Free French Forces facts for kids
The Free French Forces were a free army during the occupation of France in WWII. It started in 1940 and ended due to the invasion of Normandy in 1944. These forces made a major impact on the German army by destroying railroads and attacking German units.
Images for kids
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Commemorative medal for voluntary service in Free France
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Charles de Gaulle was an armoured division commander and a minister in the Reynaud government during the Battle of France.
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In Occupied France during the war, reproductions of the 18 June appeal were distributed through underground means as pamphlets and plastered on walls as posters by supporters of the Résistance. This could be a dangerous activity.
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Emile Fayolle, pilot of the Free French Air Force, during the Battle of Britain
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The Free French Memorial, looking out over the Firth of Clyde
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A very modern Dunkerque-class battleship commissioned in 1937, Strasbourg was potentially a quite substantial threat to British control of the sealanes were she to fall into Axis hands.
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Submarine Rubis. With 22 ships sunk (12 of them German men-of-war) on 22 operational patrols, she achieved the highest kill number of the FNFL.
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A Chadian soldier fighting for Free France
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De Gaulle meeting Félix Éboué in Chad
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Insigna of the Free French Forces in the Far East (French Indochina), Langlade Mission
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The fall of Damascus to the Allies, late June 1941. A car carrying Free French commanders General Georges Catroux and General Paul Louis Le Gentilhomme enters the city, escorted by French Circassian cavalry (Gardes Tcherkess).
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The FFF's tenacious defence at Bir Hakeim prevented Rommel's attempted flanking manoeuvre at El Alamein from succeeding.
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Free French Foreign Legionnaires "leap up from the desert to rush an enemy strong point", Bir Hacheim, 12 June 1942.
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Operation Torch landings in Morocco and Algeria
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Henri Giraud and de Gaulle during the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. Churchill and Roosevelt are in the background.
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FAFL Normandie-Niemen Yak-3 preserved at the Paris Le Bourget museum
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Charles de Gaulle speaks as president of interim government to the population of Cherbourg from the city hall's balcony on 20 August 1944
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The Western Front in 1944
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Leclerc's 2nd Armoured Division (2e DB) parading down the Champs Elysées on 26 August 1944, the day after the Liberation of Paris
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A plaque commemorating the Oath of Kufra in near the cathedral of Strasbourg
