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Title:THE SECOND FRENCH ARMOURED DIVISION AND GENERAL DE GAULLE ARRIVE IN CHARTRES [Allocated Title]
Film Number:A70 135-2
Other titles:
Summary: Free French forces advance on their self-appointed goal, Paris.
Description: Units of General Leclerc's 2nd French Armoured Division are seen outside Chartres during a pause in their eastwards advance. A team of British AFPU cameramen is enthusiastically greeted by the people of Chartres. Half-tracks and jeeps belonging to Leclerc's division wind their way through the city past crowds of cheering inhabitants held back on the pavements by French troops acting as crowd controllers. A Guard of Honour from the French armoured division and members of the local FFI hold a brief ceremony in honour of the Resistance movement's dead and departed members. A 19 year-old armed with a captured MP 40 talks to a fellow FFI volunteer. Flanked by two of his ministers, Andre Le Troquer and Michel Debre, and local Resistance chiefs and police, General de Gaulle marches through Chartres, acknowledging the applause of its inhabitants. Arriving at the Préfecture, he pays his respects to a party of war-veterans before he goes inside with a group of local officials.
Production Details: Directorate of Public Relations, War Office (Production sponsor)
Army Film and Photographic Unit (Production company)
Collins (Sergeant) (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: Gaulle, Charles André Joseph Marie de (person)
Troquer, Andre le (person)
Debre, Michel (person)
Free French Forces, Div, Armoured, French, 2 (regiment/service)
British Army, Army Film and Photographic Unit (regiment/service)
Free French Forces, Forces Francaises de l'Interieur (regiment/service)
Keywords: armour, United States - halftrack: M3 & [French] (object name)
transport, United States military - light utility: jeep & [British] (object name)
armour, United States - SPG: M10 Wolverine (object name)
weapons, British - smallarm: Browning .50 cal machine gun (object name)
weapons, German - smallarm: MP 40 submachine gun & [captured] (object name)
celebrations, French - liberation: Paris (object name)
Chartres, Eure-et-Loire, France (geography)
Notes: Note: See with footage showing the 2nd French Armoured Division in Normandy - notably A70 129-8, 9 and 16, and 132-3 - and the liberation of Paris - A70 136-1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, 137-1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, and 140-9. In setting off towards Paris from Écouché, Leclerc was acting in defiance of the orders of his US corps commander, an act of insubordination fully endorsed by General de Gaulle.
Remarks: Good footage. Best seen with items listed above.
Documentation/associated material: for a journalistic account of the liberation of Paris, read 'Is Paris Burning?' by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins.
