Sorin Tulea

In 1936, he became a student of the Mircea Cantacuzino School of Aviation. He trained on the school’s Messerschmitt 23b, Fleet 10G, ICAR Universal and Klemm 35A aircrafts, which he piloted to get his first class and second class licenses. Then, during the military service, he graduated from the Military Aviation Training School at the Otopeni Airport, thus becoming a military pilot, licensed on an old Potez 25 aircraft. He was admitted to the Bucharest Polytechnic School, at the Aviation section, but the war interrupted his studies. He was mobilized in 1940, at the 1st Bomber Flotilla in Braşov. Here, Virgil Chifulescu, the former instructor at the Mircea Cantacuzino School of Aviation taught him to pilot twin-engine airplanes.

In June 1941 as part of the 5th Group Bombers, he received combat missions in Odessa. For his performance, Sorin Tulea was proposed for the Aeronautical Virtue in wartime, Golden Cross with two straps class, for the Crown of Romania with Spades and for the Military Virtue ribbon. In 1944, Tulea fractures both legs while landing following a parachute jump during an enemy attack. In the fall of 1947 he started flying again in the civil aviation. He is arrested in 1948 and sentenced to 15 years of forced labour – he will spend 15 years and 7 months as a political prisoner. He was discharged on 20 July 1963, and put under house arrest at Lăteşti – a colony in Bărăgan.

Between 1994 and 2000 he wrote Memories from Unfinished Wars, published in 2003. He died in 2005 at the age of 90 years old.