Jean de Gaillard de la Valdène

Count Jean de Gaillard de la Valdène (2 September 1895 - 26 August 1977) was a French World War I pilot who shot down five German planes. In 1916 as a corporal he was noted for having shot down an Aviatik near Lure.

He is to be distinguished from comte Léopold de Gaillard de la Valdène (d.1894). He was married to Lilí Álvarez, the Spanish tennis player and feminist in 1934, who held feminist salons at their house in Bollène. In 1939, the couple lost their only child and soon after separated. Later he remarried to Diane Guest of the Guest family, a noted race-horse owner.

In the early days of World War II as a lieutenant, he was sent by Admiral Émile Muselier to Algeria and Morocco to recruit aviators willing to continue the war with the Free French Forces.