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In the wake of André Japy's raid on Caudron Simoun.

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The aftermath of André Japy's Paris-Tokyo raid has been numerous in recent decades, the French pilot still being very popular in Japan after his accident in 1936. The town of Beaucourt (Territoire de Belfort), birthplace of André Japy, was twinned in 1996 with the Japanese town of Sefuri-Kanzaki, whose inhabitants had rescued the pilot before several months of convalescence on the spot.

In 1991, the cultural attaché of the prefecture of Saga, Chiaki Gondo will make the story of the 1936 raid a book for children, under the title Les Ailes Rouges. She will then go to all the schools in the Kanzaki and Saga region to tell about this feat that has toured Japan. In Sefuri, a small museum still preserves the remains of André Japy's plane, red in color...

This Franco-Japanese relationship gave birth to a Beaucourt association in 2015, Les Ailes de l'Amitié, which has since carried out various Franco-Japanese actions, particularly in schools, to maintain the memory and transmit the adventure of André Japy. . In 2021, for the 85th anniversary of the pilot's rescue, the scale model of a Caudron Simoun was inaugurated on a roundabout in Many in the presence of the Consul General of Japan and Ambassador, Takeshi Akamtsu. The town children put on a show about the history of this raid.

The other Simoun still existing today is the one used in June 1940 by Staff Sergeant Dreyfus who left Pau to reach Morocco. But aircraft landed in Portugal, the pilot will be interned, the plane seized. This Simoun will only return to France in 1973 to be exhibited at Le Bourget, in the Air and Space Museum.

The Simoun of the Association pour la Renaissance du Caudron Simoun was recovered in Morocco in the past by Jean Salis and then acquired by Doctor Jean Brondel, whose collection of aircraft included a North American T-6, among others. It was on the death of Dr. Brondel that the Simoun was acquired by the Association pour la Renaissance du Caudron Simoun, with Stéphane Lanter as president and Nicolas Japy as vice-president and nephew of the record-breaking pilot.

Hence the association's objective to carry out in 2024 – with this unique Simoun in flying condition in the world – the last stage of the Paris-Tokyo raid by André Japy in November 1936, a stage that remained unfinished. This flight will thus commemorate the various Paris-Tokyo raids attempted in less than 100 hours, a record which was never achieved at the time, without the machines being called into question, but essentially for meteorological problems in Asia such as this was the case for André Japy.

To do this, the restoration of the Simoun must be completed with a first flight scheduled for 2023 in France. Then it will be the transport of the device to Japan - by an air means which remains to be determined - to commemorate the flight of André Japy with the realization of this last stage towards Tokyo and also to participate in various events such as the handover of the Olympic flame between Tokyo and Paris.♦♦♦

Photos © Association for the Renaissance of Caudron Simoun, F. Besse / aeroVFR.com

Episode 3: Les Ailes Rouges (3/3) – Where is the Caudron Simoun site?

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