Anna Bétoulinksy was born in Saint Petersburg on 30 October, at the time of the very 1917 Revolution in which her father was shot to death. She left Russia for France at the beginning of the 1920's. As a refugee living in the Russian community of Menton with her mother, her elder sister and their loyal nanny, she endured some difficult, but happy years. At the age of 13 she was given a guitar. She never parted with this gift, which was to completely change the course of her life. "This was when I discovered the magic of sounds influenced by Charles Trénet." In 1934, she returned to Paris and began an artistic career under the pseudonym Anna Marly - she chose the surname out of the phone book. She began working as a dancer at the Ballets russes, and toured Europe with the company before joining the Ballets Wronska as their principal dancer.

But Anna didn't forget about her music. After some time spent working on her voice in the Paris conseratory, she began putting on her own shows in 1935. With her guitar and her own repertory, she performed at Shéhérazade, the Parisian cabaret club for gilded youth, then at the théâtre des Variétés in Brussels, and the Savoy Club in La Hague. During her stay in Holland, she met her future husband, the Baron van Doorn. The same year, Anna had a major professional success when she became the youngest ever member of SACEM (Société des Auteurs Compositeurs et des Editeurs de Musique). On 13th June 1940, Paris was declared an open city. Anna and her husband left the capital and went into exile. After travelling through Spain and Portugal, they settled in London in 1941, where Anna volunteered at the cafeteria for the Forces Françaises Libres (the Free French). She sang in the café sometimes. Soon she separated from her husband and became a projectionist, before getting involved in the théâtre "aux Armées" and singing on the BBC programme "Les Français parlent aux Français".

Anna Marly's most famous songs, including "Le Chant des partisans", date from this time. One day, towards the end of 1942, after having read an account of the Battle of Smolensk in the British papers, her Russian spirit was riled. One word came to her mind: "partisans". "I'm so confused, I pick up my guitar and play a rhythmic melody, and these Russian verses come pouring out from my heart: We will go there where the crow does not fly/And where the beast cannot go. No amount of strength and nobody/will make us turn back." Originally entitled, "La Marche des Partisans," this song was performed in Russian by its author until Joseph Kessel heard it for the first time and cried, "That's what France needs!" then wrote a French version with his nephew, Maurice Druon. After a whistled version was made the theme song of the BBC's "Honneur et Patrie," and then a way to recognize comrades in the maquis, "Le Chant des Partisans" (or "Guerilla Song," in English) quickly became the unofficial hymn of the Resistance.

She wrote "La Complainte du partisan" (The Partisan's Lament) at around the same time. "I was thinking about occupied France, and I began to play a sad, sad melody, without words." Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vigerie, the chief of the Libération-Sud movement, wrote the words to this song. Later, Joan Baez and Leonard Cohen recorded it. When she returned to France in 1945, Anna Marly was famous. Yet she moved to South America, where she became the ambassador of French chanson. In 1947 in Brazil she met her second husband, a Russian by the name of Yuri Smiernow. She continued to travel extensively, and crossed Africa accompanied by her guitar. These days, she lives in the US, where she writes stories and poems interwoven with memories. She hopes that her current work, like her recently published memoirs (Anna Marly, Troubadour de la Résistance. Tallandier-Historia), will serve as a testament to younger generations and all those who did not experience these tormented times in history, so that they, in turn, might carry and pass on the flame of memory.

Anna Marly, about whom General de Gaulle wrote "she made her talent into a weapon for France" and who was nicknamed the "Troubadour de la Résistance," wrote more than 300 songs, amongst them "Une chanson à trois temps," for Edith Piaf. Some of them have become part of our national heritage, a fact proven by the compulsory teaching of the "Chant des partisans" alongside the "Marseillaise" and the "Chant du départ" in schools during the 1960's. Written in the context of the war, Anna Marly's songs bear living witness to the history of France: for this reason, she was awarded the ordre national du Mérite in 1965 and the ordre national de la Légion d'honneur in 1985. She took part in an homage to Jean Moulin in 2000, on the 40th anniversary of 18th June 1960. During the ceremony, she sang the Chant des partisans with the French army choir. Anna Marly died in Alaska on 17th February 2006, at the age of 88.

