Motorsport Memorial -

Robert Benoist

Complete name: Robert Marcel Charles Benoist

Birth date: 20.Mar.1895

Birth Place: Auffargis, Yvelines (78), France

Death date: 14.Sep.1944

Death Place: Buchenwald, Weimar, Thüringen, Germany

Nationality: France

Gender: male

Notes:

Robert Benoist
1895 - 1944

Robert Benoist at the wheel of his Delage 155B, before the start of the VII Gran Premio d'Italia held at Monza, on 04 September 1927.
Author: Agence Meurisse. Agence Photographique (France). Bibliothèque Nationale de France collection, public domain.

Robert Benoist's career as a French pre-war motor racing legend would have been enough, but his wartime exploits and his cruel death made him an even greater and more immediate hero. In the flamboyant twenties Robert Benoist driving for Delage won the 1925 French Grand Prix and, two years later, all four major Grands Prix in Europe, the French, Spanish, Italian and British Grand Prix races. Benoist was awarded the Legion d' Honneur in 1927 for becoming World Champion racing driver.

Born in the village of Auffargis, near Rambouillet, south-west of Paris, Île-de-France, on 20 March 1895, Robert Marcel Charles Benoist was the son of Jeanne and Gaston Benoist. His father was the gamekeeper of Baron Henri de Rothschild of the wealthy Rothschild family, and since he was a young boy he inherited his father's love of hunting, becoming an excellent shot. But a passion for cars made him serve his apprenticeship as a mechanic with Automobiles Grégoire in Poissy, western suburb of Paris. When Europe descended into hell with the arrival of World War I, he joined the French infantry, but soon became a fighter pilot in the newly formed Armée de l'Air and later he acted as a flying instructor. When came the end of the war, Robert Benoist joined as a test driver the De Marçay company, a former manufacturer of aircraft which built cyclecars. He made his racing debut in 1921, driving a De Marçay in the Paris-Nice Touring Trial, and soon he moved to the Salmson team, taking part to a speed trial in the Bois de Boulogne. Racing spidery Salmsons, in 1922 he won the first edition of the Junior Car Club Cyclecar "200" at Brooklands, then the Grand Prix de l'U.M.F. Cyclecars at Le Mans and the Trofeo Armangue at Tarragona, and the following year the Gran Premio Cyclecars at Monza, the Gran Premio d'España Cyclecars at Sitges and the Bol d’Or at St. Germain. Thanks to these results, he was granted a place in Louis Delâge team in 1924. He drove first the 2-litre V12 Delage 2LCV and later the straight-eight 1.5-litre 15S-8 car.

His first Delage win came in 1925 in the French Grand Prix held at Linas-Montlhéry, paired with Albert Divo. It was a sad success and after the end of the race, Robert Benoist placed the victor's laurels on the corner where Antonio Ascari had earlier been killed. In 1927 Benoist was proclaimed world champion after carrying off the French (Linas-Montlhéry), Spanish (San Sebastian), Italian (Monza) and British (Brooklands) Grands Prix, also earning the season Manufacturers Championship title for Delage. But by the end of the season he was left without a job, when the French manufacturer withdrew from Grand Prix racing. He was recruited to be sales manager for the Banville Garage in Paris, reputedly the world’s first multi-storey car park. Expensive cars were garaged and maintained in the premises and the top of the seven floors featured an exclusive restaurant. The business was immediately a great success, being the most prominent racing driver of the time associated with it. This lent the establishment an extra layer of sheen, but before too long Robert Benoist decided to leave the company and picked up a drive with Bugatti. He finished second in the 1928 San Sebastián Grand Prix at Lasarte, Spain, behind the other works Bugatti T35C of Louis Chiron. His later outings included two starts in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, driving a 2-litre Itala 65S in 1928 – first of class, eight overall, with Christian Dauvergne -, and a Chrysler 75 in 1929 – sixth overall, with Henri Stoffel. In 1929 he won outright the Spa-Francorchamps 24 Hours race, co-driving to the Italian Attilio Marinoni in an Alfa Romeo 6C 1750SS.

Near the end of the 1929 season Benoist announced his retirement from active racing, but he staged a come-back in 1934 as a Bugatti factory driver. He made record-breaking runs at Linas-Montlhéry and won the 1935 Grand Prix de Picardie at Peronne and the hillclimb Course de Côte de Château-Thierry, at the wheel of a Bugatti T59. In 1937 he took a prestigious victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans at record-breaking speed of 137 km/h (85.07 mi/h), sharing the streamlined 3.3-litre Bugatti T57G “Tank” with his 13-year younger protégé Jean-Pierre Wimille. Actually this success ended Robert Benoist’s career as a race car driver, he went on running the racing department of Bugatti.

Motor racing came to an abrupt halt in September of 1939, when Germany invaded Poland and the World War II broke out . At the time Robert Benoist was in Paris, working in the Bugatti showroom in Avenue Montaigne. There he was eventually approached by an old friend, the Englishman Bugattiste who had lived in France, his adopted homeland for years, William Grover-Williams, mostly known with his nom de course of “Williams”, winner of the 1928 and 1929 French Grands Prix and of the inaugural Monaco Grand Prix in 1929. In previous decades Grover-Williams and Frenchman Robert Benoist were fierce rivals racing their Grand Prix cars on the European race circuits, Grover-Williams was now a leading light in the French Resistance. At the outbreak of the war, he had gone to England to join the SOE (Special Operations Executive), one of the most secretive organizations of the World War II. When he returned to France, he recruited Benoist into the SOE.

