Ordinary Rifle Bullet Caused French Pilot’s Wound Aloft

One of the first allied casualties of the high-tech air war against Iraq was a French pilot hit by an ordinary rifle bullet, France’s chief military spokesman said today.

Gen. Raymond Germanos said the French Jaguar pilot was wounded by a shot fired head-on from the ground as he was diving to bomb an Iraqi-held air base in Kuwait on France’s first mission of the war last Thursday.

The pilot, who has not been named, was among the first reported allied casualties of the war, Germanos said.

“It was a case of a bullet by chance hitting the reinforced Perspex cockpit canopy head-on, producing a velocity that no amount of toughening could withstand,” Germanos said.

“The only thing that saved his life was that at the exact moment of impact he happened to turn his head to look off to one side, and the bullet ripped through the top side of his helmet.”

Germanos, who visited French forces in Saudi Arabia over the weekend with Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement, said: “I saw the helmet, and it was pretty hard to believe his head came out of it in one piece.”

“When he landed his face and suit were covered in blood. The ground crews yelled ‘Don’t move! Don’t move!’ but the pilot didn’t realize how bad he looked. He said: ‘I’m OK.’ ”