Name Jean Gaillard | ||
Count Jean de Gaillard de la Valdene (2 September 1895 - 26 August 1977) was a French World War I pilot who shot down five German planes. In 1916 as a corporal he was noted for having shot down an Aviatik near Lure.
He is to be distinguished from comte Leopold de Gaillard de la Valdene (d.1894).
He was married to Lili Alvarez, the Spanish tennis player and feminist in 1934, who held feminist salons at their house in Bollene. In 1939, the couple lost their only child and soon after separated. Later he remarried to Diana Guest of the Guest family, a noted race-horse owner.
In the early days of World War II as a lieutenant, he was sent by Admiral Emile Muselier to Algeria and Morocco to recruit aviators willing to continue the war with the Free French Forces.