BOUYAT-Marcel

In 1938, Marcel BOUYAT signed a 5-year enlistment in Angoulême and successively joined the flying schools of Aulnat, Istres and Chateauroux or Avord before completing his training at the Instruction and Reconnaissance Centre in Tours from February to April 1940.

After the Armistice, Marcel BOUYAT was involved in an accident in Pau when he was tasked with ferrying aircraft from the Free Zone to the Occupied Zone. Here is his account:

"The accident I've almost lost the memory of:
It was a crash on take-off. I had easily crossed from the free zone to the German-occupied zone. Then I learnt that our enemies intended to move all the planes from the free zone to the occupied zone and I was told to go to Pau to see what was happening there. When I arrived I found that almost all the aircraft had been sabotaged except for two or three. I examined one of them and found the fuel tank full and the propeller turning on first contact. From then on, I don't have a clear memory. I can see myself taxiing down the runway, setting up a run-up and then taxiing at barely any speed without being able to get off the ground and putting my right arm over my forehead when I see that I'm going to hit the hedge of small trees.

The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital room with a man in his sixties standing next to my bed and saying, ‘Don't move, I'm going to fetch the surgeon. The surgeon arrived and said to me: you're awake now, so we'll be able to redo your dressing. In the treatment room, he said: your arm is broken where the forearm meets the rest of your arm. There are several breaks, so be patient! It took several hours to put the broken pieces of bone back into place. At the end, the surgeon seemed pleased with the work and said to me: ‘That's it, we've put all the pieces of bone back in place. You're going to stay in hospital for three days and then go home. Be very careful not to hit yourself, otherwise you'll have to do it all over again in another hospital. The teacher who pulled me out of the rubble stayed by my bedside for three days. I thanked him for everything he had done for me and promised to see him again one day. But I never saw him again, because a few days later I was boarding a ship in Marseille bound for Indochina. And it's since that accident that the radius in my right arm no longer revolves around the ulna."

After convalescing, Marcel BOUYAT was transferred to the Far East, embarking in Marseille on 15 November 1940 for Saigon. He was then posted to Permanent Detachment n°402 in Phnom-Penh. He was wounded in the air and hospitalised in Hué on 17 May 1941.

He was then posted to Escadrille I/42 from January 1942 to October 1943. During this period, following his previous injuries, he was discharged by the Hanoi Reform Commission and assigned to the Air Command. He was returned to active service as a sedentary officer on 30 June 1943.

He repeatedly renewed his contract and was authorised to extend his stay in the Far East. Appointed Chief Warrant Officer in September 1953, he was promoted to Second Lieutenant in the air base corps on 1st January 1954.
Promoted to Lieutenant, he finally left the Far East in June 1956 to join the Air Force Headquarters, 2nd Bureau, in Paris, but was seconded in September 1956 to Operations in the Eastern Mediterranean. Based at Nicosis (Cyprus), he stayed there until February 1957 as Head of Transit Operations at Famagusta, and Liaison Officer to the British authorities,
He then returned permanently to Metropolitan France and was posted to the Allied Air Forces Central Europe Headquarters.
In October 1960, Marcel BOUYAT was permanently appointed Captain and transferred to the Détachement Liaison Air n°50/134 based at Dreux.
He retired on 1st January 1965.

Retired from the Armed Forces, Marcel BOUYAT then joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through a competitive examination for one of the reserved posts. He was appointed to our Consulate General in Calcutta for a further 7 years. He was then appointed to various posts abroad in Asia (Singapore, South Korea), Africa and South America, before retiring in 1984. He died 30 years later on 3 April 2014.