Normandie-Niemen pilots and maintenance men accounted for one of the most memorable parts of the war effort. Their valor came as spectacular instance of Russian-French comradeship-in-arms, said Alexander Avdeyev, Russian Ambassador to France, as he was giving them the awards.
As they took the medals, the veterans said they would cherish to their dying day remembrances of those who, shoulder to shoulder with them, were fighting nazis more than sixty years ago.
The two pilots fought their first World War II battles in the Middle East and North Africa. Late in 1942, they came to the Soviet Union on a first French volunteer detachment.
"Those were hard times. All lived from hand to mouth. Besides, we had spent two years in the African heat, and we were afraid of Russian frost and snow. But we received an incredibly hearty welcome-and all our fears were forgotten at once. Even from our first day in Russia, we felt we were now in a new and friendly family," Mr. Masurel said to Novosti.
"Fantastic-just fantastic!" Mr. Mounier added in a hearty exclamation as he, too, looked back at their arrival in Russia.
Masurel and Mounier served as air mechanics throughout the squadron's initial campaign, which lasted a greater part of 1943, till an order came to revoke all French maintenance men.
"We were anxious to stay with the squadron! I implored to let me pass pilot qualification exams-I had been flying before, but there was no coaxing the French military attache," reminisces Mr. Masurel.
The two friends went back to French overseas troops in the Middle East. Later on, they took part in the liberation of France. Georges Masurel's dream had come true by that time-he was a pilot.
Russian sculptor Vladimir Surovtsev, who attended the decoration gala, told the veterans about his present work at a monument to the Normandie-Niemen. That will be two statues-a French airman and a Russian, both just from mission, are heatedly recollecting dogfight details. Masurel and Mounier were enthusiastic about the idea. They asked the sculptor to make the Russian resemble General Zakharov, squadron commander. "He was as father to all of us French soldiers," they said.
Mr. Surovtsev promised to ponder their request.
