Early Experimental Jet de Havilland Vampire Crash Investigation Archive of 27 Photographs, Meknès, In Post-Colonial Morocco, 1957 to 1959

Havilland Vampire Crash

Photograph

De Havilland Vampire jet photographs documenting French Air Force training, accident inspection, and air base control at Meknès, Morocco, in the years immediately following Moroccan independence, with direct evidence of how Base École 708 recorded aircraft damage, runway incidents, and jet operations within the shrinking French military presence in North Africa. French military personnel are identifiable not through portraiture but through the administrative system embedded in the material itself: repeated verso stamps reading Section Photo 21/708 Meknès, dated from 1957 to 1959, and technical annotations that turn the group into an official working record rather than informal aviation imagery. The historical force of the archive lies in that function. Meknès served as a major French fighter training center, the de Havilland Vampire formed part of its early jet instruction program, and the base remained active until its dissolution in 1961, placing these photographs within the last phase of French air force operations in Morocco after France recognized Moroccan independence in 1956.

Photo archive of approximately 27 silver gelatin photographs approximately 4.5 x 3.5 inches each, Meknès, Morocco, 1957 to 1959. The images center on multiple de Havilland Vampire aircraft marked with large fuselage letters including TT, UA, RD, RG, RE, and UM, photographed from the nose, wing, cockpit, tail, and runway line in a methodical sequence. Several prints isolate impact evidence and structural damage: one close view marks “traces de frottement” on a crushed nose section, another labels “cockpit avion abordeur / plan gauche avion abordé,” and others identify “vue générale,” “vue 3/4 arrière,” and “axe de la bande,” showing that the planes were being recorded for inspection, orientation, and incident analysis. Additional photographs show grounded jets in grass beside the field, aircraft parked on the tarmac in rows, hangar exteriors, and broad runway views with service vehicles nearby. The versos carry dated Meknès section stamps, penciled numbering, and occasional reference notes from French military photographic and cinematographic services, preserving the bureaucratic chain by which the images were produced, filed, and cross referenced.

The archive belongs to the first generation of French jet aviation in North Africa. The Vampire was among the earliest jet fighters used by the French Air Force, and Meknès was one of the key training sites where pilots moved into jet instruction before the school later shifted to newer aircraft and eventually left Morocco. In that setting, aircraft photography was not decorative; it was part of the operational machinery of flight training, maintenance, and accident inquiry. These prints preserve that machinery at the moment when French colonial authority in Morocco had formally ended but French bases and training institutions still operated on Moroccan soil, linking jet modernization to decolonization and military retrenchment. Written notes and official stamps throughout; light handling wear from use, otherwise well preserved. Overall good condition.

Item #23354

Price: $750.00