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Marie Marvingt, ‘La fiancée du danger’.
Marvingt was probably one of the last women to disguise herself as a man to serve in a major conflict; she spent several months in the trenches in World War I, and later openly served in the Italian forces. In 1915, she became the first female military aviator flying bombing missions over German lines with the Aéronautique Militaire. Marvingt was awarded the Croixe de Guerre for a successful bombing raid on Metz.
tell me about homosocial pilot culture tho
ahahaha
okay
At the mo I’m very interested in how early twentieth century air forces constructed their own cultures, because other military service branches all have centuries if not millennia of precedent: the class hierarchy of the Royal Navy, for example, not only dictated (and to an extent still continues to dictate) how ships ran and battle worked, but also established behaviours, traditions, and social norms that carry on to the present. Most air forces are all barely a century old, if that, and flying quickly became a very separate occupation from land- or sea-based soldiering (it’s a profoundly different kind of combat, often involves working from an established ‘home base’ behind the far more uncomfortable front line, etc.).
My theory is that most air forces were established in cultures beginning to overhaul their imperial class systems, and consequently military aviation built itself upon a sort of perceived chivalric egalitarianism. Class did heavily influence air force cultures - most of the people who could fly planes pre-war were upper-class, so they were often the first to sign up and got first dibs on shaping their squadrons - but the lack of class requirements/precedent to enlist as a pilot meant that a lot of working- and middle-class men ended up as included members of squadrons that were starting to look like aristocratic boys’ clubs. As such, a lot of gendered behaviour in these pretty much all-male spaces took its cue from essentially early twentieth century Etonian-or-equivalent wankers. Read: very homosocial, often encouraging strong same-sex bonds, emphasis on athleticism, etc.
I’ll use the Lafayette Escadrille as an example, they gurgled softly: elite flying squadron founded by Harvard and Yale grads, who were the first Americans to volunteer, disproportionate amount of Ivy Leaguers, this is why they got a lot of media attention and why their legacy developed as it has (and why not-obviously-American non-upper-class pilots like Lufbery and Bert Hall were often entirely ignored/completely reinvented in this image in the American press and history books; in the US Air Service, working-class Rickenbacker conformed to this culture, so it was different). In the press, these guys were portrayed as ‘pure’ (sexually and like, also literally not covered in mud) chivalrous elites with an emphasis on ‘the profound bond of the sky’ that they shared even with enemy aviators, who were consistently portrayed more sympathetically than enemy ground forces. The press, esp the pre-1917 American press, were fucking killing it with this Clean Masculine Romantic Hero For A Modern Age Knights Of The Sky shit. Obviously this was not what combat was like but the Escadrille guys did absolutely read their coverage and were certainly influenced by it, even if they thought it was hilarious and got a kick out of making shit up for reporters. Read any World War I-era newspaper in a country with an air force, though, and you will get this similar image of the Male Pilot emerging, the most obvious/international example being von Richtofen.
So that is popular construction of air force culture, if you will (popular constructions and stereotypes are important even though they’re inaccurate! The people they are about know about them). Then in practice, you get my other Crazy Theory that because air force men fight alone in combat and are physically removed from the people they kill, they depend more upon physical intimacy with their comrades on the ground to manage trauma.
World War I-era masculine culture is markedly different from World War II as it is (Paul Fussell writes in detail about why; essentially World War II-era is much more macho and no-homo bro across the board for a variety of reasons not least the Great Depression hard times austerity suck it up yo/traumatised WWI vets trying to reclaim their masculinity dads). If you look at photos of any military group in World War I, you’re far more likely to see men with arms around each other’s necks and waists, hands on thighs, sitting in each other’s laps, a lot of physical relationships that today (in part thanks to WWII masculinity eyyyy) would look fairly gay. In most air forces, this gets exaggerated thanks to a lot of downtime, an imposed ‘boys’ club’ culture, and (sounds weird but hear me out) highest exposure to women, children, and civilian life, which both reasserts personal senses of masculinity and creates a very present mental divide between real people and fighting comrades. Using the Escadrille/the 94th Aero Squadron as examples again because that’s what I’ve read most of, pilots use romantic language to refer to one another in their letters and mention holding hands in their memoirs, there’s footage of Thenault and Lufbery (who were different ranks so this is interesting to me) strolling around with arms around each other’s waists, Thaw and Prince and a few years later Rickenbacker and another pilot standing around chatting with their arms linked, the American pilots quickly adopting la bise, Jimmy Hall talking pretty explicitly about the ‘flying bond’ he feels with the friend he joined the Escadrille with (though Jimmy Hall ran away to the Caribbean with another pilot for several decades wahey so take that with a grain of salt).
