French Forces

I love Paris in the Summer ...

US National Archive.

French tanks of General Leclerc's 2nd French Armoured Division (note the Map-of-France emblem) in relaxed deployment, 25 August 1944. The precise location of this 'photo is identified by the shop in the background - the Librairie Rive Gauche, on the junction of the Boulevard Saint-Michel and the Rue Vaugirard, looking across the junction in the direction of the Sorbonne. (Ah yes, I remember it well.) Actual fighting during the liberation of Paris was quite localised. Two of the hot spots were quite close to this location - downhill around the Isle de la Cité, where the Germans (in obsolete French tanks) and the Communist Parisian Policemen fought out their inconclusive shoot-out around the Préfecture de Police and, even closer, back along the Rue Vaugirard, where fierce battles were fought around German barricades close to the street entrances of the Palais de Luxembourg (currently housing the French Sénat). As a citizen of a country not directly involved in WW2, I am always interested to find 'photos of wartime locations with which I have become familiar in more recent, happier times. Many of these are in and around Paris. Ah, Paris ... must get there again soon ... JR.