim Air Base. Its regimental colors and some of its aircraft and pilots went to
Mont-de-Marsan Air Base. Veterans of the squadron and a French contingent from the unit participated in the 9 May
2010 Moscow Victory Day Parade in
Red Square. The first
Dassault Rafale with the squadron colors took off from Mont-de-Marsan Air Base on 25 August 2011, reviving the
SPA 91,
SPA 93,
Escadrille Spa.97 and
Escadrille SPA 97 squadrons. From 31 August 2015 to 18 September 2015, fifteen Rafales from the squadron's
Escadron de Chasse 1/7 Provence and the
Escadron de Chasse 1/91 Gascogne were deployed at Corsica's
Solenzara Air Base. From 13 to 25 April 2016, two Rafales from the squadron and two from the Escadron de Chasse 1/7 Provence were deployed to an RAF station as part of the Griffin Strike 2016 exercise. On 9 June 2017, the squadron celebrated its 75th anniversary. With help from the
Russian Ministry of Defense, French historian
Pierre Malinowski discovered a World War II Yak-1 belonging to the squadron in August 2018. == Key personnel ==