Edmond Charles Octave Michelet was born in the 19th arrondissement of Paris on the 8th October 1899. As soon as he was 18 he enlisted voluntarily for the duration of the war. Appointed to the 126th infantry regiment of Brive, he discovered Corrèze where he married. He campaigned for the ACJF (Young French Catholic Action movement) of which he became president in Béarn and then in Corrèze. In 1932, he developed the Social Teams created by Robert Garric in 1919, whose aim was to facilitate the professional, intellectual and moral advancement of all its underprivileged members. Faced with the rise in Nazism, he created the Duguet Circle, a think tank that organised, amongst other things, a series of conferences called: "the dangers threatening our civilisation". As a father, he was not called up in 1939, but organised the national charity for helping the many refugees.

He made his first act of resistance in June 1940 by distributing, along with some friends in Brive, a tract quoting a text by Péguy: "the one who does not surrender to reason against the one who surrenders". In 1942, he became regional manager and then took over in charge of region 5 of the MUR (United Resistance Movement). On the 25th February 1943, Michelet was arrested by the German police for his acts of resistance acts. Imprisoned secretly at first for 6 months in Fresnes, he was deported to Dachau on the 15th September 1943. On the liberation of the camp on the 29th April 1945, he represented France on the international committee and dealt with the repatriation of all the French and the Spanish internees. He returned to France on the 27th May 1945.

In July 1945, he was appointed a member of the provisional consultative Assembly by the MLN (Movement of National Liberation). On the 21st October 1945, he was elected representative for Corrèze at the first constituent Assembly in the ranks of the MRP (Popular Republican Movement). In November 1945 he became the Minister for the Armed Forces in De Gaulle's government. In June 1946, he was elected representative for the second constituent Assembly and in November 1946, he was elected representative in the first legislative assembly. Beaten in the legislative elections of 17th June 1951 in Corrèze, he was elected councillor of the Republic in May 1952 and became vice-president of the 1958 High Assembly. In 1954, he headed the French delegation at the UN. In June 1958, Michelet became the minister for Ex-servicemen. He joined the Constitutional Council in February 1962. On the 12th March 1967, he was elected MP for the first Constituency of Finistère: Quimper. A month later, Edmond Michelet returned to government as minister in charge of the Civil Service.

After May 1968, he was minister without portfolio. Following the elections of the 23rd and 30th June 1968, with the formation of Couve de Murville's government, he found himself back in his seat as the representative to the Assembly for Finistère. He left it on the 22nd June 1969 to take care of Cultural Affairs in the Chaban-Delmas government, where he succeeded André Malraux. He occupied this position until his death in Marcillac near Brive on the 9th October 1970. Edmond Michelet received the 1959 Resistance literary prize and the Franco-Belgian literary Grand prix for Liberty in 1960 for his book of memoirs, "Rue de la liberté". He was president of the Amicable Society for Former members of Dachau, which he was able to keep going despite the cold war, and the founding president of the France-Algeria Association in 1963.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born on 29 June 1900 in Lyon, and received a classical education in a series of religious schools. Would he best be described as an aviator-poet, or perhaps as a writer-pilot? The life of one of the most legendary men and women who "died for France" during the World War 2 was short but exceptionally full. The writer and the poet On the eve of his first flying experience, the young Antoine, aged twelve at the time, presented one of his teachers with a poem about areonautical exploits, the first sign of the unusual duality of his destiny. Throughout his childhood, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote short texts, mostly in verse. In 1926, the author definitively adopted prose and his first story "L'aviateur" ("The Aviator") was published in a magazine. He went on to write "Courrier sud" ("Southern Mail") in 1929 in Morocco, the first of a series of five novels that would secure the legend of Saint-Ex, even before his tragic disappearance. In 1931, "Vol de nuit" ("Night Flight") won the 'Prix

Femina' (a French literary prize awarded by an exclusively female panel), which foreshadowed the resounding success of "Terre des hommes" ("Wind, Sand and Stars"), published in 1938. During his period in exile in the United States, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry published his last two literary works: "Pilote de Guerre" ("Flight to Arras") in 1942, and "Le Petit Prince" ("The Little Prince") in 1943. In 1948, the unfinished "Citadelle" ("The Wisdom of the Sands"), which he wrote in the months before his disappearance, was posthumously published. Many more of his letters and writings would be published later, including essays, correspondence, and press articles. As well as his literary genius, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was also a visionary in the world of cinema, turning out several film scripts in his lifetime.

