Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque
See also: Hauteclocque, Leclerc, Jacques Leclerc
Philippe François Marie, count of Hauteclocque , Marshal of France , also known under its resistant name of Jacques-Philippe Leclerc , or simply Marshal Leclerc (November 22nd 1902 Belloy-Saint-Léonard, France - November 28th 1947 close to Colomb-Béchar in Algeria).
Dawn of an exceptional destiny
Wire of Adrien, count de Hauteclocque (1864 - 1945) and of Marie-Therese van der Cruisse de Waziers (1870 - 1956), it grows within a family of the Picardy nobility .He passes the majority of his holidays in family in the village of fishermen of Audresselles.
In 1922, it enters to the military special École of Saint-Cyr military school (promotion of Metz and Strasbourg, of which it leaves two years later as a major the cavalry. It enters then to the School of application of the cavalry of Saumur, which it leaves in 1925, there still, while being major.
It Marie the same year with Marie-Therese de Gargan (groom the August 10th 1925) of which he will have his six children (four boys and two girls).
Since 1918 (and until 1930), the the Saar is under French occupation consequently Traité of Versailles (1919) making following the First World War. The young person Philippe de Hauteclocque has for first assignment the 5 {{E}} Régiment of Cuirassiers to Trier; after spendhaving spent one year there, it obtains an assignment with the 8 {{E}} Spahis Algerian with the Morocco. It takes part in the pacification of the territory during the Guerre of the Rif, during which it is distinguished. In 1929, the command of the 38 {{E}} Goum is entrusted to him.
He becomes instructor at the School of Saint-Cyr military school in 1931. At the time of a exercise with horse, its leg breaks under its mounting what was worth to him to use a cane all the remainder of its life. During a second stay in Morocco, it is promoted Capitaine in 1934, obtains the Légion of honor. In 1938, it makes a success of the entrance examination to the École of War (today become the College interarmées of defense), which it leaves major in 1939.
1939-1940: the countryside of France
In May 1940, Philippe de Hautecloque is captain of staff to the 4 {{E}} Division of Infantry, in station on the Belgian face . At the time of the German attack, it is made prisoner, but manages to escape and join the allied lines, where it takes again the combat.June 15th, it takes part in a counter-offensive in the plain of Champagne during which it is wounded with the head. The German armoured tanks opened fire on the house in which it was and part of the ceiling crumbled on him. The wound does not seem to affect it so much so that it continues the combat, until it is again made prisoner.
1940-1942: the fight continues in Africa
June 17th, 1940, he manages to escape and takes the party to continue the fight. He crosses France to bicycle, in spite of the German Occupation, joined his wife and their six children on the roads of the exodus close to Libourne in the Gironde. After puthaving put them at the current of its will to fight, it crosses the the Pyrenees close to Perpignan. It is briefly stopped in Spain, then arrives until the Portugal from where it joined London by boat.It is presented to the general de Gaulle on July 25th. In order to prevent that reprisals are not directed against its family, it took the pseudonym of Leclerc, name running in its native area. The de Gaulle general, grateful in him an exceptional chief, promotes it of captain with major as of their first meeting and for mission of rejoining AEF with the Free France gives him. Its engagement in free France makes him give up the French Action.
August 6th, 1940, it leaves the England for the Cameroun with Rene Pleven, André Avoiding and Claude Hettier de Boislambert. Twenty days later, it unloads of night in the dugout with Douala with 22 men. It becomes acquainted with the commander Louis Dio, who arrives of Extremely-Lamy at the head of a detachment of the regiment of Senegalese Tirailleurs of Chad. He manages to convince the authorities faithful to Vichy to be erased and rejoins Cameroun, the Chad and the Congo with the cause of Free France under the aegis of Felix Éboué and Larminat.
Leclerc is named general Commissaire of Cameroun and on August 28th, it is all the AEF, except for the Gabon which was joined the de Gaulle General. This one, during a visit with Douala on October 8th, gives its agreement to Leclerc to try to rejoin the country with its cause. With the assistance of the Free French Army, folded up after the failure of the forwarding of Dakar (23 September 25th), Leclerc unloads close to Libreville on November 8th and on November 10th, the Gabon joint in Free France.
