====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
NY Times June 18, 2010 Gen. Marcel Bigeard, French Hero of 3 Wars, Dies at 94 By MAÏA DE LA BAUME PARIS — Gen. Marcel Bigeard, one of France’s most decorated veterans, who led troops in the French Resistance in World War II and in wars in Algeria and Indochina, died Friday in Toul, France, where he lived. He was 94. His death was confirmed by his wife, Gabrielle Grandemange. General Bigeard, who was wounded in battle five times and escaped from prisoner-of-war camps three times, achieved legendary status in France. Nicknamed “the Heroic Bigeard” by Charles de Gaulle, he participated in battles against the Nazis and against rebels in the French colonies of Indochina and Algeria. “He has been called the best paratrooper in the world,” Martin Windrow, a British military historian, told The Associated Press, “and whatever the truth of that, he most certainly has a claim as the most battle-proven.” In 1954, he parachuted with his battalion into the besieged French base of Dien Bien Phu, in Indochina, and fought the Vietminh, the Vietnamese Communist and nationalist forces, until France’s defeat in 1954. In the midst of Algeria’s war of independence from France, his parachute regiment regained control of Algiers, the capital, in 1957. A profile of General Bigeard (who was a colonel at the time) in Time magazine in 1958 captured his tough-as-nails persona: “A martinet, but the idol of his men, Bigeard whipped them into shape by running them as much as 15 miles at a time. He made them shave every day, no matter where they were, doled out raw onions instead of the traditional wine ration because ‘wine reduces stamina.’ ” Born in Toul in 1916, Marcel Bigeard started his career as a bank clerk before joining the French Army in 1939. He was captured by the Germans in June 1940, but escaped a year later to join the colonial infantry in Senegal. In 1944 he parachuted into France to lead an underground Resistance group. General Bigeard served in the army until 1974, retiring as a four-star general before being appointed deputy defense minister under President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and later, a legislator in France’s lower house of Parliament. His reputation was tarnished in 1999 when he revealed to Agence France-Presse, after the release of one of his war memoirs, that the French military had used torture during the Algerian war. In July 2000, he declared that torture in Algeria had been a “necessary evil,” and described it as “a mission given by the political powers.” But he never specified whether he had taken part. General Bigeard wrote 16 books, most of them memoirs, and received among others honors, the Grand Croix de la Légion d’Honneur, one of France’s highest distinctions, as well as the Medal of the Resistance and the Distinguished Service Order from the British government. Besides his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Marie-France. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
