Paroles d'un français libre

Born in 1921, Normandy-born Michel Cherrier looks back on his youth: the defeat of 1940, the occupation of Caen, arrests, the demarcation line, his escape across the Pyrenees at the end of 1942 - at an altitude of over 2,000 m - with a single goal: to join Free France. Incarcerated for six months in Spain, he joined the French navy in 1943. In the United States, he embarked in May 1944 aboard the destroyer escort Le Marocain. This was followed by intense missions in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Provence landings and Operation Goldflake. He served on the cruiser Suffren in Indochina in 1946-47, before returning to a devastated Caen after demobilization...

 

Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, the author will turn 103 in early 2024. His account is frank, precise and vivid, with the unspoken viewpoint of a French sailor in WW2. Against the backdrop of the harsh ordeals of the navy, the Giraud-de Gaulle tug-of-war and the start of the Indochina War. Accompanied by numerous personal photos, drawings and maps.