When France was occupied, the two race drivers, plus the third good friend Jean-Pierre Wimille, fled to England to be trained with SOE. During his prolonged and heroic work for the Allies, Robert Benoist was many times dropped by parachute for missions behind enemy lines in France, working with Grover-Williams to create a number of small cells. Wimille joined them to help with the establishment of the network. They had established a small Resistance circuit, named “Chestnut”, which was to be primarily a sabotage group, from Robert Benoist's private estate near Rambouillet, Paris. But the group disintegrated in August of 1943, when several members were arrested, including Robert’s younger brother Maurice Benoist, also a race car driver in the late 1920s. Under torture, Maurice Benoist was forced to reveal where other members of the circuit were housed and this led to the arrest of Grover-Williams, who eventually was taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was executed on 18 March 1945. Maurice’s complicity helped the Germans to capture his brother, and Robert was tortured by the Gestapo, only to reveal nothing. He managed to escape the Germans and returned to England.

On 18 June 1944 Robert Benoist was caught after travelling to Paris to visit his dying mother. He was sent to the concentration camp of Buchenwald, near Weimar, Thüringen, and executed by slow-strangulation by the Nazis. His date of death is still unconfirmed and pretty controversial. Captain Robert Benoist, Service Number 301112, was one of the thirty-four members of the Allied secret service who were hanged in September of 1944 in the cellar of the crematorium at Buchenwald. He was in the first group of sixteen called out on Block 17. He was 49 years old. It happened on 09, 10 or 12 September, depending on the source. The Official List of SOE Casualties, which was released by the National Archive in 2003, showed his date of death to be 14 September 1944. This date is confirmed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The Motorsport Memorial Team has chosen to adopt 14 September 1944 as Benoist’s date of death. Robert Benoist was interred at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial in Buchenwald, Thüringen, Germany. His memorial attached the the Benoist family grave in the village cemetery in Auffargis, south of Paris, France, shows a date of death of 09 September 1944, which contradicts the date we show above.

He was survived by his wife Paule B. M. Benoist of Paris, France. Immediately after the end of World War II, the Coupe Des Prisonniers titled as "Coupe Robert Benoist" automobile race was held in Bois de Boulogne, Paris on 09 September 1945, and Wimille was the winner. A street of the village of Auffargis was named after him and one of the grandstands at the Reims-Gueux circuit was named "Tribune Robert Benoist".

Just outside the main gate at Linas-Montlhéry circuit was erected a marble memorial to two brave and fast French racing drivers, Georges Boillot and Robert Benoist who were killed fighting for their country in World War I and II. On the front side of the monument, the inscription reads:
DEUX GRANDS
CHAMPIONS DE
LA COURSE
AUTOMOBILE
PATRIE (transl.: Two Grand Champions of Homeland Motor Racing). On the right side of the monument, a bronze stele depicting Boillot and on the left side, another depicting Benoist.

On the left, the monument which commemorates Robert Benoist's and Georges Boillot, located just outside the main gate at Linas-Montlhéry circuit, France.
On the right, "Rue Robert Benoist", a street in the city of Le Mans, Sarthe department, France, which is named after him.
Provided by Google Maps

Career Summary:

Sources:

Book "The Grand Prix Saboteurs" by Joe Saward, Morienval Press, 2006, ISBN-10 0955486807.
Book "1895-1995 Un Siècle de Grands Pilotes Français" by Maurice Louche, Editeur Maurice Louche, 1995, ISBN-13 978-2950073839.
Book "Early One Morning" by Robert Ryan, Headline Review, 2002, ISBN 978-0747268727.
Book "Unearthing Churchill's Secret Army: The Official List of Soe Casualties and Their Stories" by John Grehan Marti Mace and Martin Mace, Pen & Sword, 2012, ISBN 978-1848847941.
Book "Buchenwald Concentration Camp, 1937-1945: A Guide to the Permanent Historical Exhibition" Edited by the Gedenkstätte Buchenwald, compiled by Harry Stein, 2005, ISBN 978-3-89244-695-8.
Magazine MotorSport, issue of April 1945, page 4.
Magazine MotorSport, issue of April 1999, page 126.
Website World Sports Racing Prototypes, by Martin Krejčí, page http://www.wsrp.cz/prewar1929.html#11 .
Website LES GRANDS PILOTES AUTOMOBILE du XXe SIECLE, page http://www.janinetissot.fdaf.org/72%20pilotes%20auto%20DN%20et%20bio.pdf .
Website Commonwealth War Graves Commission, page https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2145220/benoist,-robert-marcel-charles/ .
Website Racing Sports Cars, page http://www.racingsportscars.com/driver/archive/Robert-Benoist-F.html .
Website 8W by Mattijs Diepraam and Felix Muelas, article "A different danger - three champions at war" by Richard Armstrong, page http://www.forix.com/8w/rb-w-jpw.html .
Website The Fastlane, page https://www.the-fastlane.co.uk/racingcircuits/archives/_monuments/fra-montlhery.html .
Website Find-A-Grave: Robert Benoist [date of death: 09 September 1944].