Off Duty

Helicopter Heroine by Charles Morgan Evans

Reviewed by LCDR Chip Lancaster, USN (Ret.)

In the early 1980’s, Time-Life published a book series called the Epic of Flight, which I bought, and of which one of the volumes was “The Helicopters.” On page 115 is the picture of a young woman in a floppy hat and coveralls standing beside a helicopter. It was of French Army Captain and Doctor Valerie Andre. Her story has always fascinated me, and now I have read it in detail in Charles Evans' wonderful work,"Helicopter Heroine." Perhaps what sums up the life of this determined and driven woman in a nutshell is her own words, “Every day I told myself to take full advantage of the opportunities I had been given and live life intensely in the present moment.” Live life she does, as Evans tells it in this fascinating page-turner.

We’re introduced to Valerie in her hometown of Strasbourg, France, where as a young girl, she meets famous French female aviator, Maryse Hilsz, and is determined to follow in her footsteps. She grows into a headstrong young woman who gets a driver's license and takes flying lessons against her father’s wishes while working on a medical degree. Fearing a German invasion, Valerie and a friend leave Strasbourg to southern France where the university has been relocated, again against her father’s wishes. The Germans have occupied France and she and her friend are considered criminals. Valerie evades the Gestapo who are rounding up citizens. She escapes by train to Paris and enrolls in the university. After Paris is liberated by the Free French Army, she completes her medical training. She graduates as a Doctor of Medicine in 1948, resumes pilot training with a glider club, and gets her parachutist certification. She much admired Army soldiers as modern day knights when they marched into Paris and and is inspired to join the Army, volunteering for service in Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam) where she can best be of service as a doctor.

In the Army, Valerie is a lone woman in a “man’s world” sea of men, encountering and fighting discrimination at every turn. She arrives in Saigon, Vietnam on New Year’s Eve 1948 where the French are fighting the Viet Minh to control the country. She is immediately employed in the hospital performing surgeries, eventually becoming a skilled neurosurgeon. She receives additional orders to work with the Parachute Command and makes practice jumps with them, earning their respect. In January of 1950, a new aircraft arrives, a Hiller H-12/360 helicopter. Valerie is enthralled by this totally unique aircraft and once it demonstrates its usefulness in an actual MEDEVAC, she is determined to fly it. The French Air Force buys two. We are introduced to Captain Alexis Santini, a MEDEVAC STOL pilot who is sent back to France to train in the Hiller, returning to form the first helicopter rescue service in Southeast Asia.

Valerie is captivated by the Hiller, so she applies and is accepted for flight training. She is sent back to France for flight school where she again meets Santini who is back in France for seaplane training. He tells her that she will continue training with him when she gets back. She senses that he will be an important part of her life. Back in Vietnam, she returns to her surgical duty while continuing to train with the parachute unit and helo training with Santini. Valerie goes on MEDEVAC missions with him and finally realizes to herself, “as much as I have never loved war, I constantly sought the intoxication of action.” She parachutes into a remote isolated outpost to perform surgery on a critically injured soldier. There she sets up a field surgery, even operating on local villagers and getting a reputation as “the healer woman who came from the sky.” Her service there is capped by an arduous multi day trek through dense jungle complete with leeches before being flown back to Saigon.

Valerie qualifies as a MEDEVAC pilot flying multiple missions in all kinds of weather and combat zones from the Mekong Delta in the south to the Chinese border in the north, and from ship operations in the east to mountain operations in Laos in the west. The little Hiller is a work horse and we are taken through every nuance of cockpit control, mechanical workings, and flight technique from milking an overburdened aircraft in ground effect to autorotative emergency landings. Valerie’s piloting and decision making skills seem intuitive as she hones them to razor sharp perfection over 30 months of intensive flying. The Legionnaires in the field call her Mademoiselle Ventilateur (Miss Helicopter). Simultaneously, she performs as a skilled surgeon with Evans taking us from the cockpit and into the operating room through highly detailed surgeries. Her leadership skills are recognized when she is given temporary command of the helicopter unit while Santini is back in France, becoming the first woman to command a French military aviation unit. In the words of her men, “she wears a slouch hat and coveralls, she gives orders and we take them.” Her intense work schedule is not without problems. She is hospitalized for amoebic dysentery and again for severe fatigue. Her rescue work under extreme conditions results in her being awarded the Croix de Guerre with palms and induction as a Knight in the Legion of Honor.

Valerie is ordered back to France where she is assigned as doctor and pilot to the French Flight Test Center. She flies many different rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, including demonstrating the new Hiller H-23B at the Paris Air Show. France has withdrawn from Indochina after the battle of Dien Bien Phu, which is covered in depth by Evans. Valerie applies for transfer to the next overseas trouble spot, Algeria. She is sent there, now qualified in the H-23, Bell 47, Alouette II, and H-19, with the opportunity to qualify in the H-34. There are 270 helicopters in Algeria, making it the first true helicopter war. She is given a helicopter weapons display, lamenting, “the time of the ventilateur, used only for medical evacuation, was over.” The war in Algeria morphs into a potential French coup with all French troops eventually being pulled out. Valerie returns to France to be the Chief Medical Officer at an airbase near Paris. She promotes through the ranks to General, becoming the first woman General in the French Armed Forces. Through the 60s, 70s, and into the 80s, she continues to fight for women’s rights in the military. Her story is one of fighting discrimination and adversity, breathtaking adventure, and eventual love.

My review amazingly, only scratches the surface of this indepth accounting of a life of service to one’s country. Helicopter Heroine is really three stories. Valerie’s story up through the liberation of France, her story of operations in Indochina, and her story of Algeria and life afterwards. Valerie is still with us, turning 100 in 2022 and has written two books recounting her life: Ici, Ventilateur about her time in Indochina, and Madame le General about her life in the military. Charles Evans knows the amazing little Hiller of which he has written, being the founding curator of the Hiller Aviation Museum. His style is clear, concise and easy to read. It also includes maps of France, Indochina and Algeria as well as 24 pages of photographs, 28 pages of chapter notes, a bibliography, and an Index. Examples of the story’s H-23, Bell 47, Alouette, and H-19 can be found in Classic Rotors Helicopter Museum in Ramona, CA. I enthusiastically give Helicopter Heroine two thumbs up. Get the book, read the story of this remarkable aviator, you will not be disappointed.