Lionel de Marmier
Lionel Alexandre Pierre de Marmier was a World War I flying ace credited with six aerial victories in World War I. He scored 2 or 3 more victories in World War II.
When the new SPAD XII came out, it was distributed one per French squadron. The "cannon Spad" for their unit was shared between Marmier and his friend Fernand Henri Chavannes; it even bore the shared marking of an 'M' entwined with a 'C'.
Between the wars, he became a famous airline pilot.
At the start of World War II, Marmier returned to duty in and claimed one German plane in June 1940, while he was flying a Caudron C.714 with the Polish pilots of GC 1/145 'Varsovie'. After the French surrender, he joined the Free French Air Force and served in it, taking command of the free French transport lines. He was given the rank of general by the general Charles de Gaulle, shorty before his accidental death in a flying accident, when his Lockheed Model 18 Lodestar crashed in the Mediterranean sea on 30 December 1944.
