RIP Valérie André, Madame le Général: French Military Officer, first woman to become a General in the French military, Brain Surgeon, first woman to fly helicopter combat rescue missions. Woman of Power, French Hero. www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2... - ThreadSky

tyrellmayfield.bsky.social • 93 days ago

RIP Valérie André, Madame le Général:

French Military Officer, first woman to become a General in the French military, Brain Surgeon, first woman to fly helicopter combat rescue missions.

Woman of Power, French Hero.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2025/01/21/valerie-andre-helicopter-french-general-dead-obituary/

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tyrellmayfield.bsky.social•93 days ago

“I besieged my superior,” she recounted, then showed her mettle by making dozens of parachute jumps from French aircraft to treat the critically wounded. In an interview decades later…she described the sight of herself to the men on the ground as “a girl, of all things, falling out of the sky.”

tyrellmayfield.bsky.social•93 days ago

She flew more than 120 chopper missions in Indochina, often landing on jungle airstrips or near rice paddies amid enemy fire. One French war correspondent in Hanoi…described her as “small, very thin, with a magnificent mass of chestnut hair,” adding that she chain-smoked Camel cigarettes.

tyrellmayfield.bsky.social•93 days ago

After Indochina, where she earned the French Croix de Guerre, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor and the U.S. Legion of Merit, Gen. André served as a Sikorsky helicopter pilot in Algeria in the late 1950s.

tyrellmayfield.bsky.social•93 days ago

When the Germans invaded and occupied Alsace-Lorraine and most of France in 1940, she was a high school student at Strasbourg. The Germans ordered no one to leave the occupied area but, with the help of her well-connected father and the French Resistance, she slipped through German lines…

gpatrick.bsky.social•93 days ago

My first question is how did she do brain surgery while flying combat missions?🤣🤣🤣

I think her story would make for a blockbuster movie.

tyrellmayfield.bsky.social•93 days ago

In 1976, she became the first female general in the French armed forces…she was appointed..to lead a commission on the future of women in the French military. 
“I wanted women to be real combatants, not just airclub pilots,”… her work began a long process that eventually helped equalize roles.

lakitukl.bsky.social•93 days ago

Lovely memoriam here RAD

@janecaro.bsky.social @ronnisalt.bsky.social

A life very well lived.

ronnisalt.bsky.social•93 days ago

My god - what a woman! Thank you

We should be worshiping and remembering her and not Nazi saluters

lakitukl.bsky.social•93 days ago

Absolutely - loved this anecdote in particular

https://bsky.app/profile/tyrellmayfield.bsky.social/post/3lgfsns3otk2u

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