The inventor and technician

From a very young age, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry showed extraordinary ingenuity, and spent much of his time experimenting with technical innovations with the help of his brothers and sisters. Consequently, from 1934 to 1940, his scientific curiosity and his piloting skills led him to register a series of patents with France's National Institute of Industrial Property, all relating to his inventions in the field of aviation. These discoveries were dedicated to creating materials that would improve piloting performance, or to developing procedures for more accurate navigation in the air. Two of these patents proposed a new system for safely 'blind' landing planes (i.e. in extremely poor or no visibility), accompanied by plans for the necessary mechanisms and equipment. Like the other innovations registered by Saint-Ex, these ideas were never followed up.

The pioneer of civil aviation

Called up for military service in 1921, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was assigned to the 2nd Regiment of Chasseurs in Strasbourg, where he obtained his pilot's licence. In 1926, this qualification gained him a place as mechanic and subsequently as an air mail pilot for the commercial postal airline Aéropostale owned by Pierre Latécoère . Saint-Exupéry was appointed director of the Cap Juby airfield in Morocco, and was responsible for securing this section of the Toulouse-Dakar route. In 1929, he joined Mermoz and Guillaumet in Buenos Aires, and became director and pilot of Aeroposta Argentina, a subsidiary of Aéropostale. His task was to create the flight route to Patagonia. The Aéropostale story came to an end in 1933 when the various civil airlines were grouped together under the name Air France. After a spell working as test pilot and surviving several serious accidents, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry joined the external relations department of the new company, and took part in a series of conferences on the subject of aviation from 1934.

The intrepid military pilot

Mobilized in September 1939, Reserve Captain Saint-Exupéry was assigned on his request to the reconnaissance group 2/33 based in Orconte in the Haute-Marne, and took part in missions over Germany and Belgium, then over occupied nothern France. In March 1943, he was called up a second time and he rejoined the group 2/33, then based in Morocco. Despite his age, he persuaded the military authorities to allow him to fly and found himself in the line of fire once again.

Neither Vichy supporter nor Gaullist

After the armistice in 1940, Saint-Exupéry wanted no part in the national Vichy 'revolution' and left for the United States, where he kept his distance from the rest of the French community in exile. The now greatly-respected author could not find his place in a Manichean universe split between supporters of General de Gaulle and those who preferred to collaborate with the enemy. Both sides tried vainly to secure his support, but Saint-Exupéry refused to commit to either, preferring to extol the need for national reconciliation in a country divided by defeat and occupation. A man of letters who refused to remain silent in defeat, in 1943 he published his "Lettre à un otage" ("Letter to a Hostage") addressed to his friend Léon Werth who had remained in France, and urging the French to unite in the fight for the respect of human rights .

The mysterious disappearance

Finally, he decided to act and joined the Free France resistance movement in 1943. On the morning of 31 July 1944, he took off from Borgo in Corsica at the controls of his P-38 Lightning fighter plane as part of a reconnaissance mission in preparation for the Allied landing in Provence. He would never return. On 7 April 2004, some sixty years after his disappearance, France-Presse released news of a discovery made by the French Underwater Archaeological Department in Marseille. A diver had deciphered four figures on the left wing of the wreckage of a plane resting 70m deep on the seabed off the coast of Marseille. These four figures correspond to the civil manufacturing number of Saint-Exupéry's Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Sixty years underwater means that we will never be able to identify the exact reasons behind the disappearance of the 'father of the Little Prince'. The mythical poet of aviation has definitively entered into legend. As someone who, in both his writings and actions, rose above life's chance happenings in his search for what is essential, many see him as one of the brightest stars of the 20th century.

Resistant, deported to Buchenwald in 1943 and several times Minister under General de Gaulle, Pierre Sudreau tells the story of his extraordinary encounter with the legendary pilot in "Au-delà de toutes les frontières"

The sacrifice of Jean Maridor

Jean Maridor was born in Le Havre in 1920.

A son of shopkeepers, he became fascinated by aviation from a very early age after visiting an air show. A gifted and applied student, he joined the school for training air force NCOs in Istres when he left high school. At the same time he obtained his private pilot’s licence at the age of 17.

Admitted into Istres in 1939, he followed the squad of trainee pilots during the winter months of 1939 to 1940. On 24 June, he and five classmates, travelling with a group of Polish airmen, boarded a boat leaving Saint-Jean-de-Luz for England. Following further training at the air base in Odiham, Jean Maridor was appointed to the rank of sergeant in the Royal Air Force on 1 October 1940.

