Second only to De Gaulle, Leclerc was France’s most famous and revered fighting general. Following the Fall of France in 1940 he was one of the first to join De Gaulle’s Free French Forces in London. During the Liberation of France, Leclerc commanded the French 2nd Armoured Division and took the formal surrender of Paris in August 1944.
He was killed in an aircrash in 1947 and was posthumously created a Marshal of France.
