General in the Free French forces of World War II. A captain in the 4th French Infantry Division, he refused to surrender to the Germans in 1940. He was captured but escaped to the UK. He was appointed general officer commanding French Equatorial Africa and governor of Chad and Cameroun for the Free French, and changed his name to avoid repercussions against his family in France. Leclerc's troops joined the British in North Africa and the US 3rd Army under
Patton for the
D-Day landings on 6 June 1944. Leclerc received the German surrender of Paris on 25 August 1945, and then took his division to Alsace to liberate Strasbourg.
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