Hilaire du Berrier

Hilaire du Berrier
Born	1 November, 1906 Flasher, North Dakota
Died	12 October, 2002 (aged 95) Monte Carlo, Monaco
Alma mater	Medill School of Journalism Sciences Po
Notable works	Background to Betrayal: The Tragedy of Vietnam
Military career
Allegiance	Ethiopian Empire Republicans  France China
Battles/wars	Italian-Ethiopian War Spanish Civil War World War II
Awards	Croix du combattant volontaire de la Résistance

Hilaire du Berrier (November 1, 1906 – October 12, 2002) was a pioneer American pilot, barnstormer, journalist, author and spy.

Early life[]

Born as Harold du Berrier on November 1, 1906 in Flasher, North Dakota to fourth generation Huguenots. His parents established a trading post near Louse Creek for trappers, ranchers, and Native Americans. A friend of his fathers, a Sioux man named Albert Wind-did-Blow, had given him a pair of moccasins after he was born, and predicted that he would grow up to become a warrior. As a child, he hated the name Harold and instead insisted on being called Hal. His lifetime love of aviation started after his family took him to see a Barnstorming Show in the Fall of 1912. As a teenager, he was sent to the Pillsbury Military Academy, but was expelled one month before graduating. Soon after, his father died, and his mother sent him to an art school in Chicago.^[1][2]

He found employment as a commercial artist in Chicago, working part time for ad agencies and department stores in the area. Hal started working at Heath School of Aviation, one of Americas first aviation manufactures. At the age of 20, du Berrier quit his job to become a barnstormer.^[1][2]

Aviation[]

Hal barnstorming career started when he was trained by legendary aviation stuntman Dick Powell, teaching him wingman, parachute, and piloting tricks. He started his own circus, Du Berrier's Flying Circus, which travelled around the Midwest. He and his partner would promote their flying circus by flying over business districts with Hal hanging upside down from a rope ladder hanging off the side of a plane. He was also able to perform stunts like the loop-the-loop, walking on the wings of flying planes, and jumping from one plane to another. A few close misses, including an incident of a rival barnstormer sabotaging Hal's parachute in an attempt to murder him, along with the Great Depression putting an end to the interest in barnstorming, made it difficult to keep his Flying Circus afloat.^[2]

Paris[]

In 1931, Hal decided to travel to Paris for three months with his uncle, a former congressman, who was appointed a U.S. representative to the Paris Colonial Exposition. After arriving in France, he was given the registered name of Hilaire, since Hal wasn't one of the approved French names, which he went by ever since. He was attracted to the bohemian "Lost Generation" lifestyle of Paris at the time, and entered into the social circle of members of the World War I flying aces, the Lafayette Escadrille. Hilaire's barnstorming career caught the attention of Charles Sweeny, who was impressed with his enthusiasm and skills as an aviator. He thought very highly of Sweeney and wrote in his memoirs "The standards of conduct and dress in Sweeny’s set were rigid...They were members of the personally responsible class of Gentlemen and had never abrogated the law of honor which holds that a member must be ever willing to risk his life for an abstraction. Being clean-shaven and dressed as though for inspection was a matter of discipline. If they were alive, they would say that the British Empire started going down when its officers quit dressing for dinner in the middle of the desert.”^[1]

It was also around this time when du Berrier met exiled Spanish king Alfonso XIII by chance while walking down the Rue de Rivoli one afternoon. He was impressed by the presence of Alfonso, and said he had a "lifetime follower" after that. Another episode in which representatives from Madrid had come to Paris to ask the king to abdicate the throne greatly impressed du Berrier, saying that the king responded the delegations request by saying "You ask me to abdicate but abdicate I cannot, for I am not only the King of Spain, I am the King of all the Spaniards, and I have not only my own reign but those of my house who have gone before me, for which I must someday give a rigorous accounting." He viewed King Alfonso as a man of honor and chivalry and became an ardent monarchist.^[2]

Italian-Ethiopian War[]

After Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, du Berrier, motivated by his monarchist beliefs, decided to fight for Emperor Haile Selassie. At the start of the war, the Ethiopian Air Force had only four pilots and a little over a dozen aircraft, and Selassie made the call for foreign pilots to volunteer to fight for him. Boarding a cargo ship, du Berrier sailed for the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa along with other volunteers from France, Greece, Armenia, Poland and the Middle East. He was captured by Italian forces in May 1936, and taken by truck back to the capital after the Italians had captured it. The truck du Berrier was being transported in entered and reentered the city several times for a propaganda reel that was being filmed for the Italian government, and during one of these scenes, he was able to escape the truck, and boarded a train to Djibouti.^[2][3]

Spanish Civil War[]

After arriving back in Europe, du Berrier read about the revolution in the Spanish Republic. He boarded a train for Spain to join the Air Force of the Nationalist faction, hoping that they would eventually restore King Alfonso to the throne, but General Franco had reached out to the Italians for air support, and with his name still on an Italian backlist from his time fighting against them in Ethiopia, du Berrier instead joined the Republican Air Force. While flying missions, he collected information on the types and number of Republican aircraft and the extent of Soviet involvement in the conflict, hoping to pass this information onto Royalist factions within the Nationalist and to later publish his findings in newspapers. He was eventually denounced by American communist volunteers, and was arrested and sentenced to be executed as a spy. While waiting for the firing squad, du Berrier was pardoned at the last second by Alberto Bayo, the general who would later train Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. The reason for his pardon was that the Republicans felt that executing an American citizen would sway popular support away from them, especially first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who was an open supporter of their cause.^[1][2][4]

Second World War[]

In the Second World War, du Berrier was the only American member of Colonel Marcel Mingant's French-Chinese spy ring the "Reseau Mingant". He was captured in 1942 and tortured in 1943 by the Japanese.^[1]

He worked for the Office of Strategic Services briefly, as an informant, in Shanghai after the Japanese surrender in 1945.^{[citation needed]}

He was awarded the French Cross of the Resistance Volunteer Combatant.^[4]

Later life[]

In 1955 he attended the "Big Four" Geneva Summit as an advisor to the Vietnamese.^[1]

He worked as a journalist in Vietnam and wrote a strongly anti-communist article in the American Mercury.^{[citation needed]} From 1958 until a few years before his death he wrote articles for American Opinion magazine published by the John Birch Society and Review of the News published by Robert Welch, and their successor The New American^[1]

From June 1957 to May 2002 he published a monthly foreign affairs newsletter, the H du B report.^[5]

He died on October 12, 2002 in Monaco.^[1] His papers covering the period 1935-1991 are stored with the State Historical Society of North Dakota.^[6]

Personal life[]

He was married to Rosa Kadoori of Shanghai. They had one daughter, Jeanette du Berrier Cholewa.^[1]

Publications[]

Articles

• "An Adventurer Retires." Esquire, vol. 10, no. 6 (December 1938) pp. 52, 220, 222, 224, 226.
• "How We Helped Ho Chi Minh." Freeman, vol. 4, no. 15 (April 19, 1954) pp. 516–518. Full issue.

Books

• Background to Betrayal: The Tragedy of Vietnam. Belmont, MA: Western Islands (1965)

Pamphlets

• Labor's International Network. New Orleans, LA: Conservative Society of America (1962)

References[]

Further reading[]

• Wasserstein, Bernard. Secret War in Shanghai: Treachery, Subversion and Collaboration in the Second World War. London: Profile Books (1998). ISBN 978-1861971388. OCLC 231871253.
  • U.S. edition: Secret War in Shanghai: The Untold Story of Espionage, Intrigue, and Treason in World War II. Boston: Houghton Mifflin (1999). ISBN 978-0395985373. OCLC 229217277.

External links[]

• The H. du B. Report digital archive
• Du Berrier's papers (1935-1991) at the State Historical Society of North Dakota
• Hilaire du Berrier at Geneanet