This is the translation of a french article that I posted in September.
__________________________________________
It happened in Marseille, by Jean Contrucci
June 17, 1954
The forgotten inventor
If you pass by the community child care, on Avenue des Poilus, in the Olives area, you will see a modest square bearing a name probably unknown to most of you: Square Leon Foenquinos.
On March 3, 1979, the inhabitants of this area of the Olives, near the church where he lived the last years of his life, Leon Foenquinos' friends with local political figures accomplished a "gesture of friendship, love and recognition" as the president of the Interest Committee of the area put it.
The man who was honored by these Marseillais (Marseille inhabitants), died not too far from here, 25 years before, on June 17, 1954, on Place Pascal, in a financial situation very close to misery, when he was 65 years old.
How many of those who met him in the streets of the area, sad figure walking hesitantly due to a head stroke, would have thought that this modest and unassuming person, earning a living making simple objects or toys paid a pittance, had been an inspired inventor.
The international press of the years 1920/1930 wrote enthusiastic articles about him. La Patria Italiana, a weekly Franco-Italian newspaper published in Marseille in 1922 did not hesitate to talk about his discoveries as "important enough to be part of the history of science".
Why this genius, so celebrated in his youth, was finishing his life, as a man older than his years, unable to provide for his wife and three sons? This is a sad story that leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. For, if he was a genius, Leon Foenquinos was not interested to make it big commercially, and this indifference was only equal to the patriotism he felt towards France.
He was born with a silver spoon in his hand. His parents originally Greek (in Marseille for the last 26 centuries, it's the best way to become a true Marseillais)brought him to life on August 2nd, 1889, at 52 Cours Pierre-Puget, one of the preferred artery of the haute Bourgeoisie of the Belle Epoque. But Leon Foenquinos was not content to be only a rich kid. Neither were his 4 brothers and sisters who became painters, musicians or teachers.
Science was his passion, so much so, that at 22 years old, he had 2 diplomas in aeronautical and mechanical engineering. In fact, he collected more than twenty of those diplomas. He did not care so much how to make machines built by others work, he wanted to invent his own.
In 1915, at 26 years old, Leon Foenquinos put his grey matter at the service of his endangered country: he invents an air mine, guided by radio signals, with an automatic starter. 20 years ahead of his time, he simply had invented the ancestor of the German V1 and preceded by half a century, the missiles.
The torpedo launcher at fixed point that he imagined at that time, other copied the principle. They are now attached to modern submarines.
In his own way, Leon Foenquinos was also a visionary poet. As early as 1919, he envisions a project of floating bridges, artificial beaches and what he calls a floating island. He describes it with lyricism: "its intense lighting will make of it, in the darkness of the night and in the middle of the ocean, a fire crown whose image will be reflected on the water" . He just invented the drilling plateform for the offshore oil exploration. There was something of Jules Verne in Leon Foenquinos. The model of his "floating island" was for a while exhibited at the Palais Longchamp before being forgotten like many of his others creations.
After the war, he spends a part of his personal fortune to finance the study and realization of an amphibian vehicle. Marseille's newspapers from March 24th 1921 are filled with information on the launching of a strange boat the day before "on the ground and on the water: called "La France" launched from the beach of Roucas-Blanc. The vehicle drives and floats, like the tanks that will come out of the water from the beaches on June 1944 (2nd WW).
But his imagination was not only oriented towards war inventions. From 1916, he talks prophetically of women's right to birth control. At the same time that he proclaims being a guardian of morality, he calls for better laws to protect women from the oppression of men. Half a century before anyone talked about women's rights.
His imagination worked in every area, he worried for city pedestrians who were victims of "horrible accidents that happened daily" and imagined the installation at the corners of intersections of "pillars 3 meters in height with electric signals, that light up and sound at the same time, lighting and ringing every 3 minutes to make vehicles stop or start again". If this is not our stop lights, it really looks like it. But he imagined this in 1920. The first stop light was installed in Marseille on the Plaine by Gaston Defferre.... on 1953!
No one at that time understood what Leon Foenquinos called the "Bonds populaires francais", this system preceded by 11 years by its system of distribution to the public and drawing, the National Lottery, which started in November 1933.
Nothing discouraged this misunderstood genius, who by the 1930's, had spent all his inheritance and had to dismantle and sell by the pound his amphibian vehicle because he could not afford to pay the garage rent. He continued without stopping his research, staying up at night to make his creations a reality.
Living in quasi misery, he had plenty of time to meditate on human ingratitude in his modest room where he finished his life forgotten, misunderstood, miserable. He had never wanted to sell his discoveries to other countries, he wanted to keep them for his country, France...
==============================
After researching on Yahoo.fr, I found a picture of the memorial plaque for Leon Foenquinos:
http://village.les.olives.free.fr/lieux/g_foenquinos.JPG
and the place where he lived:
http://village.les.olives.free.fr/places.htm
(copy and paste in the address box)
-----------------------------------
