Philippe de Gaulle - Free French Naval Officer

Free French Naval Officer

A student at the École Navale at the time of the invasion of France in 1940, he did not hear his father's appeal of 18 June, but escaped to the United Kingdom and declared his allegiance to the Free French Naval Forces. During the Second World War he fought in the Channel campaign and in the Battle of the Atlantic. Promoted to sub-lieutenant in 1943, de Gaulle participated in the Battle of France (1944-1945) as a platoon commander of the armored regiment of marines of the 2nd Armored. On 25 August 1944 he participated in the liberation of Paris and was sent from the Montparnasse station to carry the order to surrender to the Germans entrenched at the Palais Bourbon in the premises of the National Assembly. Risking being shot if things went wrong, he negotiated among them, alone and unarmed. He fought in the Vosges during the winter of 1944-1945.

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