172 - MERMOZ, Jean

MERMOZ, Jean L.A.S. “Jean,” Buenos Aires, November 14, 1928, to his grandparents, the GILLETs; 2 pages, in-4 format, on Aeroposta Argentina letterhead. Regarding his planned transatlantic flight. He hopes to leave for France soon. “Everything seems to be working out just as I’d hoped. I believe that Bouilloux-Lafont, the big boss, is going to subsidize me for the Paris-New York or Paris-Rio de Janeiro flight. He has already asked which aircraft manufacturer I would like to use and seems to be taking the matter seriously. So life is good, and with all the assets I’m going to bring to the table, along with my strong intuition that I’ll succeed, I plan to achieve something even better soon, because one must always strive to do better. Now, I’ve had to promise to return and resume my position as chief pilot in Buenos Aires as soon as the rally is over—something I accepted naturally, because success won’t go to my head, and there are so many wonderful people here who mean so much to me!! So I’ll be finishing out my two years in South America anyway.” A year has already passed since he left France: “Time has flown by so quickly, and there’s so much to do here! […] It’s really hot here right now. It’s summer now. In Rio de Janeiro, it’s scorching hot. Fortunately, there’s the ocean and the beach. Here, we’re deprived of those, and the Rio de la Plata—eternally a dirty yellow—isn’t very inviting. In any case, the air is good. I’ve gained 6 kg. The scale reads nearly 87 kg, and yet I don’t notice that I’m getting fatter. We’re still living in our apartment with my two friends. Things are going great. Although we change housekeepers every two weeks […] In any case, I know I’ll be happy to see Grandma’s rabbits and Grandpa’s cider again”… He’s trying to bring “Max Delty’s son, who completed his apprenticeship in Toulouse, to the Company. He’ll make a good living here and will be able to support his family.” Our service is running smoothly at the moment. It takes about 8½ to 9 days, more or less consistently, from Paris to Buenos Aires and back. We leave Buenos Aires on Wednesday to arrive in Rio on Thursday at four o’clock, and the next day the mail is in Natal, where it immediately boards a aviso. We’re pushing ahead with the construction of seaplanes to reduce the travel time to 6 days or 6½ days. Ships are taking up most of our time. As soon as we’ve achieved an indisputable result, we’ll launch a major advertising campaign. So far, many people are still unaware of the route. When you consider that in Europe we started with 50 kg of mail for Morocco and now handle up to 500 kg daily, you can be convinced of the route’s success in South America. But what an effort it has required! No one will ever suspect what has been accomplished over the past year. Security is now nearly complete. The organization is up and running and improving day by day. In the early days, we had to make up for the lack of organization with feats of daring, and with every mail delivery—we can say now—we risked our lives each time to get it there as quickly as possible. […] The Germans talk about competing with us using their Zeppelins, but they’re heading for accidents and bankruptcy—I’m almost certain of it. And we’re waiting for them!”… Correspondence, No. 155 Source: - Jean Mermoz (1901–1936); - Gabrielle Gillet-Mermoz (1880–1955); - Then passed down through the family