18 March 2013

Latham Monument


Hubert Latham
I have passed old Hubert so many times as I have headed along the D940 to and from Calais so I thought that it was high time I stopped and maybe even find out who he was.

I was surprised to see that he is in fact one of the daredevils of the early 20th century; an aviation pioneer with the possibly accidental claim to fame as being the first person to land an aircraft on water.

So I googled him.  Rather than copy and paste, I'll let you read the Wiki entry.



2 comments:

Trobairitz said...

Wow, Hubert had quite the history.

It is neat they put up a statue. From the way the colors have run (oxidized perhaps) it looks to have been there a while.

InvictaMoto said...

I didn't see how long it had been there. I'm sure that if it had been there in WW2, the Germans would have smashed it as they did to the Dover Patrol (Naval) Monument at the nearby Cap Blanc Nez.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap_Blanc_Nez