Enlisted to Winston Churchill’s squadron, in 1941 he intensified the attacks against German ships in the Channel and the North Sea, interspersed by attacks against German fighters.

Promoted to the rank of sub-lieutenant then lieutenant in 1942, he was made captain in 1943 and received, after being awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Croix de la Liberation (the Liberation Cross).

In 1944, he specialised in chasing V-1s, long-range flying bombs that were fired at England.

On 3 August 1944, Captain Jean Maridor chased after a V-1 that was heading towards a hospital. Firing at very close range, Jean Maridor sacrificed his life to prevent the bomb striking its target.

René Mouchotte qualified as a military pilot in 1937 and was mobilised in September 1939. He joined the Avord fighter training school as a trainee instructor, then in May 1940, with his friend Guérin, he was sent to the fighter training centre at Oran. On 30th June, against direct orders, Mouchotte and eight of his comrades flew to Gibraltar in two aircraft and arrived in Liverpool on 13th July 1940, in time to watch the first 14th July review presided over by General de Gaulle, in London. After training at Old Sarum, near Salisbury, at the School of Army Cooperation, he joined 6 Operational Training Unit at Sutton Bridge, for training as a Hawker Hurricane fighter pilot. At the beginning of October, he left with 615 squadron for Northolt, in the western suburbs of London.

On 11th October, René Mouchotte, carried out his first operational sortie and spotted the French coast. On 15th December 1940, 615 squadron returned to its base at Kenley, south of London. On 4th March, René Mouchotte was awarded temporary command of a Flight. On 26th August he shot down a Junkers 88. On 10th November 1941, René Mouchotte joined Turnhouse RAF base, where first fighter group n° 2 "île de France" (340 squadron) was undergoing training. When Flying Officer Philippe de Scitivaux took command of the Group in February 1942, René Mouchotte replaced him as head of A Flight "Paris". He was promoted to Captain on 15th March 1942. General de Gaulle awarded him the Croix de la Libération, on 14th July 1942 and on 1st September he received the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was given the command of 65 squadron, then went on to lead Fighter Group n° 1 "Alsace" which, following a tour of duty in the Middle East, was posted back to Great Britain as 341 squadron of the RAF. On 17th March 1943, 341 was considered fit to serve with 11 Group, where there was a great deal of enemy activity and returned to base at Biggin Hill. On 15th May 1943, the Biggin Hill wing, with 998 victories in the air, took off for a protection mission. "Alsace" was flying with 611 squadron, commanded by Squadron-Leader Charles. The wing was attacked over the Pas-de-Calais by a large formation of Fw 190's. Charles shot one down, bringing the wing's score to 999, before Mouchotte brought up the 1,000th kill. Commandant René Mouchotte's will read as follows: "If fate only allows me a short career as Commandant, I will thank heaven that I was able to give my life for the Liberation of France. Tell my mother that I was always happy and grateful that I had the opportunity to serve God, my Country and those I love and that, whatever happens, I will always be by her side." The last lines of his flight log said: "Sorties continue at a terrible rate. My record is 140. My fatigue is merciless and I can feel my nerves breaking. I have an unbearable need for rest. I haven't taken a week's leave in over two years. Always on alert to fly. I am worn out, but tomorrow ...I will be off until 26th August. He would never come back, shot down over Belgium. He amassed 1,748 flying hours including 408 on 382 war sorties. He "Died for France" on a mission in September 1943.

On the 22nd November 1902 in Belloy (Picardy) Philippe de Hauteclocque, the fifth of six children was born to the count Adrien and Marie-Thérèse Van der Cruisse de Waziers. Originally from Artois, his family, from a long line of nobility dating back to the XIIth century, participated in the crusades, served at Fontenoy, at Wagram and held office as town councillors. During his childhood spent in a rural and traditional environment, he learned exceptional hardiness and a passion for hunting, an ardent patriotism, and a Christian faith anchored in Roman Catholicism, reinforced through his education by the Jesuit fathers of Providence in Amiens. He pursued an army career at Saint-Cyrien in the "Metz-Strasbourg" division, and after a first posting in Germany, opted for a posting to Morocco, first as an instructor at the School for native officers of Dar El-Beïda, then at the head of a goum during the peacemaking operations amongst dissident tribes.

