A Rare First War French Royal Flying Corps Tunic to Lieut. Rousseau KIA

Fabricated from a fine light brown cotton/wool blend, each shoulder with an epaulette strap held in place via a small bronze button bearing the United Kingdom coat-of-arms, the buttons maker marker "W. MAGUIRE & SONS BIRMINGHAM" on the reverse. Each side of the collar is adorned with a stylized French Flying Officer collar tab, the insignia in rolled blackened copper wire and blackened sequins and mounted to a red wool base. There is an original French-made Royal Flying Corps wing sewn in place above the left breast pocket, in off-white, brown and olive green embroidery, with a brownish-green wool backer. There are four pockets on the front, one on each breast and larger ones at the waist on both sides, each of the breast pockets designed with a decorative pleat, all four pockets with a fold over flap and a small brown polished wooden button. The front is completed by a vertical row of six large brown polished wooden buttons, facing an equal number of reinforced button holes on the left. The cuffs have two rank pips in off-white, brown and olive green embroidery, indicating the rank as Lieutenant, framed by piping in light brown and orange-brown, wrapped around the entire circumference of the cuff. The rear of the tunic is single-vented. The inside is lined in greenish-brown rayon, while the sleeves are lined in white cotton and incorporating a repeating thin red rule pattern. There is a large pocket sewn in place on both the left and right breast, the left breast pocket with the manufacturer's naming label sewn in place on the underside, the label inscribed "VIDAL MONTPELLIER", named in black handwritten ink to "M Rousseau", dated "30 Sept 1917" and designated with the service number "28449". Also, there is an embroidered manufacturer's label inscribed "E. Vidal MONTPELLIER" sewn in place in the collar. The tunic measures 430 mm across the shoulders and 730 mm in length overall, exhibiting a small interruption in the fabric on the back, scattered nips in the rayon lining, along with light soiling in the cotton sleeves near the armpit, displaying a nice texture in the fabric, quality workmanship and other than a small separation in the stitching where the interior lining butts the left sleeve, the stitching is intact. Extremely fine.

Footnote: Lieutenant Michel Rousseau was flying with Captain Louis Pierron in a Farman aircraft, when it spun out at 700 feet and side slipped into the ground while en route from France to the Hounslow Heath Aerodrome in the London borough of Hounslow, England, on June 13, 1918, the report filed by No. 62 Training Squadron Hounslow. (C:145)