Raymond Vanier learned to fly during the Great War and found himself, at the armistice, a twenty-three-year-old pilot practising a trade that did not yet exist. Joining Latécoère in 1919, he opened the mail line to South America, without radio or weather report, and often without a field on which to land. He was among those who made it fly by night. Mermoz and Saint-Exupéry were his companions on the line.
The story
Born at Orléans on 6 August 1895, Raymond Vanier learned to fly during the Great War, which he ended as a fighter pilot. He was twenty-three at the armistice, with a trade that did not yet exist.
On 3 June 1919 he joined the Latécoère lines, which meant to link Toulouse to Morocco and then to South America. They flew without radio, without weather reports and often without an airfield: the route opened pilot by pilot.
He was one of those who took it into the night. In May 1930, when Mermoz had just crossed the South Atlantic, it was Vanier who carried the mail from Natal to Rio de Janeiro: sixteen hours of flying, storm and darkness, at the end of which a letter posted in France reached South America without ever going by ship. Mermoz and Saint-Exupéry were his fellows on the line.
In 1935 he became chief pilot of Air Bleu, the company that flew France's internal mail, then went on with his career in commercial aviation. He was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1951.
He died in Paris on 15 August 1965 and lies in Division 3, avenue du Puits, second line, under a plain stele with a bronze medallion. The name of the airline is cut into it as “LATACOERE.”
The grave
A sober stele adorned with a bronze medallion bearing the pilot's portrait. The inscription recalls the company of his early days, but with a mistake no one ever corrected: “LATACOERE”, for Latécoère. The name of the man who opened the night line to South America thus sits, in Division 3, beside the misspelt name of the firm that employed him.
On site, do not miss
The bronze medallion, and beneath it the name of the company: “LATACOERE”. The mistake was carved in 1965 and never corrected.
Visitors' questions
Where is Raymond Vanier's grave?
In Division 3, avenue du Puits, second row, a few steps from the main entrance. Ernest Archdeacon, the patron of the first French flights, rests in the same Division: two men of the air a few dozen metres apart. The stele bears a bronze medallion.
Ernest ArchdeaconWhat were the Latécoère lines?
The company founded by Pierre-Georges Latécoère to carry the mail from Toulouse to Morocco, and later on to South America. It became the Aéropostale, and left behind the names of Mermoz, Guillaumet and Saint-Exupéry — and that of Vanier, who joined in 1919.
Consuelo de Saint-ExupéryWhy does the grave read “LATACOERE”?
A stonecutter's error, never put right: the company's name lost its accent and a letter. Père-Lachaise has several of the same kind, among them a stage name misspelt on Jane Avril's grave.
Jane AvrilWhy was night flying so difficult?
Because you had to hold your course without radio or reliable direction-finding, over sea and forest, with engines you listened to more than you monitored. Flying the Natal–Rio leg by night won the mail back the hours the liners had been taking from it.
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