Built under licence

Les Ateliers des Mureaux was founded in 1918 at Les Mureaux, on the Seine west of Paris, to build other people’s aircraft. Through the 1920s it turned out Vickers Vimys and Breguet 14s under licence while its head designer, André Brunet, experimented with a handful of parasol-winged fighters of his own. In 1928 it bought the seaplane maker Besson, and in 1930 it amalgamated with the Ateliers de Construction du Nord de la France, a railway firm, taking the long name that gave it the initials ANF.

Railway money and metal wings

Brunet’s breakthrough came from an air ministry call to replace the Breguet 19 in the two-seat reconnaissance role. Working out a new technique for building in riveted duralumin strips, the firm produced the all-metal Mureaux 110 family, first flown in 1931. The 113 went into production with 49 built, 40 of which became night fighters in 1934–1935, followed by 119 of the bomb-carrying 115 and 115 of the 117.

Into the Battle of France

By September 1939 the 115 and 117 equipped eighteen observation groups. Some 228 were on strength when the German offensive began in May 1940, and only 62 were intact at the armistice. By then ANF Les Mureaux no longer existed as such: it had been nationalised in 1937 and folded into SNCAN.

מפעלים

• Les Mureaux works · Les Mureaux, Yvelines

אֲנָשִׁים

• André Brunet · head designer — Designer of the 110 family