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several old letters are stacked on top of each other on a white surface
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Estimate €5,000 - €6,000
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Description
MERMOZ Jean 23 letters to his ‘dear Little Mum’, January–September 1921; 79 pages, in-8 or in-4 format, a few letterheads from the École d’Istres (2), from a café in Istres, and from the Foyer du Soldat, one address (the edges of the last page are frayed). A lovely collection of letters from the time of his military pilot training. Istres. He is about to begin his licence exams: ‘I’m doing my official spiral, propeller locked: a 2,000-metre descent without the engine’, and once he had obtained his pilot’s licence, he asked Max [Delty, an operetta singer and a friend of his mother’s] to pull some strings for him so that he might be posted either ‘to an occupation zone where discipline is very strict and where there isn’t much flying, or to the Levant’ (30 January). He obtained his pilot’s licence on 9 February: “It would be pointless to tell you how much tenacity it took me to overcome the countless difficulties and pitfalls set in my path by the elements and fate. I wasn’t discouraged for a single minute, and that is what made me succeed’ (18 February). He is flying ‘Nieuports and Moranes. ‘These little fighter planes are a change from the placid Caudron’, but he is bored with just driving on the ground: ‘The fever for the air and for aviation has well and truly taken hold of me. It is the torment of Tantalus’ (20 February). He is 14 hours and 35 minutes short of the flight time required to join a squadron (27 February)… Metz-Frescaty [Corporal Mermoz was posted there to the 7th Squadron of the 11th Bomber Regiment]. “Here I am at last in a squadron” (11 May); he found the strict military regime hard to bear; he flew little and leave was rare. He volunteered for the Levant and enquired about pay and the climate: “You’re appointed a non-commissioned officer on arrival. On top of that, you’re held in high regard because you’re needed. You’re indispensable.” He tried to convince his mother and awaited her reply impatiently. “I’m currently serving as the weekly non-commissioned officer, which gives me a brilliant job” (26 June). Finally, he left Metz for Pont-Saint-Esprit, from where he was to set off for Beirut: “From there I’ll be posted to a squadron either in Palestine or Syria” (August). He finally boards the Styria, an Austrian cargo ship, in Marseille – the only pilot amongst 69 soldiers and 350 mules – and, as he leaves France, he reiterates his love for his mother: “ you are my one and only true love; if I have hurt you—sometimes knowing it, but more often without realising it—forgive me from the very depths of your heart. After all, I am just a big child, and how many [sic] children are there who do not cause their mother a little pain? ”, and he reassured her about his relationships with women: “There is no connection, no link whatsoever between feeling and temperament. This is something that very few people understand” (Marseille, Camp Sainte-Marthe, 8 September)… Enclosed is a postcard sent from the Styria – an Allied liner – expressing his deep affection to his mother “as I set sail”, 9 September, and another blank postcard from the Styria accompanied by a handwritten note (2 pp., in-12), asking her to send him his flight logbook and military service record, which he had forgotten, and mentioning his young friend Fernand Delty. Provenance: - Jean Mermoz (1901–1936); - Gabrielle Gillet-Mermoz (1880–1955); - Passed down through the family
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About the sale Historical Memories
Auction location
Auction time 11/03/2026 at 11:00 AM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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