Biography
Source (Photos and text) : Mr Freddy HOFFERT, Son of Staff-Sergeant Alfred HOFFERT
Alfred HOFFERT was born on 19 April 1913 in Algolsheim - canton of Neuf-Brisach - department of Haut-Rhin. He was the eldest of 6 children.
He died on 27 July 1992 in Tours - Department 37 - Indre et Loire.He first volunteered in July 1931, at the age of 18, for the Corps des Equipages de la Flotte in Rochefort, but was judged unfit due to insufficient teeth and sent home.
Undeterred, and with a passion for mechanics, he re-enlisted in September 1931 with the 2nd Aviation Regiment at Strasbourg-Neudorf as a non-seagoing mechanic, and in September 1933 joined Air Base No. 3, which was undergoing major reorganisation.
Note: in fact it was a 3rd Air Division created on a provisional basis on 10 February 1929 at Tours in Indre-et-Loire, in the communes of Parçay-Meslay and Saint-Symphorien at the top of the plateau overlooking the Loire and Tours to the south.
In January 1934 the Par�ay-Meslay camp became Base A�rienne n� 131 de Tours, then in January 1936 Base A�rienne n� 109. Since March 1961 it has been Base A�rienne n� 705. So he left Alsace with the 2nd Fighter Aviation Regiment at Strasbourg-Neudorf, where he had been previously, for the Tours-Par�ay-Meslay base, which was to change his life. For the record, he moved with one of the most prestigious groups, the Groupe de Chasse 1 / 2 (1 / 2 Fighter Group) from the group of �Cigognes� squadrons of the Great War: Guynemer's SPA 3 and Fonck's SPA 103.
At this air base, which had become No. 131, he obtained the Brevet Sup�rieur de M�canicien d'A�ronautique on 11 May 1934; he also passed his Brevet de Mitrailleur on Hotchkiss model 1929. He was appointed sergeant on 1 November 1934. He then joined the 31 � Air Brigade.
Note : Note: 31 � Air Brigade is part of the 3rd Air Brigade, and comprises- The 31st Observation Squadron.- The 2nd Fighter Squadron.- Tours Air Base.
In 1935, 9 air bases were considered to be the main bases for French aviation: Chartres - Metz - Nancy - Le Bourget - Reims - Pau - Tours - Ch�teauroux - Lyon. On 4 August 1936, still at the Tours Air Base, renamed Base 109, he was present when Major Louis Mailloux took over command of Group 2 of the 31st Wing.
Note : although this high-ranking officer already had a successful military career behind him, he was best known for several South Atlantic crossings he made with Jean Mermoz, including one as navigator on the famous �Arc-en-ciel�!
My father married in September 1936, and was admitted to the Corps of Career NCOs on 28 March 1937.On 22 April 1939, still on the grounds of Base A�rienne 109 at Tours-Par�ay-Meslay, he witnessed the fatal accident involving Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Mailloux: Returning from a mission over Angers, 4 Bloch MB 210s from 31 Wing came in for a landing; the fourth in the formation hit its leader, and the two aircraft crashed and exploded a hundred metres from the hangars. The bodies of Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Mailloux and his eight crew members were recovered from the rubble. On 25 April, Air Minister Guy De La Chambre and General Vuillemin attended the funeral.
In August 1939, a few months later, a Bloch was involved in another landing accident: Following a brake failure, the aircraft flew straight into the hangars, but on the way one of its control horns clipped a mechanic. The Bloch ended up crashing into the hangars, damaging 2 other aircraft in the process: no-one was hurt apart from the mechanic, who suffered a few bruises.
Note: my father didn't much like these aircraft, which some people even nicknamed Flying Coffins. On the eve of war, my father was appointed staff sergeant from 1 July 1939.
Then, after the Drôle de Guerre and the debacle of the French Army, came the dark period for the crews and all the personnel at the Base.
From 10 May 1940, the German armies swept through Holland and Belgium, then the north of France. As the disaster progressed, the Tours base had to act as a staging post for all the Echelons on the move to the south-west. A group of Belgian airmen were housed in the former Mettray penal colony. For example, the bomber crews, who had been particularly hard hit during the campaign, found some brand new Léo aircraft in Tours, but unfortunately they were short of men...!So the Tours-Parçay-Meslay base saw all types of aircraft, as it was a staging ground for all the Air Groups on their withdrawal to the south!
Note : My father described it as the most difficult period of his military life: There was a lot of moving around and going through the Base! We had to do more with much less! Not only did we have to quickly refurbish all the aircraft returning from combat so that they could leave again as quickly as possible, but we also had to repair as much as possible of the damage to aircraft that had already had to withdraw to North Africa! There was a shortage of spare parts because we were no longer supplied: we had to recover them from other aircraft that could no longer fly! And as everything had to be done in a hurry, we had to work day and night in shifts, with just a few hours sleep in between, because our daily mission was always the same: at dawn we had to get as many aircraft as possible flying safely! Add to that the bombing of the base by the Germans from June onwards, which meant even more work for us, as we had to give priority to anti-aircraft defence before we could deal with damaged aircraft and clear up anything that had been destroyed! Never before in our work had we been responsible for so many lives of pilots and crews on board as we were during those 2 months...! It was a very trying time.
On 13 June 1940, the Tours base received an unexpected visitor in the person of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who, accompanied by Lord Halifax and Lord Beaverbrook, came to visit the French government in exile in Tours. The delegation left for London at around 6pm.But on 16 June 1940, faced with such a critical situation and in order to save everything that could still be saved, Air Force General Joseph Vuillemin ordered the air units to move to North Africa: 39 air groups, i.e. 40% of the fighter groups, two-thirds of the bombing units and almost 70% of the reconnaissance units left France for North Africa, joining the eight groups already there.
