Marseille, Occupied France · July 31, 1944 On this date in 1944 French poet, writer, and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry vanished on a reconnaissance flight off the Mediterranean coast near Marseille, France. Best known for his 1943 novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince), and to a lesser extent for books about his aviation…
Beirut, Lebanon · July 12, 1941 During their advance on the Iraqi capital of Baghdad in June 1941, the British shot down a Luftwaffe aircraft flown in support of the pro-German Iraqi government of Rashid Ali el‑Ghalani. (El‑Ghalani had led a nationalist coup that unseated a pro-British regime weeks before and was understood to be…
London, England · June 2, 1944 In June 1943 in Algeria, North Africa, the Free French founded the French Committee of National Liberation. Much political maneuvering was needed to merge the Free French, whose nucleus consisted of Frenchmen who had escaped German capture at Dunkirk, the Channel port in Northeastern France (May 26 to June…
Moscow, Soviet Union · April 15, 1943 On this date in 1943 Soviet Gen. Géorgui Zakharov placed a patrol of six Yak‑7s with Soviet pilots under Free French command. The initial six French pilots formed a mixed patrol of six French and six Russian planes. The brainchild of Gen. Charles de Gaulle, leader of the…
Moscow, Soviet Union · November 28, 1942 On this date in 1942 twelve Free French pilots and their ground crews, flying from newly liberated Syria in the eastern Mediterranean, landed at their Ivanovo training center, 125 miles northeast of the Soviet capital, Moscow. Earlier in the year, in March, Gen. Charles de Gaulle, leader of the…
Paris, Occupied France · August 10, 1944 Beginning on August 2, 1944, almost two months after the initial D-Day landings in Normandy, France, more than 14,000 personnel and equipment from Gen. Philippe Leclerc’s Free French 2nd Armored Division landed on Utah Beach. Leclerc juggled three roles: He was a subordinate divisional commander in an American army, he…
Marseille, Occupied France · July 31, 1944 On this date in 1944 French poet, writer, and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry vanished on a reconnaissance flight off the Mediterranean coast near Marseille, France. Best known for his 1943 novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince), and to a lesser extent for books about his aviation…
Beirut, Lebanon · July 12, 1941 During their advance on the Iraqi capital of Baghdad in June 1941, the British shot down a Luftwaffe aircraft flown in support of the pro-German Iraqi government of Rashid Ali el‑Ghalani. (El-Ghalani had led a nationalist coup that unseated a pro-British regime weeks before and was understood to be…
London, England · June 2, 1944 In June 1943 in Algeria, North Africa, the Free French founded the French Committee of National Liberation. Much political maneuvering was needed to merge the Free French, whose nucleus consisted of Frenchmen who had escaped German capture at Dunkirk (May 26 to June 4, 1940), with politicians and armed forces from…
Moscow, Soviet Union · April 15, 1943 On this date in 1943 Soviet Gen. Géorgui Zakharov placed a patrol of six Yak-7s with Soviet pilots under Free French command. The initial six French pilots formed a mixed patrol of six French and six Russian planes. The brainchild of Gen. Charles de Gaulle, leader of the…