« Beyond the Adventure: A beautiful love", a story within my family

Four French planes, F-60, type "Goliath", in Cuba, in 1921

Following the interest of Cuban millionaire Anibal de Mesa in developing his country on commercial aviation at the beginning of the XX e century, in 1919 some French nationals came to Cuba to create the Cuban Aviation Company using six French planes, two Farman F-60 planes, the “Goliath”, and four Farman F-40 planes. These latter F-40 planes had participated in the WWI, as these French nationals had too, who three of them, Lucien Coupet, Léon Coupet, and Camille Jousse, had even fought in the Battler of Verdun during World War I. They were the combatants who were members of the aerial unit “l'Escadrille F-25”. This French aerial escadrille played a great role from the beginning this war, mainly during the Battler of Verdun, and afterward.

The French national Guy de Roig with two Cubans  in Havana, Cuba, in 1921

Once WWI had ended, these French people, National Hero of the Republic of French, were part of a crew who had been considered dead, due to an aerial accident while they had been performing the first long distance flight of the Farman giant plane “Goliath” from Paris to Dakar. They spent two weeks lost in the Saharan desert without food and water.

Léon Coupet and Camille Jousse in Cuba

In Cuba, they remained a litter more than a year, and the most important location during their stay in the Cuban territory was the Aerodrome of Colombia de La Havana, which became a real aeronautic fair because of the presence of the French planes. For these French people, after the battlers of WWI and the testing flight of the “Goliath” to Dakar, all these events being done without any rest, their stay in Cuba was like an adventure which took place under relaxing and warming atmosphere plenty of affection and happiness.

Guy de Roig and Geneviève's son and daughter

A Cuban woman, who was the person charged to cook for these French pilots, was the most important woman in that aerodrome of Columbia. Her name was Genevieve. She was married to the owner of a little restaurant built within the aerodrome where the French pilots and other technicians used to eat. The owner of that littler restaurant was a black Cuban man, and his wife, Genevieve, a beautiful woman of mixed race. They had two sons, Gustavo and Amelia. They were black too. The name of Genevieve's husband was Gustavo, as well.

Geneviève

One of the French people, Leon Coupet, and Genevieve fell in love each other. As a result of this loving relation, a girl was born. She was not black. Unfortunately, she was born the 4th of September of 1921, after the French nationals had left from Cuba. She never met her father. Maybe, Léon never knew that he was the father of Rosa, Genevieve's daughter.