Alfred Marie-Joseph Heurtaux[1] (20 May 1893 – 30 December 1985) was a French World War I fighter ace credited with 21 victories.

[2] Born on 20 May 1893 in Nantes, France, Alfred Heurtaux was the son of an artillery officer.

In October 1913, he entered the military academy at Saint Cyr as an officer cadet (aspirant).

On 4 August 1914, following the outbreak of World War I, he was commissioned as a sous-lieutenant in the 9e Regiment d'Hussards.

[4][5] One of his duties would be coaching Russian ace Ivan Orlov in fighter tactics.

[7] Another would entail merging his escadrille with three others to form the world's first fighter wing, Groupe de Combat 12 on 16 October 1916.

Later the next month, on the 25th of September, he shot down another pioneer ace, Leutnant Kurt Wintgens, the very first fighter pilot to ever score a victory on July 1, 1915, with a synchronized machine-gun armed aircraft; for victory number eight.

An ordinary bullet would have proved fatal, but the incendiary round that hit him cauterized the wound, sealing off hemorrhaging.

From there, he moved into the automobile industry, holding a management position with the Ford Motor Company in its American operations.

[3] In the early days of World War II, Heurtaux was still the Inspector of Fighter Aviation for the French air forces.

He used the freedom of movement afforded by this appointment to pass military intelligence to his old Saint Cyr classmate, Colonel Groussard, and to recruit fellow veterans into espionage.

He would spend over three years in a succession of German jails in Düsseldorf, Bielefeld, Hannover, Berlin, and Potsdam.