Giraud and de Gaulle Shaking Hands at Casablanca Conference

Image size: 1600 x 1308 pixel. 666 KB
Date: Sunday, 24 January 1943
Place: Casablanca, Morocco
Artist: Lieutenant H.A. Mason

On 24 January 1943, the final day of Casablanca Conference, Morocco, the journalists assembled on the lawn behind Roosevelt’s villa. Four white chairs sat empty before the scrum of reporters. Shortly after noon, the door to the villa opened, and Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, and Henri Giraud walked out, while Franklin Roosevelt was carried to his chair. The whirling of film and clicking of cameras quickly replaced the murmurs of disbelief.

“When the Press reporters saw us both they could scarcely believe their eyes, or, when they were told we had been there for nearly a fortnight, their ears,” wrote Churchill.

Roosevelt and Churchill hoped to bring the competing factions of the French resistance together in Casablanca, but their attempt proved futile. There would be no headlines touting a new, unified French war effort. But photographs showing American, British, and French leaders together would galvanize Allied propaganda efforts. As Giraud, Roosevelt, and Churchill traded small talk and offered occasional smiles for the cameras, a solemn-faced de Gaulle smoked a cigarette. A photographer wanted more—something that didn’t smack of a command performance—and urged Giraud and de Gaulle to shake hands. The generals ignored the suggestion, until the president prodded them. “Why not shake hands?” said Roosevelt. “You two Frenchmen are loyal to your country, and that warrants a cordial handshake anytime.”

They stood, de Gaulle pulling the cigarette from his mouth and holding it to the side, and managed a fleeting handshake. Unable to capture the moment, the photographers called for them to do it again. The second shake was no less awkward. After Giraud and de Gaulle departed, Churchill moved over to sit by Roosevelt and talk further with the reporters and war correspondents gathered before them. Roosevelt began by reading a background statement and then spoke from some notes for about fifteen minutes.

Source :
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_en_France
https://www.gettyimages.com/search/2/image?family=editorial&phrase=giraud+de+gaulle
https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/casablanca-film-mit-humphrey-bogart-und-ingrid-bergman-a-1170512.html
https://time.com/5101354/churchill-fdr-casablanca-photo/

General Leclerc and French Tank Crew

Image size: 1600 x 1417 pixel. 633 KB
Date: Thursday, 17 August 1944
Place: Ecouché, Orne Department, Northwestern France
Photographer: Unknown

General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque (Commander of the 2nd French Armored Division) Speaks with crew members of the M4 Sherman - nicknamed "Auerstaedt" - of 1st Company / 501e Régiment de chars de combat (501e RCC), at Ecouché, Northwestern France, 17 August 1944. The crew members are: Bernard Gagneux (commander), Raymond Legrand (gunner), Robert Le Gall (machine gun driver), and René Perrot (driver). All of them wears USA work-overalls HBT (one piece herringbone twill): the first soldier wearing the first model of this suit, while the rest wears the second model. They were also wears US leggings and French berets. When the French army joins the Allies, in the principle they keep their uniforms, then they're started to use British uniforms and ended with US uniforms. They would use all kinds of helmets from all of these armies, mixed with French overcoat headwear and French badges and stripes. Leclerc himself wears a French cap, light-colored US shirt, USA Winter Jacket or Tank Jacket, and - as a distinctive sign - he also wear all kinds of British battledress or combat uniforms, while the pants and leggings is also a British one (in this case, by the look of the pocket button, it is possibly a 1940 Pattern).

Source :

http://www.panzernet.com/foro4/showthread.php?11073-Uniformes-mezclados/page3

General Leclerc and Captured French SS Volunteers

Image size: 1600 x 937 pixel. 656 KB
Date: Monday, 7 May 1945
Place: Bad Reichenhall, Oberbayern, Germany
Photographer: Unknown

