Lionel Alexandre Pierre de Marmier was a World War I flying ace credited with six aerial victories in WWI. He scored 2 or 3 more victories in WWII. When the new SPAD XII came out, it was distributed one per French squadron. The "cannon Spad" for their unit was shared between Marmier and his friend Fernand Henri Chavannes; it even bore the shared marking of an 'M' entwined with a 'C'. Between the wars, he served with the Spanish Republican Air Force from 1936 to 1937.