Leclerc is then officially confirmed with the rank of colonel by the de Gaulle general, rank which it car-had allotted " as by enchantement" , according to the expression of De Gaulle, while arriving at Cameroun not to be in hierarchical inferiority compared to the lieutenant-colonel in station with Douala, and it is indicated as military commander of Chad.
Free France has for the first time a territorial and strategic base significant.
Starting from these bases, its column, which counts in particular the captain Massu, carries out raids of several thousands of kilometers in direction of the Italian stations. Having taken the Oasis Koufra (February 28th 1941) with a gun and 300 men only, it makes the oath with its soldiers not deposit the weapons before to have seen the French flag floating on the cathedral of Strasbourg.
It continues the combat in Libya and takes part in the catch of Tunis by the Allies with the Force L (L for Leclerc) with the whole beginning of 1943.
1943-1945: The Victoire moving
The army of Leclerc, which was named general, is equipped with American material and benefits from a few months of respite to pack its rows, in particular incorporating former soldiers of the Army of Africa, Vichyist.
Sent in Normandy, its 2 {{E}} armor-plated division (more known as the 2nd dB) unloads on August 1st, 1944. Belonging to the 3rd army of the general Patton, the division of Leclerc, or " division Cross of Lorraine" , becomes sometimes even the spearhead of the American attacks. Its division releases Alençon on August 12th, is illustrated in the Forêt of Écouves, but butts on August 13rd against Argentan which it cannot invest, awkward makes the American movements of them. Leclerc asks for the authorization then of leave the theater of the operations in Normandy, for " More not to lose only one man here and to release the capital of the France ".
With the agreement which it tore off with its superiors, the 2nd dB street on Paris, so that the August 25th 1944, the Leclerc general receives the rendering of the general von Choltitz, military governor German of Paris, with the Gare Montparnasse. The capital was released in two days, almost without combat, in a mixture of jubilation and shots. The generals de Gaulle and Leclerc descend side by side the Avenue from the Fields-Élysées whereas still burst of the sporadic fixings.
Before the end of the year 1944, on November 23rd, its troops release Strasbourg, occasion of a catch of weapon to recall that the oath of Koufra was held. Ultimate feats of arms, they are the French soldiers of Leclerc who seize the Kehlsteinhaus , the eyrie of Adolf Hitler with Berchtesgaden in Bavaria, a few days only before the armistice of May 8th, 1945.
June 21st, it bids its farewell with solemnity with its division, which it leaves to join the French Task force in the Far East in French Indo-China occupied by Japan since 1940.
The September 2nd 1945, it is Leclerc which signs, in the name of France, the act of Capitulation of the Japan aboard the battleship US Missouri, in roads of Tokyo.
Post-war period
It also takes part in the reconquest of the Indo-China, occupied by the Japan - with the agreement of the Vichyist authorities until the takeover by force of the March 9th 1945. Arrived in October 1945, after the capitulation of Japan and the proclamation of independence by Ho Chi Minh the September 2nd, it manages to restore French sovereignty in all the Cochinchine and the South Annam, the January 29th 1946, while being lucid on the need for a political solution. With the Tonkin, Ho Chi Minh accommodates Leclerc the March 26th 1946 with Hanoï by tightening the hand to him. Indeed, this one was favorable to a political resolution of the crisis which shook the French colony.In 1946, Leclerc is named general inspector in North Africa.
Death and homage of a nation
The November 28th 1947, during a round of inspection in its plane, North Africa, a B-25 Mitchell is taken in a sandstorm. It is supposed that the pilot is descended at low altitude to find reference marks geographical, but the plane struck the railway, not far from Colomb-Béchar. The 12 occupants of the apparatus are killed on the blow. A thirteenth corpse was found in the carcass of the plane. This thirteenth man fed the idea of the plot.The news of this death is a shock for France which concerns itself with difficulty a terrible war and which saw in this man the liberator of Paris and Strasbourg, that which had washed the affront of the defeat of 1940. After a national homage with Notre-Dame, the 2nd dB escorts its chief towards the Triumphal arch, where a crowd of French come to incline itself in front of the coffin of the general. It is buried in the crypt of the Invalids.
