Breguet 521 Bizerte
The Bréguet 521 Bizerte was a French long-range maritime patrol flying boat built by Breguet for the French Navy. Developed from the licence-built Short Calcutta, it first flew on 11 September 1933 and entered service in 1935. Only 37 were built, the last three finished after France's surrender in 1940. The type served with five French squadrons, continued with the Vichy Navy, and was taken over by the Luftwaffe for air-sea rescue; a single aircraft returned to French use in 1944.
Why It Mattered
The Bréguet 521 Bizerte was the French Navy's long-range patrol flying boat of the later 1930s, designed to a 1932 specification for ocean reconnaissance. Breguet won the contract against rival proposals from Latécoère, Lioré et Olivier and Loire Aviation. Production was small and slow, arriving in a trickle of minor orders, and only 37 Bizertes were built in all. The type's significance lies in the career those few aircraft had, passing from the pre-war French Navy to the Vichy Navy and then to the Luftwaffe's air-sea rescue service. One was still flying for French forces in 1944, eleven years after the prototype first flew.
Design Notes
The Bizerte was an all-metal sesquiplane, a biplane whose lower wing is far smaller than the upper, with its three engines mounted in nacelles between the wings. It was developed from Breguet's S.8/2 Calcutta, itself a militarised licence-built version of the British Short S.8 Calcutta. Power came from three Gnome-Rhône 14Kirs radial engines, each of 900 horsepower. Production aircraft differed from the prototype in a long, narrow glazed extension running from the pilots' cabin to the bow. Aviastar singles out the exceptionally large single fin and rudder as a feature of the design. Its armament was five 7.5 mm Darne machine guns, with four 165-pound bombs carried under the wings. A civilian derivative, the Br.530 Saigon, appeared in 1935; two were built with liquid-cooled inline engines.
Operational History
The prototype made the type's first flight on 11 September 1933. The Navy bought the prototype and ordered two more in January 1934; a first production order, for three aircraft, followed that year. Bizertes were in squadron service from 1935, and by 1940 five French Navy squadrons flew the type. Orders continued in small batches; the last, placed in September 1939 for twelve aircraft, was later cut by nine. The final three Bizertes were completed only after the French surrender in June 1940. After the armistice, two squadrons remained in Vichy Navy service: one at Berre, on the French Mediterranean coast, and one at Karouba in Tunisia, each with six aircraft. Germany became the type's third operator in 1940, when the Luftwaffe bought Bizertes for its Seenotdienst air-sea rescue service and based a squadron at Brest. After Germany occupied Vichy France in November 1942, the surviving Vichy aircraft were taken over, and further rescue units were set up at Biscarrosse and Berre. In August 1944, French forces found one of the Luftwaffe's Bizertes and flew it on communications duties until its spares ran out.
Afterlife
French use resumed in 1944 with a single aircraft: one of the Luftwaffe's machines, found by French forces after the invasion of southern France in August, and flown on communications duties until its spares ran out. In German hands the type flew on longer: Aviastar records nine captured aircraft used for air-sea rescue during 1943–45, after the Vichy machines had been taken over in 1942. Avions Légendaires adds a French coda: two ex-German aircraft flew light transport and support missions for the Armée de l'Air in 1945, and the last Bizertes were scrapped in 1946. Avions Légendaires records that none of the Bizertes built survived; in Paris the type is presented to the public by a model at the Musée national de la Marine.