He then became a school instructor at the special military school of Saint-Cyr before being admitted to the War school in 1938, an opportunity that opened up prospects of a fine career. Meanwhile, in 1925, he married Marie-Thérèse de Gargan, related to Wendel, with whom he would go on to have six children. The captain of Hauteclocque was promoted to general of the 4th infantry division who were surrounded by the enemy in June 1940 in Lille. He was captured, before escaping to rejoin the front, where he was then posted to the 2nd armoured division. Wounded and hospitalised on army orders, he then escaped the advancing enemy and fled to Paris by bicycle. It was here that he decided to join general de Gaulle in London by travelling through Spain, however not before seeing his wife who approved his decision and agreed to take care of their children. The captain of Hauteclocque became Leclerc. In London, he learned of the general de Gaulle's strategy of political combat: to keep France in the war as a sovereign nation. The leader of the campaign to free France then assigned general Leclerc with a political mission supported by Cameroon on the 26th of August; a further mission, on the 12th November also rallied the support of Gabon, which Vichy wanted to make a base for reconquering the unoccupied part of the French African territories. With the civilian zone secured and the Italians in Libya under severe pressure, the priority became to show that the French were continuing to fight the war. Colonel Leclerc was promoted to military commander of Chad, operating base for these manoeuvres.

On the 1st March 1941, after careful preparations, Leclerc took control of Koufra, an Italian oasis in southwest Libya, the first exclusively French victory. Leclerc then swore "only to lay down our arms once our flag, our noble flag, is fluttering above Strasbourg cathedral". News of the battle travelled all the way back to occupied France. A Franco-English agreement made plans for a military campaign led from Chad to facilitate the English offensive against the Afrikakorps on the Libyan coast from Egypt. With his Chadian soldiers, Leclerc conquered the Fezzan in 1942 and on the 26th January 1943 joined general Montgomery, commandant of the 8th British regiment, whom he convinced to join the campaign in Tunisia. The "L Force", as Leclerc's units were henceforth to become known, distinguished itself during the battle of Ksar Rhilane on the 10th March where, with the help of the Royal Air Force, it provoked heavy losses to a German armoured unit. After being exiled for several months in Libya, whilst general de Gaulle was overthrowing general Giraud, the 2nd Free French division (the former "Force L") officially became the 2nd armoured Division on the 24th August 1943. The 2nd armoured division in Témara (Morocco) owed its unity to its leader, despite the fact that it was a mix of men and women from widely varying political and military backgrounds.

At the end of 1943, de Gaulle entrusted Leclerc with a further political mission: to liberate the capital. The 2nd armoured division was therefore transferred to England at the end of April 1944 to hone their skills. Integrated into the general Patton's IIP Army, it landed at Utah-Beach on the 1st August and received a baptism of fire at Mortain. It then went on to distinguish itself once more during the battle of Normandy. In mid-August, general Leclerc waited impatiently for the order to liberate Paris and to establish the provisional government's authority. Leclerc's determination, as well as the missions sent by the colonel Roi-Tanguy, commandant of the FFF of Paris and general de Gaulle's insistence all convinced Eisenhower not to bypass the capital. The 2nd armoured division made contact with the FFF, forcing the enemy to surrender and preparing general de Gaulle's arrival. Thanks to the determination of its leader, the 2nd armoured division liberated Paris swiftly and with very few casualties. Leclerc, liberator of Paris but also its saviour, since the war was not yet over and his unit had some tough battles ahead of it yet at Bourget to drive back the German counter-offensive. The 2nd armoured division continued its progress: on the 13th of September at Dom-paire, the coordination of firepower and manoeuvres with an air attack broke down an enemy offensive. Baccarat was liberated on the 30th, Badonviller and Cirey-sur-Vezouze on the 17th and 18th November, the Vosges was reached by the 22nd. A feat of daring, the result of meticulous preparations, led to the liberation of Strasbourg. Leclerc had steadfastly held to his oath made at Koufra. Attached to the lre army (led by Lattre), the 2nd armoured division participated in reducing the Colmar pocket. The Alsace campaign was also gruelling and cost many lives. Leclerc requested a transfer to the American operation. After a period of leave at Châteauroux, during the course of which a part of the Division, on Langlade's orders, participated in reducing the Royan pocket (15-17 April 1945), Leclerc finally convinced the Allies to join the final combat in Germany, the high point being the storming of Berchtesgaden when the French flag was finally hoisted above Hitler's villa on the 5th of May.

