Welcome to Algeria Stamps

Marshal Leclerc

Leclerc, Philippe de Hauteclocque, (1902-1947). Marshal of France who liberated Paris on August 24, 1944. After Saint-Cyr, Saumur then the War School, from which he graduated as a major, Philippe de Hauteclocque was appointed staff captain of the 4th division in 1939. Taken prisoner by the Germans, he managed to escape and joined General de Gaulle in London. He distinguished himself in 1941 by the action he undertook on the African continent. After rallying Cameroon and Chad to the cause of Free France, he succeeded in reconquering Fezzan by wresting it from the hands of the Italians. Joining British General Montgomery in Tripoli, he participated in the Tunisian campaign and was charged by General de Gaulle with training the 2nd Armored Division in Morocco. Composed in particular of Senegalese riflemen from Chad and African hunters from Dakar, the 2nd armored division landed in France on August 1, 1944. On August 22, after several battles, it headed towards Paris, where it entered triumphantly on August 24. Leclerc liberated Strasbourg on November 23, 1944 and led his division to Berchtesgaden, Germany. Appointed senior commander of the French forces in Indochina the following year, he made himself master of Cochinchina, then of Hanoi and took into account the desire for independence manifested by the people of Vietnam by being at the origin of the agreement of March 6, 1946 recognizing Vietnam as an independent state. Refusing the title of high commissioner offered to him by Léon Blum, then head of government, he was named inspector general of the French forces in North Africa. He died in a highly controversial plane crash in 1947.