Ban for aviators to fly overhead during the July 14 1919 Victory parade
The refusal of the authorities to allow airmen to fly over the victory parade on July 14, 1919 is a well established fact.
France organized on July 14, 1919 the Victory Parade. A large military parade was held under the Arc de Triomphe.
But the authorities refused to allow the aviators to fly over the crowd, and the pilots took this decision as an affront.
This is what will encourage Jean Navarre to try a flight under the Arc de Triomphe but he kills himself while training on the Villacoublay airfield on July 10th 1919.
The pilot Charles Godefroy realized this feat at the controls of a Nieuport on August 7, 1919.
But what is the origin of the ban on flying over the victory parade ?
No sources justifying this ban were found.
But the article of the newspaper Le Républicain Lorrain below evokes an unknown and hidden accident by the authorities which could be at the origin :
During the military parade celebrating the reintegration of Alsace-Moselle into France, a deadly crash occurred on the Place de la République. A forgotten tragedy in the history of Metz, the crash of November 19, 1918, was not reported by the press at the time and remains unknown today.
One week after the Franco-German armistice, the government decided to organize a military parade on Tuesday, November 19, 1918, in Metz. To celebrate the reunification of Alsace-Moselle, a crowd of people from Metz gathered on the former Place Royale, now Place de la République.
At 12:50 p.m., according to Pierre Brasme's book, Histoire de Metz en 80 jours, before the parade, airplanes appear in the sky. They headed towards the square, flew low over the public and performed a few perilous tricks. Suddenly, an aircraft caught the network of telephone wires attached to the Post Office building. Some wires get tangled around the propeller. Unable to right itself, the biplane swoops down and crashes into the crowd.
The soldiers present were ordered to isolate the wreckage and to evacuate the place, in order to hide the accident. The bodies of six people lay on the scene, including a 12-year-old girl and a 19-year-old man. The pilot, Lieutenant Yvan Viguier, commander of the squadron, miraculously survived, wounded in the face and in one leg. He was rushed to the hospital where he was amputated. The parade of troops began, as if nothing had happened. One hour after the crash, the traces of this accident have disappeared.
The press of the time minimized the tragedy. According to historian Pierre Brasme, a report of the parade was published in an aerial magazine, questioning the maneuvers that had been carried out: "Why did some brainless airmen want to stain it with blood by aerial stupidities that seemed to them to be feats? This day of liberation ended in a bath of blood and tears. The five accompanying airmen were disbarred from their squadrons and returned to their home units.
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