Pierre Maréchal

Jean-Pierre Maréchal (October 4 1915 – June 27 1949) was an engineer and racing driver who died after his Aston Martin team car crashed in the first postwar running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race.

Although often listed as French, he acquired British nationality.

Biographical Details

Son of the French entrepreneur, film producer and Titanic survivor of the same name, Pierre Maréchal won his first races — at Santander, Cantabria, driving hydroplanes owned by family friend Count Soriano — at the age of 13.

He was educated at Downside School, England. From there he joined Ford’s engineering training program but chronic back pain soon forced him to abandon the course.

At the onset of the Second World War he volunteered for the British army but was invalided out in 1940 because of the problems with his back. He then worked for Freddie Miles, of Miles Aircraft, and finally opened a small auto engineering business in Cheltenham, England.

He raced a modified vintage Bentley Speed Six after the war but declared a preference for his Duesenberg as a road car. Briggs Cunningham, the American millionaire racer and car collector, bought the Bentley from Maréchal's widow; it is now displayed in the Collier Automotive Museum in Naples, Florida, USA. Maréchal was a member of the class-winning "Ecurie du Lapin Blanc" HRG sports car team in the 1948 Spa 24 Hours race. At this event, for the first time in Europe, the team introduced radio communication between drivers and pit crew. The innovation enabled one of the drivers to repair his car on the circuit and helped the team to win the coveted Coupe du Roi. Maréchal's outstanding natural flair brought him to the attention of Leslie Johnson, who won the race outright in a prototype Aston Martin shared with St John Horsfall. Johnson picked Maréchal to partner T.A.S.O. Mathieson in one of three Aston Martins entered by the manufacturer for the 1949 Le Mans 24-hour race.

At Le Mans, Maréchal's car was well placed - 7th overall, 4th in the Index of Performance - when a brake line fractured, causing a brake fluid leak. He continued. Six laps later, with little more than an hour left to run, the brakes failed altogether. The car crashed heavily and rolled, tearing the engine from its mountings and flattening the roof. Maréchal was trapped inside. Delage driver Louis Gérard, first on the scene, stopped to extricate him, losing two laps in the process. (Gérard would finish fourth.) Maréchal was taken to the nearby Delagenière clinic, where he succumbed to his injuries the next day. He was buried in his family's vault at Bailly, near Versailles. He was 33.

The newspaper Ouest-France noted: "Le circuit 1949...fait une victime et un parmi les hommes les plus doués de ceux qui participèrent à l'épreuve."

Maréchal left a wife, Brigid, née Macnamara — they had married in 1942; and a son, Christian.

Several years later Brigid Maréchal married Leslie Johnson. Christian Maréchal became a journalist, advertising copywriter and creative director, and helped pioneer the UK ultralight aviation market.

References

*"Latitude 41" (publication of Association Française du Titanic) No. 23

*"Daily Telegraph" newspaper, August 23 2001

*"Le Mans 24 Hours" Michael Gibson, 1962

*"Twenty-Four Hours at Le Mans" J.A.Grégoire, 1957

*"The Le Mans Story" Georges Fraichard, 1956

*"Ouest-France" newspaper, 28 June 1949

*Collier Automotive Museum, Naples, Florida, USA

*"Classic and Sportscar" magazine, June and February 1996

*"Flight Line" (publication of the British Microlight Aircraft Association), Nov/Dec 1980, May/June and Sept/Oct 1981

*Program of the 34th Paris Air Show, 1981

External links

* [http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/biography/198/ Mr Pierre Maréchal - Titanic Biography - Encyclopedia Titanica ] at www.encyclopedia-titanica.org "Encyclopedia Titanica" biography of Maréchal's father with links to newspaper accounts of his escape from RMS Titanic
* [http://www.luerzersarchive.us/workinarchive.asp?person=13925 LAOS - Search Results - Work in Archive ] at www.luerzersarchive.us Lürzer's Archive