DUMITRU ISTRATE 1892-1915

Dumitru Istrate From Oficiul National pentru Cultul Eroilor. Courtesy of Aurelian Simionescu

 

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Courtesy of Aurelian Simionescu, 8-8-06      Romanian aviator born in Bucharest on July 18, 1892, son of Ioan and Anica Istrate. After Dumitru’s birth, Istrate family moved to Transylvanian, where they originated from, to Vaidacuta village, in what is nowadays Mures county, Romania.      After the burst of WWI, in 1914, Dumitru Istrate was incorporated as a pilot in the German Airborne Corp 2 (back then, Transylvania was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany allied). While on a mission over Serbia, his plane was shot down by Serbian artillery. Istrate was found badly wounded inside of his plane by an Austrian patrol. He was treated in a military hospital in Berlin and than transferred to a hospital in Vienna where he died on May 18, 1915. He is buried in the Central Cemetery (Zentralfriedhof) in Vienna.

 

Dumitru Istrate From Oficiul National pentru Cultul Eroilor. Courtesy of Aurelian Simionescu

 

Monument in Vaidacuta, From Oficiul National pentru Cultul Eroilor. Courtesy of Aurelian Simionescu

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Courtesy of Aurelian Simionescu, 8-8-06      After the war, in 1935, the brother of Dumitru erected a monument in Vaidacuta, commemorating the local WWI heroes. The name of Dumitru Istrate is listed first on this monument.

ONLINE RESOURCES      Aurelian Simionescu has included a link to the website of the Oficiul National pentru Cultul Eroilor. This website includes a page on Istrate, written in Romanian, which offers three photographs, two of which you have seen on this page. In addition, there is a color photograph of the Cimitirul Central din Viena. (Central Cemetery in Vienna?) You can access that page by clicking on: Dumitru Istrate      You will notice a small British flag near the top-right of the page. If you click on it, you will be presented with an English language version of the site. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an English version of the Istrate page itself.

 

Editor's Note: If you have any more information on this pioneer aviator, please contact me. E-mail to Ralph Cooper   Back