Superior commander of troops in the far East under the orders of admiral Thierry d'Argenlieu, high-commissioner and commandant-in-chief, Leclerc left for Indochina with a dual mission: to re-establish French sovereignty and to represent France in forcing the Japanese to surrender. His time in Ceylan spent under admiral Mountbatten convinced him that diplomatic and political action should be integral to his manoeuvres. More than many of his contemporaries, he realised the importance of the national movement in Vietnam. He re-established order in Cochinchine and in Annam at the end of 1945 - beginning of 1946 and, returning to Tonkin, simultaneously prepared the military and diplomatic action (Sainteny - Hô Chi Minh agreements of the 6 March 1946). His ideas about men on the ground were opposed to the principles of those who, such as de Gaulle or d'Argenlieu, Moutet or Bidault, risked undermining French Union by their measures more often taken by forced than by agreement. He subsequently requested another transfer. In July 1946, he was appointed inspector of ground troops in North Africa, a posting that was interrupted by a mission in Indochina on the request of the president of the President of the Council Léon Blum in December 1946. Leclerc did not dismiss the idea of an agreement with the nationalist leaders but he refused to be drawn into any spiralling military offensives. He declined the offer to succeed d'Argenlieu, fearing political isolation and the risk of not receiving the resources he requested.

He then returned to his duties as Inspector, which had been extended to include the army, navy and air force. Faced with the political difficulties in North Africa, he was in favour of a more moderate evolution of the situation over time, less extreme in its ends than for Indochina. However, on the 28th November 1947, his plane crashed near the border of Algeria and Morocco near to Colomb-Béchar. He died along with seven officers from his squadron and four flight engineers. The leader's public funeral was held on the 8th December, for which de Gaulle wrote: "Never was there any mediocrity about him, neither in his thoughts nor in his speech nor his acts" He was posthumously awarded the title of Marshal of France in 1952. His courage, tenacity, and influence on his soldiers and his sudden death, have all contributed to making him a legendary character and ensuring his place in the history books.

Born in Paris on 27 November 1898, Jacques Stosskopf began military service in 1917 as an artillery cadet and received the Croix de Guerre at the end of World War I. He joined the Ecole Polytechnique in 1920 and opted for a career in maritime engineering in 1924. Appointed head of the section for the construction of new craft at the Lorient naval shipyard in October 1939, he was promoted to first-class chief engineer of maritime engineering in November at the age of 41. During the first few months of the war, he contributed to the important role of the shipyard in maritime operations, in particular the development of the system used to sweep German underwater mines. From the arrival of German submarines at the port in 1940, the chief engineer, under the pretext of supervising the work of his staff as closely as possible, continued to inspect the docks. A fluent speaker of German as a result of his Alsatian origins, Jacques Stosskopf won the trust of the occupying forces.

The authoritarian engineer, with his strict, cold demeanour, was soon regarded by personnel at the shipyard as an enthusiastic collaborator who would scrupulously inspect tasks given to the French workers by the Germans, even inside the workshops. Kriegsmarine officers became accustomed to the presence of the engineer around the cavities and basins. When the Lorient-Kéroman base became operational at the end of 1941, his privileged relationship with the general staff of the enemy meant that he became one of the few Frenchman to enter the base.

With his exceptional memory, for four years Jacques Stosskopf observed the submarines that crossed the Port-Louis channel: iron cross, ace of spades, fish and sirens, laughing bovidae from a famous brand of cheese ?he scrupulously noted the insignias painted on the kiosks of the structures which, with their victory pennants, made it possible to identify these redoutable machines of war. Remarkably discrete, this soldier in the shadows kept a daily record of U-boat movements, which he recited from memory at meetings with the Alliance network, where he would pass on valuable information to British admirals. The dismantling of this network led to the arrest of Jacques Stosskopf on 21 February 1944.

Confined to a shack at a camp known as Schirmeck, he was transferred to another camp, Struthof, where he was executed with a single shot to the neck on 1 September 1944, shortly before the arrival of the Allies in Alsace. Having paid for his glorious contribution to the Resistance with his life, Jacques Stosskopf was posthumously promoted to Commander of the Legion of Honour by General de Gaulle in October 1945. On 6 July 1946, the Kéroman base was named in his honour.

