Henri Hay De Slade, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetHenri Hay De Slade
French flying ace
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Brest, Brittany, France
About Henri Hay De Slade
- Capitaine (later Colonel) Henri Joseph Marie Hay de Slade (29 May 1893 – 2 November 1979) was a World War I flying ace credited with 19 aerial victories. Hay de Slade came from a military family; his father was a naval officer who died in 1908.
- Hay de Slade began his own military career as a cadet at Saint Cyr in 1913.
- He transferred to aviation on 13 May 1916, and received his pilot's certificate in August of that year.
- After further training, he was assigned to Escadrille 80 on 13 December 1916.
- It wasn't until his reassignment to Escadrille 86 and its Nieuport fighters, on 16 April 1917, that he began to succeed as an aerial warrior.
- On 20 May, he scored his first victory.
- He closed out 1917 as an ace; on 5 December, he scored his fifth victory.
- He would score six more times with Escadrille 86, with his last one coming on 21 July 1918. One week later, he was assigned to command Escadrille 159.
- It was an unenviable assignment; the squadron had lost 13 pilots, including its former commander, without scoring a single triumph in return.
- Hay de Slade took instant action.
- He painted bold red stripes around the fuselage of his Spad S.XIII, and told his pilots to watch his tactics in dogfights.
- The squadron learned by watching him, and began to score.
- Hay de Slade, despite his new duties, scored two wins each in August and September, and closed out his victory roll with double triumphs on 1 and 10 October 1918.
- His final tally was 16 enemy aircraft and three observation balloons.Hay de Slade leaved the army in 1926 to become a gentleman-farmer in the village of Derval, where he inherited a domain from his family.
- He became the mayor of the village from 1935 to 1974.
- During WW2 he was briefly mobilized with the rank of commandant, receiving a special affectation to direct an aviation factory.
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