On the other hand, the problem for my father, who had remained at his post until then, and for one of the last crews still on site, was the lack of aircraft still in a condition to fly immediately following the damage caused by the latest fighting, as well as that caused by the bombing of this Base; there wasn't enough time to repair one either, given the speed of the advance of the German armies! All they had available was the recently delivered Potez 63-11 No. 111, unarmed and without a propeller, as it was waiting for its famous three-bladed Rattier variable pitch propellers (unfortunately not yet available for all aircraft). And now there's just one possibility: to quickly refit this aircraft with its two twin-bladed wooden conveyor propellers!
Note : Between the two World Wars, a large number of aircraft still had wooden propellers, and my father explained to me many times how delicate their assembly was: if the bolts were too tight, the wood would warp and split - if the bolts weren't tight enough, the propeller would come off - if the bolts weren't tight enough, the propeller would box and behave like a veiled bicycle wheel, causing strong and dangerous vibrations throughout the aircraft!
So, with little time left to prepare this aircraft with a crew of 3 men (I've forgotten the names of the other 2), they were sadly among the very last to leave the base, on 17 June 1940, the day the Armistice was declared, leaving behind only around twenty aircraft that were no longer airworthy. Sergeant-Chef Alfred HOFFERT, on the left of the photo, in front of the Potez 63-11 n°111 in which he tried to reach North Africa on 17 June 1940. This photo was taken on 10 June 1940. The aircraft, which was new, did not yet have the white identification stripes on the fuselage.Potez 63-11 n°111 was forced to land following an attack by the Italian Chasse on 17 June 1940.
And this delay would prove fatal, because when they arrived in sight of the Mediterranean, vulnerable with an aircraft that was not fully equipped and unarmed, they were taken to task by the Italian fighter squadron. Rather than land at sea, they made an emergency landing near Salon-de-Provence, damaging their aircraft but fortunately not injuring anyone.
Note : This is the short life of Potez 63-11 no. 111, a new aircraft that didn't get to fly much...! This aircraft was later recovered by the government of the free zone, probably by Base Aérienne 701 at Salon-de-Provence, which was the nearest base!
Then on 18 June 1940, the first Luftwaffe units took possession of the Tours-Parçay-Meslay base, because under the terms of the Armistice, the Armée de l'Air was disarmed and its equipment handed over to the German authorities. However, following negotiations, the Armée de l'Air d'Armistice was able to keep 6 single-seat Bloch MB 150 to MB 155 fighter groups in mainland France; these aircraft were to equip all the fighter units kept in the free zone, under the terms of the Franco-German agreements, as the autonomy of the Bloch aircraft meant that they could not be withdrawn to North Africa. In addition, flights were limited to the strict minimum due to a lack of fuel.
The sad years of occupation followed.
On 16 October 1940, my father was posted to Bataillon de l'Air no. 117, where he was seconded to Base Aérienne no. 127 at Avord in the Cher department. So my parents lived in Bourges for several years in the occupied zone, the years before I was born.
Note : It was also in Bourges that my parents met and became friends with Henri Gilbert Schneider, an aviator with an impressive career, who was awarded the Légion d'Honneur by General Jouhaud in November 1953, a Military Medal and Knight of the Order of the Dragon of Annam (but that's another story...!).
Note : The Bataillon de l'Air n� 117 was created in 1936 in Paris from the Formation administrative 117 de Paris, which was the equivalent of an Air Force Base. It was posted to the Cit� de l'Air site, which also housed the E.N.S.A. (Ecole Nationale Sup�rieure de l'A�ronautique). The Cit� de l'Air is located near Issy-les-Moulineaux, one of the world's oldest airfields. Moved to Aulnat (Puy-de-D�me in 1940), the 117th Battalion returned to Paris on liberation. However, the future Air Force preferred to develop on larger provincial airfields, such as those at Bases A�riennes 122 de Chartres-Champhol - 125 d'Istres-le-Tub� - 102 de Dijon-Longvic - or 127 d'Avord (which became Base n� 702 in 1947).
My father was appointed warrant officer on 1 July 1943, then transferred to the Air Battalion No. 175 of the Clermont subdivision on 16 October 1944, just for a few days.
Note : It was in this year, on 16 July 1944, that he almost lost his wife, his unborn child, his parents-in-law, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, when two British bombers collided in mid-air at night and crashed in flames a few hundred metres from their house! On 23 October 1944 he finally reached Tours Air Base, which had just been liberated by the Americans on 28 August, but whose runways and facilities had been destroyed by various Allied bombing raids.
Appointed chief warrant officer on 1 September l945, he reorganised the B.E. (Base School) at Tours.
He was then posted to C.R.A.P. 207 in Tours (personnel administration assembly centre) on 20 December 1946, but only for a very short time, as this more administrative work than his beloved mechanics did not interest him.
As a result, he became eligible for the provisions of the Law of 5 April 1946 relating to the release of managerial staff with effect from 20 December 1946, and retired to the suburbs of Tours, never to leave.Alfred HOFFERT was awarded the Military Medal on 31 December 1948.
He continued his passion for mechanics until his retirement in 1973, but no longer on aircraft but on cars, a passion that he passed on to me as it was my job!
In these two photos of Potez 63-11 no. 111 after its field landing, you can see the wooden conveyor propellers.
The identification strip on the fuselage is now present.