Charles Delestraint
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Charles Delestraint (March 12, 1879 - April 19, 1945) was a French general and member of the French Resistance during World War II.
He was born in Biache Saint-Waast, Pas de Calais.
Delestraint was captured in the beginning of the First World War and spent it as a prisoner of war. After the war he remained in the army where he was a proponent for the use of armoured forces. He also befriended Charles de Gaulle.
Delestraint retired in 1939 but was recalled to service after the outbreak of World War II. During the Battle of France, on June 3, 1940, he led the counterattack of armoured troops against Germans in Abbeville.
After the surrender of France on June 25, he retired to Bourg-en-Bresse where Henri Frenay recruited him for the French Resistance. Delestraint began to organize resistance in Lyon. He clandestinely visited Charles de Gaulle in London and agreed to lead the Armée Secrète group. He returned to France on March 24, 1943. However, due to informant René Hardy, he was arrested by the Gestapo on June 9 and interrogated by Klaus Barbie. He was taken to Natzweiler-Struthof and then to the Dachau concentration camp, where he was executed on April 19, only a few weeks before the war ended.
[edit] Honours
- Commander of the Legion of Honour
- Companion of the Ordre de la Libération
- Croix de Guerre 14-18 with palm
- Croix de Guerre 39-45
- Croix de Guerre form Belgium
