French Forces

Kieffer and his men

Philippe Kieffer and his commandos. Kieffer was born in Haiti in a family from Alsace. After his studies in France, he became a bank director in New York. At the declaration of war he volunteered in the french navy as a reserve officer, he was 40 years old. In 1940 he joined the Free French Naval Forces the day they were created. In may 1941 he got the autorisation to create a unit of "marine riflemen commandos". Selection for this unit was very harsh and they trained in Scotland. These soldier participated in the Dieppe raid and were used for night raids on the shores of France and Holland. On D-Day, the 177 "green berets" of Kieffer landed on Sword beach. They were the only french ground troops to land on the 6th of june. They suffered 21 killed and 93 wounded, Kieffer himself being almost instantly wounded by schrapnel and then refusing evacuation for 2 days. Kieffer was played by Christian Marquand in the movie The Longest Day. The movie is not very accurate considering that the germans had of course replaced the casino of Ouistreham by a bunker that the French commandos assaulted.