It was high with the dignity of Marshal of France, on a purely posthumous basis, by decree of the August 23rd 1952.
Discusses on the circumstances of the death
Conrad Kilian, dead the August 30th 1950 in discussed circumstances, was the first with launching the idea: England would have made assassinate Leclerc because of the secret war of oil in the Fezzan, in the western part of the Libya. No proof makes it possible however to support this thesis.On the contrary, Jean-Christophe Notin shows that the plane, modified to accommodate passengers and unbalanced by the addition of one berth to the back, would have simply taken down whereas it flew at low altitude, as it tended to do it following these modifications.
Anecdotes
- to cross the enemy lines of the pocket of Lille in May 1940, it declares with the German officer who captured it that it is reformed, inapt for the military service by showing him a medical ordinance dating from Morocco prescribing Quinine to him three times per day. Thanks to this subterfuge one lets it leave and it can join the French lines on the channel of Crozat.
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to leave for England, it will cross France in war thanks to all kinds of means of transport. Its tour begun the June 17th with Avallon, will pass by Paris, Mans, Holy-Foy-the-Large, Bayonne where in front of impossibility of taking a boat the July 5th, it will cross the the Pyrenees until Perpignan to pass in Spain then to the Portugal and to arrive finally at London on July 25th.
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With the Cameroun in August 1940, to rejoin this territory with the free France it judges its rank of insufficient commander vis-a-vis the general governor and to the lieutenant-colonel ordering the troops with Douala. It tears off the three gallons of its left sleeve for in recoudre two on that of right-hand side, here the colonel him which was not that a simple captain one month ago. He will explain himself of it near the Général De Gaulle by the fact why " this operation with the special character, was founded on persuasion and the authority and which it had to confer this rank temporarily to conclude it ". August 28th, the colonel patented Leclerc is named general police chief of the Cameroun by the Général De Gaulle. He took for practice to hide his left arm in his back so that one does not notice only the number of gallons which were there did not correspond to the alleged rank.
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Throughout the war, it used all kinds of subterfuges to manage to force the victory. It incarnated the spirit Free French of those which had, behind the Général De Gaulle, refused the defeat of 1940. In this time, to disobey the orders of the Pétain marshal the winner of Verdun was difficult for officers trained with the discipline of Saint-Cyr military school.
To remember Leclerc
- Its name one of the first patronyms is today allotted to the public ways and monuments in France.
- the Tank Leclerc, Tank of the French Army was named according to the marshal.
- the " Foundation Leclerc" Marshal; created and directed during 32 years by the lieutenant-colonel Philippe Peschaud (1915-2006), a close relation of Leclerc, did not have of cease to revive, in the collective memory of the French, the memory of this capital actor of the French history.
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Nowadays, the direct descendants, and only the direct descendants, of the Marshal name officially Leclerc de Hauteclocque.
State of service
- September 9th 1924: Named Second lieutenant,
- October 26th 1926: Promoted lieutenant
- December 25th 1934: Promoted Captain
- November 25th 1940: Car promoted Colonel, without to have ever been lieutenant-colonel, will be confirmed then in its rank by the general de Gaulle
- August 10th 1941: Named Brigadier general on a purely provisional basis
- April 14th 1942: Named Brigadier general on a purely final basis
- May 25th 1943: Promoted Major general
- May 25th 1945: Raised with the row and name of Lieutenant-general of army
- August 23rd 1952: Raised with the dignity of Marshal of France on a purely posthumous basis
Principal decorations
- Large Cross of the Legion of honor
- Companion of the Release - decree of March 6th, 1941
- Military decoration
- Military Cross 1939-1945 (8 mentions in dispatches)
- Military Cross of the TOE (1 mention in dispatches)
- Médaille of Resistance with rivet washer
- Colonial Médaille with fasten
- Médaille of the escaped prisoners
- Médaille of Wounded the
- Distinguished Service Order (GB)
- Silver Star (the USA)
- many other international distinctions
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