Andrée Dupeyron

Andrée Dupeyron (née Mailho; 19 October 1902 – 22 July 1988) was a French woman civil and military aviator who broke distance records in the 1930s and flew for the Free French Air Force and the Premier corps de pilotes militaires féminins.

Early life Julie Victorine Andréa Eugénie Mailho was born on 19 October 1902 in Ivry-sur-Seine, Paris, the daughter of a working-class family. Her father died fighting in the First World War and in 1916 she started work in a munitions factory making ammunition shells. She met her future husband, the mechanic Gustave Dupeyron, at the age of 16 when he was working at the Ecole d'Aviation de Pau. They married at the end of the First World War. Passionate about mechanics, the couple soon became interested in aircraft. She beat the women's straight-line distance record recently set by Élisabeth Lion. She ended up stranded in the desert.

Achieving these world records made the 36-year-old mother a heroine throughout the France. She was nicknamed La mère de famille volante for her speed.

With her husband, Dupeyron was one of the first to join the Aviation Populaire des Landes club, founded in 1936 at the instigation of the Front Populaire, which sought to promote and establish aviation among the working classes. She hid the co-pilot of an American B17 in an attic in Place Saint-Roch, Mont-de-Marsan.

Charles de Gaulle's Air Minister, Charles Tillon, wanted to create a corps of female military pilots. During the winter of 1944–1945, Dupeyron was part of the first group of women pilots recruited for the Premier corps de pilotes militaires féminins (First Corps of Female Military Pilots) alongside Maryse Bastié. Dupeyron trained at Kasba-Tadla Air Force School in Morocco, alongside Paulette Bray-Bouquet, Gisèle Gunepin, Élisabeth Lion and Yvonne Jourjon, and qualified as a military pilot in 1945 with the rank of second lieutenant. In 1946 she became a student pilot at the Gliding Centre of Montagne Noire (France), the only woman in training there.

Post war In 1949, she made another record attempt, flying from Mont-de-Marsan in France to Jiwani in Pakistan. She flew alone, after 31 hours and 23 minutes. Andrée Dupeyron was awarded the Légion d'honneur that same year. and was buried in the cimetière du Centre de Mont-de-Marsan.

Commemoration

Promenade Andrée Dupeyron, a road in Lyon, is named in her honour.

A roundabout on Simone Veil boulevard in Mont-de-Marsan was named after Andrée Dupeyron in 2019, alongside two other roundabouts named for fellow women pilots Elisabeth Boselli and Adrienne Bolland.