Pierre Bourdier, a naval lieutenant, served aboard the Dixmude, the German zeppelin handed over to France as war reparations and given the name of a battle in Flanders. It was then the largest airship in the world, more than two hundred metres long, and the navy saw in it the future of maritime surveillance. The craft vanished at sea in 1923. His monument contains no one.
The story
Born on 22 September 1895, Pierre Bourdier was a naval lieutenant and a staff officer: aboard the Dixmude he had charge of handling the ship. France had received that giant airship from Germany as war reparations — it was the LZ-114, a German naval zeppelin renamed after a battle in Flanders. The zeppelins handed over to France served both as spoils of war and as a testbed for a naval aviation still to be invented.
The Dixmude was then the largest airship in the world: over two hundred metres long. The French navy saw in it the future of maritime surveillance and of colonial links, and had it take two world records in September 1923: one hundred and eighteen hours aloft without landing, and seven thousand two hundred kilometres, both taken from the British. Flying for days on end over the Mediterranean and the Sahara was meant to prove that the airship beat the aeroplane over long distances, and its crew lived for days inside an aluminium frame filled with hydrogen.
On 18 December 1923 it left Cuers, in the Var, for In Salah, in Algeria: the raid was to prove that an airship could link France to its colonies without landing. The flight went to plan until the return leg, when the ship met a violent storm off Sicily. On 21 December it exploded near Sciacca and fell into the sea. Fifty-two men died; there were no survivors.
The disaster ended French ambitions in airships. The hydrogen that lifted these machines made them flammable, and the Dixmude foreshadowed the Hindenburg by fourteen years. The sea kept most of the wreck, and most of the bodies were never found. The navy gave up the airship little by little, and the aeroplane won out for good.
The monument in Division 94 is a cenotaph: Bourdier's body was never recovered and does not lie here. His inscription calls him “Héros du croiseur aérien Dixmude”, hero of the airborne cruiser Dixmude, “mort pour la France à son poste d'honneur, péri en mer”, died for France at his post of honour, lost at sea. The monument was raised for a man whose grave is the Mediterranean.
The grave
A cenotaph: the body of Pierre Bourdier, lost at sea, does not rest here. The inscription is among the most detailed in the cemetery: “A la mémoire du lieutenant de vaisseau Pierre Bourdier, Héros du croiseur aérien Dixmude, officier de l'État-major, chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, médaille du Levant et d'Italie, mort pour la France à son poste d'honneur, péri en mer au large de Sciacca (Sicile), le 21 décembre 1923.” — to the memory of naval lieutenant Pierre Bourdier, hero of the aerial cruiser Dixmude, staff officer, Knight of the Legion of Honour, Levant and Italy medals, died for France at his post of honour, lost at sea off Sciacca, Sicily, on 21 December 1923. It names the rank, the craft, the decorations, the place and the date — everything, except a body.
On site, do not miss
It is a cenotaph: the tomb is empty. The inscription names what no tomb can contain: “péri en mer au large de Sciacca” — lost at sea off Sciacca.
Visitors' questions
Where is Pierre Bourdier's monument?
In Division 94, avenue Pacthod, first row — but it is a cenotaph: his body, lost at sea off Sicily, does not lie there.
Joseph LesurquesWhat was the Dixmude?
The largest airship in the world — over two hundred metres — a former German military zeppelin (LZ-114) handed to France as war reparations and renamed after a battle in Flanders.
The Morane brothersHow was it lost?
It left Cuers on 18 December 1923 for In Salah, in Algeria; on the way back it ran into a violent storm and exploded on 21 December off Sciacca. Fifty-two men died.
René MouchotteWhat were the consequences?
The disaster put an end to French ambitions for airships. The hydrogen that lifted them made them burn: the Dixmude came fourteen years before the Hindenburg, and history was to prove the aeroplane right.
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