Valerie André

France

 

1922-2025

Valérie André, French Helicopter Pioneer

Valerie was born April 21, 1922, in Strasbourg, France. She was inspired by aviation at the age of 10 when early aviatrix Maryse Hilsz visited the town. She earned money so she could begin flying lessons in 1939, halted later that year with the beginning of World War II. She then went to university and trained in medicine but also qualified as a parachutist. When she graduated from medical school in 1948, she volunteered for service in French Indochina as a doctor in the French Army medical corps. As a Medical Captain in Vietnam, Dr. André trained in neurosurgery and often performed over 100 surgeries per month.

An innovation arrived in Vietnam in 1950, when English pilot Alan Bristow (who founded Bristow Helicopters in 1955) arrived in Saigon with a Hiller UH-12/360. André was among those who witnessed the demonstration and immediately lobbied her superiors for a chance to become a rescue pilot. “I had medical training to stabilize the wounded,” she recalled (see “Valérie André — Angel in a Helicopter,” Vertiflite, Sept/Oct 2023). “And I weighed less than 45 kilograms [99 lb], which meant we could even carry an extra wounded man if necessary.”

She returned to France to learn how to pilot the Hiller 360. André was one of the first women in the world to receive a helicopter pilot rating (she was Whirly Girl #12) and the first woman to fly a helicopter in combat. From 1952 to 1953, she piloted 129 helicopter missions into the jungle, rescuing 165 soldiers, and on two occasions completed parachute jumps to treat wounded soldiers who needed immediate surgery. After a crash in 1953, she returned to France. She served as a doctor and pilot for the aeronautical test facility at Brétigny-sur-Orge and established medical units at military heliports.

André would also go on to serve in Algeria in 1959–1962, as both a medical rescue and troop transport pilot, by this time graduating up to the more sophisticated Sikorsky H-34, completing 365 war missions. After she returned to France, she continued in the French Army as a medical officer assigned to airbases throughout France. She rose through the command structure, becoming the first French woman general in 1975, and later became the medical general inspector in 1982. Moreover, André was a catalyst for change in the French military medical corps, lobbying for gender equality based on merit for women pursuing a medical career in the military.

She had a total of 3,200 flight hours and received seven citations of the Croix de Guerre (Cross of War), the Grand-croix of the Ordre National du Mérite in 1987 (the first woman to receive this distinction) and the Grand-croix of the Legion of Honour in 1999 (previously Chevalier in 1953). In addition to other French military decorations, she was also awarded the Legion of Merit (USA), National Order of Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and the Cross of Valour (Canada).

Her English biography, written by Charles Morgan Evans, Helicopter Heroine — Valérie André — Surgeon, Pioneer Rescue Pilot, and Her Courage Under Fire (2023) is available in the VFS Online Store at www.vtol.org/store.

Valérie Edmee André died on Jan. 25, 2025, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. She was 102.

 

VFS Updates: In Memoriam - Vertiflite, March/April 2025