Bertie Albrecht was born in Marseille on 15 February 1893 into a Protestant family. She qualified as a nurse and worked in a military hospital during the war. In 1919 she married a Dutch financier, Frédéric Albrecht, with whom she had two children. She left for London in 1924. On her return to Paris in 1931, she devoted her time to the League of Human Rights and Women condition. In 1934, she took up the cause of German refugees fleeing fascism, helping them to find work, money, and accommodation. She did the same for the refugees of the Spanish civil war. During the war she was mobilised as superintendent at Usines Fulmen to Vierzon. Profoundly shocked by the armistice, she refused to accept defeat and moved to the free zone where she met up with her friend Henri Frenay who had escaped from Germany and with whom she organised what was to become the major Resistance movement "Combat", first in Vichy and then in Lyon.

She was arrested by the Vichy government, end of November 1942, placed under administrative detention and refused a lawyer or a trial. She went on hunger strike to obtain the right to a trial and her demand was met after 13 days. After being transferred to Saint-Joseph prison in Lyon she was judged six months later and was condemned to spend the rest of the war in an internment camp set up by the Vichy government. She feigned madness, and was interned at the psychiatric hospital in Bron, from which she escaped with the help of a commando raid organised by the Combat movement on 23 December 1942. Hunted by both the French and German police, she spent two months in hiding in the region of Toulouse before joining Henri Frenay in Cluny and taking up the clandestine struggle once again. She was denounced and arrested by the Gestapo in Mâcon on 28 May 1943. She was taken to the Montluc prison in Lyon and then incarcerated at Fresnes, May 31 at 0:15, where she managed to escape the supervision of its guards and commits suicide by hanging in the night.

In May 1945 his body was found in the vegetable garden in the Fresnes prison and buried in the crypt of the Memorial Fighting France Mont Valerian. She was posthumously awarded the 'Croix de Compagnon de la Libération', the 'Médaille Militaire', the 'Croix de Guerre avec Palmes' and the 'Médaille de la Résistance'.

She was arrested by the Vichy government, end of November 1942, placed under administrative detention and refused a lawyer or a trial. She went on hunger strike to obtain the right to a trial and her demand was met after 13 days. After being transferred to Saint-Joseph prison in Lyon she was judged six months later and was condemned to spend the rest of the war in an internment camp set up by the Vichy government. She feigned madness, and was interned at the psychiatric hospital in Bron, from which she escaped with the help of a commando raid organised by the Combat movement on 23 December 1942. Hunted by both the French and German police, she spent two months in hiding in the region of Toulouse before joining Henri Frenay in Cluny and taking up the clandestine struggle once again. She was denounced and arrested by the Gestapo in Mâcon on 28 May 1943. She was taken to the Montluc prison in Lyon and then incarcerated at Fresnes, May 31 at 0:15, where she managed to escape the supervision of its guards and commits suicide by hanging in the night.

In May 1945 his body was found in the vegetable garden in the Fresnes prison and buried in the crypt of the Memorial Fighting France Mont Valerian. She was posthumously awarded the 'Croix de Compagnon de la Libération', the 'Médaille Militaire', the 'Croix de Guerre avec Palmes' and the 'Médaille de la Résistance'.

Charles Delestraint was born in Biache-Saint-Vaaste (Pas-de-Calais) in 1879 and admitted to the Saint-Cyr military academy in 1897. On 1 October 1900, the young second lieutenant chose the 16th infantry battalion as his outfit. In 1914, Delestraint took a brilliant, noteworthy part in the retreating French army's earliest fighting, but the Germans captured him during the attack on Chesnoy-Auboncourt on 30 August 1914. He spent four years in the Plasemburg POW camp and was released in December 1918. Then, Delestraint led a brilliant military career. A passionate interest in heavy cavalry led him to become second in command of the Versailles tank school in 1930. Promoted to the rank of colonel in 1932, he commanded the 505th Vannes tank regiment; in 1936 Delestraint became a general and took over the third tank brigade in Metz. As a reserve officer, he was recalled to active duty when the Second World War broke out in September 1939 and demobilised in July 1940.

