Marie Marvingt: Air Ambulance Pioneer
Marie Marvingt was, by all accounts, a
remarkable person in life, but almost unknown outside France. And even in
France it took considerable work by biographers to revive her amazing story
nearly twenty years after her death in December 1963. Marvingt was the ultimate
sportswomen in France and a dedicated advocate for the development of
aeromedical evacuation.
She
was born on February 20, 1875, at Aurillac, France. Her father, Felix, a
postmaster, strongly encouraged Marie to pursue sports. By the age of five she
reportedly could swim 4,000 meters. In 1890, when she was 15, she canoed more
than 400 kilometers from her home in Nancy, France, to Koblenz, Germany.
She also competed in water
polo, speed skating, luge, bobsledding, boxing, martial arts, fencing, shooting,
tennis, golf, hockey, football, mountaineering, and also studied at the local circus learning rope work, the
trapeze, horseback riding, and juggling. In 1899 she earned her driver’s
license. Marvingt was just getting started.
Between
1903 and 1910 she was one of the first women to climb most of the peaks in the
French and Swiss Alps. In 1905 she swam the length of the Seine River through Paris, won an international military shooting
competition in 1907 and became the only women to be awarded the palms du
Premier Tireur (First Gunner palms) by a French Minister of War. She
dominated the winter sports seasons in France between 1908 and 1910, collecting
more than 20 first place victories, including the women’s world bobsledding
championship in 1910. And to get a good look at a volcanic eruption, she cycled
from Nancy, France to Naples, Italy. When she was refused admission to the 1908
Tour de France because, after all, it was a man’s sport, she successfully
completed the course on her own, covering more than
4000 km and traversing 8 mountain passes, while averaging more than 150 km per
day. Only 36 of 114 male riders completed the course during the official
race that year.
In
March of 1910 the French Academy of Sports (Académie des Sports) awarded
her a Gold Medal for all sports, the only multi-sport medal the Academy has
ever awarded.
Looking
for new challenges, Marvingt soon turned her attention to aviation, first with
hot air balloons and later with fixed-wing aircraft. Her first balloon ride was
in 1901, she piloted a balloon in July 1907 and soloed as a balloon pilot in
September 1909. In October of that year she became the first women to pilot a
balloon across the North Sea and English Channel to England. The Aero Club of
France issued her a balloon pilot’s license in June 1910 and in November she
became the third women in the world – the second in France -- to be licensed to
fly fixed-wing aircraft. She was the first women to solo in monoplane (single
wing) aircraft, generally believed to be more difficult to fly safely. She
participated in many air shows and in December 1910, while competing in Turin for the Coupe Femina (Femina
Cup), she set the first official women's flight records for duration and
distance at 53 minutes and 42 kilometers. In 1911 she won the Coupe Femina.
In her first 900 flights she reportedly never “broke wood”, or damaged an
aircraft, which was remarkable feat. Among those who learned to fly prior to
WWI, 87 percent are said to have died in aircraft accidents.
In addition to the many things Marvingt did
to earn a living, including journalism, poetry, and hosting conferences, she
was also a trained surgical nurse with the Red Cross and various hospitals. She
also found the time to disguise herself as a man and fight on the front lines
until she was discovered. Later she became the first women to fly bombing
missions over Germany, and was knowingly tapped as a women to assist alpine
troops due to her mountaineering skills..
Marvingt turned her attention from sport
aviation to promote the use of airplanes to evacuate wounded to hospitals and
transport surgical supplies and nurses to where they were needed. Making the
case was certainly an uphill struggle in that aircraft were generally
considered dangerous and unreliable.
She described her vision of an air ambulance
based upon a Deperdussin monoplane powered by a 100
hp engine with a radio to communicate with senior physicians and resupply
medical aid posts. She worked with the principal engineer at the Deperdussin
aircraft factory. Her design with an interior litter was much more practical
than a competing design, which demanded that the patient lie unprotected on the
wing next to the pilot/physician.
Marvingt used her conferences
to promote the idea and raise the needed to funds to build the air ambulance.
She placed her order in 1912. The Deperdussin factory, however, failed in 1913
when the owner embezzled funds before her aircraft could be completed. She
began a new round of conferences to raise the funds for a second attempt.
She developed contacts with
some doctors who shared some or all of vision for an air ambulance service. Dr.
Duchaussoy organized a meeting with government officials in April 1912 to
discuss the construction of an airplane ambulance and he began to raise funds
similar to that undertaken by Marvingt. Dr. Eugene Chassaing was able to
finally convince the French government to allow him to test the concept of the
air ambulance, converting an old Dorand AR-2 into the first documented air
ambulance. Test flights were conducted but it is unclear whether wounded
soldiers were evacuated by air.
In the post-war
period the momentum for development of air ambulances moved forward.
British and French colonial wars in the 1920s demonstrated the actual use
of extensive aerial evacuation systems. Marvingt traveled with French forces
during some of these expeditions, which underscored the utility or air
ambulances for military and civilian use. She redoubled her efforts to
popularize the concept over her lifetime and is credited with hosting somewhere
between 3,000 and 6,000. In 1929, she assisted Richet, Charlet, and Chassaing,
along with others in organizing and running the first International Congress on
Medical Aviation, which was attended by delegates from 41 countries. Along with
Robert Charlet, she founded of Friends of Medical Aviation and served as its
Vice President. In the 1930s she turned her attention to developing courses and
programs to train personnel for the expansion of medical aviation.
Many individuals
came together over the years to turn a concept and vision into a meaningful
reality, and most praised Marvingt for her leadership and untiring support. In
January 1955 the Fédération National d'Aéronautique de France et d'Outre-Mer at
the Sorbonne presented her with the grand prize Deutsch de la Meurthe, in
recognition of her victory in developing medical aviation against so much
opposition. She also established
a air ambulance service in Morocco and was awarded the Medal de la Paix
of Morocco.
