Marcel Dassault (1892–1986)

Marcel Dassault, né Bloch, was the youngest of four sons born to a Jewish family in Paris, France. His parents were Noémie Allatini and Dr. Adolphe Bloch, a physician. Marcel was educated at the Lycée Condorcet and studied electrical engineering at the Breguet School (now the École Supérieure d'Ingénieurs en Électrotechnique et Électronique or ESIEE) and then graduated from Supaéro (Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique) in 1913. During World War I, Bloch worked at the French Aeronautical Research Laboratory at Chalais-Meudon, and used the skills he acquired there to invent a new type of aircraft propeller used by the French army. With Henry Potez and Louis Coroller, he formed the company Société d'Études Aéronautiques that produced their design for a twin-seater fighter, the SEA IV, in 1918. The following year, Bloch married Madeleine Minckes, with whom he had two sons, Claude and Serge. After dabbling in real estate and cars in the 1920s, he returned to aviation in 1928, founding the Société des Avions Marcel Bloch, which produced its first aircraft in 1930. In 1936, the company was nationalized by the French government and made into the Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud-Ouest (SNCASO); Bloch became the managing director. At the start of World War II in 1939 and 1940, these planes were used to defend France. After Nazi Germany occupied the country, Bloch refused to collaborate and was imprisoned, along with his family, by the Vichy government. In 1944, the Nazis deported him to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Bloch survived to be liberated in April 1945, but in severely failing health. He recovered over time and returned to aviation. In 1949, Bloch and his family changed their surname to Dassault, the nom de guerre used by his elder brother General Darius Paul Bloch in the Resistance. Dassault came to be known as the father of the French aircraft industry. His companies built the most successful military and civilian jet-powered aircraft in Europe in the decades following the war. In 1955, he built the Mirage III, capable of traveling at twice the speed of sound. In 1967, his company merged with Breguet Aviation to form Avions Marcel Dassault–Breguet Aviation. Dassault also diversified into newspapers and was elected in 1951 to the French Parliament, where he continued to serve until his death. In 1973, Dassault was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame. He wrote a short memoir, Le Talisman, published in 1970.