Delestraint rejected the armistice, resisted the occupation and fiercely opposed Nazism; his Christian faith led him to loathe theories that debase human beings and espouse racism and anti-Semitism; he refused to believe that barbarism would replace civilisation. His opposition, which crystallised in 1942, was philosophical and theological. When Jean Moulin contacted him on 28 August 1942, both men agreed on the appropriateness of separating the military from the political in the resistance. Under the alias Vidal, he became head of the secret army that grouped together the Combat, Libération and Franc-Tireur networks' fighting units. Delestraint went underground and moved to Lyon, near Gestapo headquarters, where he put together the secret army's general staff: Frenay, Commandant Castaldo, General Desmazes, Hardy, Aubrac and Lassagne. In February 1943, Delestraint and Moulin went to London to coordinate the secret army's actions with those of the inter-allied command. Back in France, he developed the Resistance, in particular in Vercors. "Vidal" tirelessly worked on his troops' unification and operational cohesiveness and prepared demonstrative, occasional actions, preferably in the daytime. A series of arrests on 15 March 1943 decimated his staff. On Tuesday 8 June 1943, the Abwehr arrested Delestraint at the Muette metro stop while he was on his way to a secret meeting. After nine months of interrogation, during which the general disclosed no information, he was sent before the tribunal of Breslau and interned at Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp on 10 March 1944 as part of Nacht und Nebel. As the allies pressed forward, the prisoners were transferred to the Dachau concentration camp, where Delestraint was executed in cold blood on 19 April 1945.

For 23 years Jean Moulin, born into a republican, radical family in the south of France, served the Republic as a sub-prefect and prefect, except for a stint as Air Minister Pierre Cot's chief of staff during the Popular Front (1936), when, already determined to defend his country against Nazism and Fascism, he was involved in sending covert aid to Republican Spain. At the outbreak of war Moulin unsuccessfully tried to join the Air Force, but interior minister Albert Sarraut had no intention of losing one of his best prefects.

Moulin's first act of resistance took place in Chartres on 17 June 1940-he had been the prefect of Eure-et-Loir since January 1939-when he refused to sign a document drafted by the Germans falsely accusing Senegalese troops in the French Army of massacring civilians. Fearful of breaking under torture, he tried to kill himself. The affair was hushed up but Moulin managed to protect civilians from German atrocities. On 2 November 1940 the Vichy government dismissed the left-leaning, faithful servant of the Republic, who moved to Saint-Andiol in the Alpilles and contacted various Resistance movements in the southern zone. In October 1941 he went to London and became the Resistance's messenger to General de Gaulle, asking him for resources to develop propaganda and military action plans. De Gaulle gave Moulin a military mission in France: acting on his behalf as a liaison with the three underground movements to lead each one to create a military branch with links to Free France. Centralisation and coordination would take place in London under his orders. The head of Free France also appointed Moulin his delegate and the National Committee's representative for the unoccupied zone with the mission of uniting the movements' action. On 2 January 1942 he was parachuted into France with funds and transmitting equipment. He succeeded, not without difficulty, in convincing the heads of the three Resistance groups-Combat (Henri Frenay), Libération (Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vigerie) and Franc-Tireur (Jean-Pierre Lévy)-to join forces within the unified Secret Army, placed under the command, with General de Gaulle's consent, of General Delestraint. A coordinating committee was set up that led to their merger into the United Resistance Movements in January 1943. Moulin also set up units indispensable to the functioning of the Resistance: the Air and Sea Operations Service to transport agents to London, the information and propaganda office for exchanges between London and France, and the General Study Committee, a sort of think tank for the postwar government. Moulin was made Compagnon de la Libération on 17 October 1942. De Gaulle gave "Rex" (Moulin's pseudonym) the insignia at a moving ceremony during his second stay in London (14 February-20 March 1943). After the Allied landing in North Africa on 8 November 1942 and the German invasion of the unoccupied zone, De Gaulle appointed him his general representative for all of France and broadened his mission. To overcome Roosevelt's objections and reach an agreement with Giraud in North Africa, De Gaulle understood that he needed backing not just from the entire homeland Resistance, but also from men representing the old parties and trade unions, reconstituted in the National Resistance Council, a sort of underground parliament. On 8 May 1943 "Rex" announced the creation of the council, which made De Gaulle fighting France's only leader. After General Delestraint's arrest on 9 June, Moulin called a meeting of the Secret Army's leaders in Caluire (near Lyon) on 21 June to figure out what to do next. Klaus Barbie arrested all of them. The Lyon Gestapo chief personally tortured Moulin, who knew everything about the Resistance but did not talk. He died, probably at the Metz railway station on 8 July 1943. On 6 October 1946 Georges Bidault gave his sister, Laure Moulin, the military medal and the Croix de Guerre during a ceremony in Béziers. André Malraux paid him the nation's homage when his ashes were moved to the Pantheon on 19 December 1964. The leader of the "Shadow Army" entered history.