in conclusion obviously the first onscreen same-sex kiss was WWI pilots ‘homosocial’ more like homo as fuck
more useless facts about Raoul Lufbery, as brought to you by today's archive visit
- he spoke French, English, Hindi, Bengali, German, and possibly Cantonese - he drove racecars (that's a Hispano-Suiza given to him 'in recognition of his aerial accomplishments'), who let this man have a racecar - he played the mandolin, described his own singing as 'the yelping of a dog when you step on his tail', and liked ukulele music - he painted a giant pre-Nazi swastika on his plane - once whilst camping in an old ruin outside Cairo a bandit tried to knife him and he won - he had a photographic memory - despite being an American citizen, he spoke English with a French accent - whilst on leave he got arrested for knocking an annoying train conductor out with a single punch - he was 5'6" - he was meant to be his nephew's godfather, but he died a week before the namesake was born
how many photos can Jack find of Raoul Lufbery with lions
the answer is
all of them
rough translation of the caption because I am scraping back my French today: Wisky [sic] lavishes caresses on his master - Soda, jealous, walks away, tail down. Major Raoul Lufbery, American aviation ace, was killed recently in aerial combat. At the declaration of war, he was enlisted in the Foreign Legion. Later, he was educated in aviation and joined the Lafayette Escadrille. Here he is playing with his two lions, Wisky and Soda. During the long months, these two beasts accompanied him in all his travels, to the great joy of his comrades who were themselves conquered with affection for these redoubtable "mascots".
Hannie Schaft Jannetje Johanna (Jo) Schaft (16 September 1920 – 17 April 1945), was a Dutch communist resistance fighter during World War II. She became known as the girl with the red hair. Her secret name in the resistance movement was Hannie.
Let me introduce y’all to this fierce motherfucker right now - allow me to present HANNIE SCHAFT. DID YOU KNOW: This suave-ass communist bamf would dress up as a boy and stand in doorways making out with the ladies until some German soldier came along and then she’d kill them in various gory ways.
She was kind of too radical for her own resistance group, i.e. they balked when she was like ‘Hell yes I’m going to learn to speak German fluently so I can sleep with (and therefore kill) more Nazis.’
Her last words were ‘Ik schiet beter!' when her executioner wounded her with the first shot. I SHOOT BETTER. WHATEVER BITCHES, SCHAFT OUT.
So the Lafayette Escadrille had lion mascots right which predictably resulted in 99% of the pilots getting injured at some point during the war
But look how much they fucking loved Raoul Lufbery
right okay let's play 'what happened to these two adorbs lion cubs caught up in the Great War' via 2am Google and some background scrounging well kids
Bit of background: the Lafayette Escadrille thought they were fucking hilarious and adopted a male lion cub they called Whiskey because they fed him an entire saucerful of the stuff as a wee baby. Kiffin, Thaw, Hill, Johnson, and Hall bought him in Paris in September 1916, when he was four months old. Whiskey became the squadron's mascot and was soon joined by Soda the female cub, as the pilots worried Whiskey was getting lonely (HE CLEARLY WASN'T LOOK AT ALL THE FUN HE WAS HAVING WITH LUFBERY anyway). The pilots all liked the lions a lot even though their leisure activities of choice mostly consisted of jumping on them but just look at them all (Soda's in the guy seated second from left's arms Whiskey is on everyone's laps with Lufbery holding his head)
As far as I can tell, Lufbery was mostly in charge of the lions/possibly preferred their company; Soda was by all accounts the more stand-offish of the two, but he was the only person she never bit. Whiskey, on the other hand, was 'a cute, bright-eyed baby who tried to roar in a most ferocious manner, but who was blissfully content the moment one gave him a finger to suck', and Lufbery's favourite though he clearly liked the shitstirrer as well look
On 15 October 1917, the lions were made to leave because Whiskey the little shit knocked down the CO Philippe Fequant and chewed up his tunic and cap 'playfully' CUTE/apparently that top photo is oh no the pilots gathered 'round to say goodbye to the cubs on their last day look at Lufbery being a bit despondent
But good news the Paris Zoo took them (Lufbery was given leave to bring them to Paris fuck this)! Though according to this fucking horrific NYT story from 1919, both of the lions had contracted 'rheumatism' from sharing 'the Americans' draughty wooden hut at Cachy in the region of the Somme'/not having any heating once they were moved due to coal shortages, and subsequently Soda died in May 1919. Thenault came to visit Whiskey in July of that year and he was super unwell, but jumped up and licked his hands even though he hadn't seen him for nearly two years OH NO then 'stood looking after him for a moment, then limped back to the corner where he spends all his time listlessly huddled' JESUS CHRIST THIS IS A FIVE ACT FUCKING TRAGEDY
Then they got their own memorial statues at the Lafayette Escadrille memorial in Villeneuve l'Étang nice try guys A+ for the animal abuse what is this fucking War Horse
Moral of the story is don't bring your lion to war and don't trust the Paris Zoo
I need a sideblog for my historywank and so do you.
I'm Jack, grad student working on combat psychology and the Second World War RAF Fighter Command. Generally, I'm interested in combat theory, the changing nature of warfare, aviation, gender, labour, masculinity, propaganda, and how wartime politics and ideologies interact with combatants. Specifically, I'm interested in yelling and smoking.
I don't know precisely what I'm doing with this blog as yet but any of the following may eventually be involved:
Football, British national identity, the Luftwaffe, Labour and New Labour, combatants' development of military aviation, the Apache Wars, U-boats, the Lafayette Escadrille, post-9/11 media, 20th century Scottish, German, and Japanese military cultures, First World War commemoration, anti-fascism, the psychology of aerial bombardment, American civil rights movement, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Nazi ideology in the military, interwar masculinity, 20th century queer culture, Nantucket whaling, Latin and South American socialism, late Roman Republican politics, the Napoleonic Wars, the Dutch Resistance, Thatcher-era labour, punk, shite essays, maybe dogs
Mostly it'll be planes though.
