Harlingen resident who gained international renown as WWII fighter pilot dies at 92

HARLINGEN — A decorated French fighter pilot who had moved to Harlingen recently and was honored here by French and Russian officials for service to the Allies in World War II died Sunday night. He was 92.

Marcel Albert flew fighter planes for Britain’s Royal Air Force and the Soviet Union during World War II, said his friend John Garric, a pilot in the French air force in the 1960s who has lived in the Harlingen area for many years.

“He will be buried in Florida next Monday, next to his wife, Frieda Albert, who died in 2008,” Garric said.

“Marcel was going downhill the last three weeks and was taking no nourishment,” Garric said. “But we didn’t expect him to go so quickly.”

Garric and his wife, Nicole, who had moved Albert to Harlingen so they could help care for him, had spent a lot of time with him at Canterbury Gardens, a local retirement home.

A French military mission, and possibly the French ambassador to the United States and a U.S. Air Force contingent, will attend Albert’s funeral, said Garric, who also plans to travel to Florida to make funeral arrangements.

Albert was a transmission mechanic for the automaker Renault when he entered pilot training in 1938 for the French air force before Germany invaded France, Garric said. Albert flew Bloch 152, Morane-Saulnier MS.406 and Hawk 75 fighter planes.

In November last year, France's ambassador to the United States flew to Harlingen to personally bestow one of his nation's highest honors on Albert.

Ambassador Pierre Vimont presented the veteran with a medal recognizing him as a Grand Officer in the French Order of the Legion of Honor for his wartime efforts in a ceremony at Mid Valley Airport in Weslaco.

Then in May, Nikolay Y. Babich, consul general in Houston for the Russian Federation, attended a ceremony in Harlingen to honor Albert.

He presented the veteran with a commemorative medal struck for the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Albert became a U.S. citizen many years ago, Garric said.

Albert and other pilots were sent to the Soviet Union while the Battle of Stalingrad was raging as Germans advanced toward that key Soviet city, Garric said. His friend previously received other major awards and medals from France, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia for his valor in World War II.

While Germany was attacking France early in 1940, Albert shot down a German Do17 bomber and a Messerschmitt Me-109 fighter plane, his record states.

A statement from the office of France's veterans affairs minister, Hubert Falco, expressed condolences Wednesday to Albert's former comrades-in-arms and “all the Russians who consider him a great hero,” the Associated Press reported from Paris.

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Allen Essex is a reporter for the Valley Morning Star in Harlingen.