Hélie Denoix de Saint Marc

The Commander Hélie Denoix de Saint Marc or Hélie de Saint Marc (born on February 11th, 1922 with Bordeaux) is an officer parachutist of the Foreign legion French, old Resistant, and was one of the main actors of the Putsch of Algiers.

Resistance and deportation

Hélie de Saint Marc enters the Résistance (Réseau Jade-Amicol) in February 1941, at the 19 years age after having attended Bordeaux on arrival of the army and the French authorities of a country then in full rout. Decree on July 14th, 1943 at the Spanish border following a denunciation, it is off-set with the camp of Buchenwald.

Sent to the satellite camp of Langestein where mortality exceeds the 90%, it profits from the protection of a Latvian minor which saves it of an unquestionable death. This last shared with him the food which it stole and assumed the essence of the work to which they were subjected both. When the camp is released by the Americans, Hélie de Saint Marc to lie unconscious in the hut of dying. He lost the memory and forgot until his own name. He is among the 30 survivors of a convoy which comprised more than 1000 deportees.

After the Second world war, old twenty-three years, it follows the preparatory courses of Saint-Cyr military school.

The war of Indo-China

Hélie de Saint Marc leaves in Indo-China in 1948 with the Foreign legion. He lives like the Vietnamese partisans, teaches them language and speaks about long hours with the prisoners Vietnamese soldier-minh to include/understand their motivation and their manner of fighting.

Affected at the station of Talung, at the border of the China, in the middle of the minority people Tho, it sees the station which faces him, at the border, taken by the communist Chinese. In China, the Mao troops come to overcome the nationalists and soon will supply and frame their Vietnamese neighbors. The war has revolving major. The military situation is precarious, the French Army, badly supported by the metropolis which desinterress of this remote conflict, knows heavy losses. After eighteen months, Hélie de Saint Marc and the French soldiers are evacuated, like almost all the partisans, but not the villagers. “There is an order, one does not make omelet without breaking eggs” answers him one when it questions on the fate of the villagers.

Its group is obliged to give blows of stick on the fingers of the villagers and partisans wanting to get into the trucks. “Gave up We them”. The survivors being able to join them tell them the massacre of those which had helped the French. It will call this memory of the blows of stick on the fingers of their allies his “  yellow wound” and will remain very marked by the abandonment of its Vietnamese partisans on order of the high-command.

War of Algeria and putsch of the Generals

Recruited by the general Shawl, Hélie de Saint Marc is useful in Algeria, in particular at the sides of the Massu general. In April 1961, it joined the Putsch of the generals, ordered by the Challe general, with the 1 {{er}} foreign regiment parachutists who it orders by interim. Its motivation is not to give up the Harkis which it had recruited not to revive its Indochinese experiment. Algiers falls quickly but in a few days, the coup attempt of State is stopped. Hélie de Saint Marc is constituted captive and is condemned to ten years of Imprisonment, of which it purges 5 with Tulle.

Years 1960 with today

In Christmas 1966, it pardoned and is released. It settles with Lyon with the assistance of André Laroche, the president of the Federation of the deportees and begins a civil career in industry. Until 1988, it was responsible for human resources in a metallurgy company.

In 1978, it is reinstated in its civil laws and soldiers.

Starting from 1989, Laurent Beccaria writes his biography, the ember fields. Memories , which is published in 1995 and crowned by the Prix Femina test category in 1996. Then during 10 years, Hélie of Saint-Marc traverses the United States, Germany and France to make many conferences there.

In 2002, it publishes with August von Kageneck - a German officer of his generation -, its fourth book, Our History, 1922-1945 , an account drawn from conversations with Etienne de Montety, who reports the memories of this time in the form of talks, bearing on their childhoods and their visions of the Second world war.

He lives today withdrawn in his house of the Drome.

Distinctions

See too

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