Homage à Nungesser Key Ring

Charles Nungesser was one of the top fighter aces of WWI, with a total of 45 kills. Most Pilots fighting in the air at that time were lucky to last more than a couple of weeks on the front line. It wasn´t just the fighting – the machines themselves were crude und dangerous. Nungesser, himself, crashed while test flying a new aircraft but survived, badly wounded, to fight another day. He also survived a bad car crash during the war in which his mechanic died. Around about 1916 he decorated his machine with a personal insignia – a black heart with a skull and cross bones, two candles and a coffin. Whether his choice of symbols was just a “devil may care” commentary on his career choice, or whether it had a deeper mystic significance is not recorded. There are several photographs surviving showing the dashing pilot posing next to the fuselage of his aircraft (mostly Nieuports) with its emblem. The pictures show several versions of the image on various different aircraft. Nungesser survived the war and in 1927 made an attempt with Francois Coli on the Orteig prize for crossing the Atlantic by air (later won by Charles Lindbergh). This attempt already got off to a bad start in as much as Nungesser was the second pilot to be nominated, the first one having been badly burned by a lightning strike on the original aircraft. In addition to this they were flying in the most difficult direction, against the weather from Europe to America. The pilots took off on May 8th 1927 from Le Bourget in a modified Levasseur aircraft called “LÓiseau Blanc”(the white bird). The Plane was modified to float in case they needed to ditch and was, of course, decorated with the last incarnation of the black heart / skull and crossbones symbol. The aircraft was sighted over Ireland and there reports of sightings over the Atlantic from fishing boats. The French press published a special edition the next day reporting a successful landing and the people France were out celebrating in the streets. It soon became clear, however the report was a hoax and that that lady luck had finally caught up with Nungesser. Searches by fishing vessels found no wreckage. In fact, despite many expeditions no one has ever found a trace of the “LÓiseau Blanc” and it’s intrepid pilots. We’ve reinvented the Nungesser emblem for this BerlinBonez T-Shirt. The skull now s a flying helmet and goggles – RIP Nungesser.