Robert Benoist: War Hero, Racing Driver and Fighter Pilot

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Robert Marcel Charles Benoist was born in 1895 at St Benoit near Paris. His father bred hunting dogs and organized hunts for The Baron de Rothschild.  

The Baron took an interest in Robert from a young age, eventually procuring him a job at a garage in Versailles after his schooling. In 1913 Benoist witnessed his first Grand Prix, near Amiens, with the French national hero, George Boillot, winning in a Peugeot

Before becoming a bona fide Grand Prix driver, Benoist first worked as a test driver for several companies. Benoist would enter his first major event, le Tour de France Automobile, as a driver for the company Salmson, who coincidentally made reconnaissance airplanes for the French Air Force in World War I. After finishing second in his second event for Salmson, the Bol d'Or, a 24-hour race in which the driver was required to cover the entire distance, Benoist would join the Delage team after Salmson withdrew from racing. 

In the 1925 season Benoist would take his first Grand Prix victory at the French GP.  The first for a French driver since 1913, coincidentally, the same first Grand Prix he witnessed, where Boillot took victory.

By 1939 France was again embroiled in a World War and Benoist would join the French Army, for a second time. After the fall of France, Benoist joined the Resistance and would later be captured by the Gestapo. In a remarkable display of daring, though not surprising for a man of his mettle, Benoist would throw himself from a moving vehicle to escape the Gestapo and flee to England.  

After making his way to England, Benoist would be commissioned by the English Special Operations Executive, a secret network of spies and saboteurs who conducted missions in occupied Europe.  In his service Benoist would parachute into Paris to sabotage a Nazi plot.