Dimitri Amilakhvari - World War II

World War II

During the "Phoney War" before the German occupation of France, Amilakhvari was serving in Algiers in North Africa, but in the spring of 1940 he joined the French expeditionary force earmarked for the Norwegian campaign. He fought at Narvik and was then evacuated to the United Kingdom, where he joined the Free French Forces. He then took part in the unhappy campaigns against the Vichy French forces in West Africa, at Dakar (in Senegal), and Equatorial Africa, in Cameroun. In a remarkable record of service, his war service in 1940 had thus taken him from Africa to the Arctic Circle and back again, as far as the Equator, all in the space of a few months.

Amilakhvari's next move took him half way round the continent to Eritrea, in East Africa, to join the East African Campaign against Italy) in early 1941, but by the summer he was on the move again, to take part in another campaign against Vichy France (with units of the French Foreign Legion serving on both sides of the conflict), in Syria. This would be the closest he would come to the land of his birth.

In 1942, Amilakhvari was back in North Africa, facing the German and Italian forces in Libya as part of the North African Campaign. During the hard fighting at the Bir-Hakeim (January) he wrote: "We, foreigners, have only one way to prove to France our gratitude: to be killed ...". Nevertheless he survived, and in June he was made a Companion of the Liberation, a decoration second only to the Légion d'honneur. In 1942 he was also awarded the Krigskorset med Sverd or Norwegian War Cross with Sword for his earlier service in Norway. This is Norway's highest military decoration for gallantry and he was one of only 66 Frenchmen awarded this decoration during the Second World War.

In October 1942, the Allies began the final offensive in North Africa with the Second Battle of El Alamein. This battle took the Allied forces right across Libya and into French North Africa, where Amilakhvari had begun his operational service. However, Amilakhvari did not live to complete his great African odyssey, as he was killed in action on the second day of the battle.

In 1955 Amilakhvari was posthumously awarded a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (Légion d'honneur). General Charles De Gaulle named him and his legionaries the "honour of France" for their heroic defence of the Allies' positions.