153 - MERMOZ, Jean

MERMOZ, Jean L.A.S. “Jean,” Buenos Aires, April 24, 1928, to his grandparents, the GILLETs; 3½ pages, in-4 format, on Compagnie Générale Aéropostale letterhead. Night flight from Buenos Aires to Rio. He doesn’t write often, as he has “two jobs—at my request, incidentally […] As for us, winter has just set in. We’ve had a few cold days alternating with hot ones. The temperature changes are very sudden here, but you get used to them quickly. Winters aren’t harsh in Argentina. We never see snow, just a few frosts from time to time. – Besides, I now spend ten days in Buenos Aires and four days in Rio de Janeiro, where the heat is always almost unbearable. But the setting is so wonderful that even the climate can’t make you tire of it. Since March 1, I’ve been regularly flying the Buenos Aires–Rio de Janeiro route and back, two to three times a month. I have another pilot with me, and the two of us reliably handle the service. When I return to Buenos Aires, my work isn’t over. I have to take care of the organization and administration as airport manager. I currently have about twenty mechanics. And soon, when the auxiliary routes in Argentina open, I’ll have plenty of responsibilities. All in all, I’m doing quite well. I get along well with everyone, both in Rio and here. All the directors of the Bouilloux-Lafont Group hold me in high regard […] I’ve been fortunate to complete all my flights successfully, despite numerous mechanical failures and persistent bad weather. I managed to make the Buenos Aires–Santos trip four times in a single day, and just recently I completed the 2,600-kilometer Rio de Janeiro–Buenos Aires leg in a single day—a 13-hour, 10-minute flight—breaking Costes’ record of 14 hours and 15 minutes. I left Rio at 3:00 a.m. and arrived in Buenos Aires at 6:00 p.m. after dropping off and picking up mail at five different stopovers. – It caused quite a stir here and in Brazil. On my own initiative, I pioneered night flights, which save us precious time. Unfortunately, the boats provided by the French government are worthless. They’re always breaking down and aren’t very fast. It takes two days by plane from here to Natal, eight to ten days by boat from Natal to Dakar, and two days by plane from Dakar to Paris—a total of about 14 days, four of which are spent on the plane alone. We are currently studying a new project and developing a large seaplane to remedy this situation. Once we succeed in eliminating the boat leg, we’ll be saved. But the effort required remains immense for the time being. The journey is grueling. – Unpredictable winds, frequent storms, and intense heat starting from Porto Alegre. From the Gulf of St. Catherine—an inevitable hub of atmospheric disturbances—it’s nothing but virgin forest all the way to Natal. – In the event of a breakdown, we have only small stretches of beach to land on. The Santos-Rio leg is the hardest. A jagged coastline, not a single beach, and countless islets—sort of like wooded rock formations. The virgin forest, an inextricable tangle of palm trees, vines, and precious woods, almost reaches into the sea. In short, it’s two hours—both magnificent and nerve-wracking—to get through. It’s wonderfully beautiful, but a breakdown here would be a real nightmare. From Rio onward, it’s still virgin forest, but there are beaches almost everywhere. The inhabitants—people of mixed race or Indigenous people—aren’t particularly dangerous. They live in miserable huts, subsisting solely on fish and bananas all year round. Leprosy has caused a massive decline in their numbers or, at the very least, left many disabled. Rest assured, we don’t go near them. In the event of a forced landing, we sleep in the plane, and since we always carry a supply of water and provisions, we have no contact with them. […] A flood of awards has come my way this year—enough to fill a museum! Three medals: a vermeil medal from the Aéro-Club de France for my service to civil aviation and the Toulouse-St. Louis flight; another vermeil medal from the city of Toulouse; a diploma with a silver medal from the Society for the Encouragement of Progress for my career in commercial aviation, and a bronze triptych from the General Directorate of Aeronautics to commemorate the first nonstop flight from France to Senegal that we completed in October. […] “The collection certainly won’t stop there”… Correspondence, No. 138. Enclosed is a telegram dated January 1, 1928, with New Year’s greetings to his grandparents. Provenance: - Jean Mermoz (1901–1936); - Gabrielle Gillet-Mermoz (1880–1955); - Then passed down through the family