Captive Frenchmen from the 33. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS Charlemagne (französische Nr. 1) and Wehrmacht stand in front of Général de Division Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque (22 November 1902 - 28 November 1947), the commander of the 2nd Armored Division of the Free French forces, after their captured in the German spa town Bad Reichenhall, 7 May 1945. Front row far left is LVF Leutnant Paul Briffaut (8 August 1918 - 8 May 1945); at his right with feldmütze and trying to look at the photographer is Waffen-Untersturmführer Serge Hermann Louis Théodore Krotoff (11 October 1911 - 8 May 1945); 2nd row far left (we can only see his neck and ''Schulterklappen'' rank) is Waffen-Obersturmführer Robert Doffat. These captives held themselves with dignity and even defiance. When General Leclerc called them traitors and said: “How could you, the French, wear someone else’s uniform?” one of them replied: “You yourselves wear someone else’s uniform – the American one!” (the division was equipped by the Americans). They say it angered Leclerc, and he gave orders to shoot the prisoners! Here is the background behind this one-of-its-kind story: At the beginning of May 1945, 13 French soldiers of the Charlemagne Division were convalescent in a german hospital in the west. They were captured by US troops and sent to the Gebirgsjäger barracks of Bad-Reichenhall along with others germans POWs.Then they learned that the POW camp was to be seized by French Gaullist troops, so the 13 men decided to escape (by the way, one of them was not SS but Wehrmacht: Leutnant Paul Briffaut who was LVF member and being wounded. He was already in the hospital when the LVF melted within the SS Charlemagne. For this reason he was not versed within the SS, and his promotion as an Waffen-Untersturmführer only exist on paper. As a Vichyst french army ROTC aspirant, he joined the LVF when the Vichy army was dissolved in 1942). Two other officer and and three soldiers were in this group: Waffen-Obersturmführer Robert Doffat, Waffen-Untersturmführer Serge Krotoff, Waffen-Grenadier Raymond Payras (some sources said his rank as Waffen-Untersturmführer), Waffen-Unterscharführer Jean Jules Eugene Robert (1 Februari 1915 - 8 May 1945), and SS-Mann Jacques Ponnau. Krotoff was a veteran of the 8. Freiwilligen Sturmbrigade Frankreich and had been wounded at the Mokre battle in Ukrainia, July 1944. In 6 May 1945, the 13 Frenchmen were captured by troops of 4th Company/Regiment of Tchad/2nd Free French Armoured Division (this company, under command of Lieutenant Ferrano, was formed with Communist Spaniards who fled Franco's Spain after the Civil War and formed the hardcore of the terrorist ''resistance'' in southwest France in 1944). The commander of the division, General Leclerc, came to inspect the newly captured prisoners. His first decision was to secretly remove one the SS men who was the son of a Free French high officer (friend of him). This young SS French volunteer was put later in a plane and clandestinely sent back to his father. Then Leclerc started to questioned the prisoners, telling them blatantly that they were traitors because they were wearing a foreign uniform, the German one. One of the SS prisoner bravely answered: ''Sir, you too wear a foreign uniform, the American one!'' (the 2nd Free French Armoured Division was uniformed and equiped by the USA). Hearing this, Leclerc went pissed of and unhesitantly ordered the execution of all of the the prisoners - without trial or court martial - because they were ''arrogant''! The prisoners were shot at a place known as Karlstein in the afternoon of May 8th 1945, the very day the war was over! Under pressure of the two Catholic chaplain of the division, Father Fouquet and Maxime Giaume, General Leclerc conceded a religious assistance. In this ceremony were presents: General Leclerc, Major Lebec (division's G-2), Fathers Fouquet and Giaume, 2nd Lieutenant Cortadellas and Lieutenant Ferrano (whose 4th Company furnished the firing squad). The young Lieutenant who commanded this squad was astonished to have to do the job and wanted to disobey the order, but he had no choice, at last he talked with respect to the prisoners. They were shot 4 by 4, all were denied to be shot at the back as Leclerc initially ordered, and the firing squad commander authorized them to be shot standing in front. They also denied a bandage on the eyes and all shouted ''Vive la France''. Still angry, Leclerc ordered the corpses to be let unburied. They were buried then by US troops three days later. After the war, Major Lebec referred to this story as a ''dirty affair''! This killing was known thanks to Father Giaume who tried to find and advise the families of the SS after the war. Of those 13 prisoners captured, 12 were shot and one (still unidentified) was spared. In 1948, during a flight in Algeria, the plane of General Leclerc crashed in the desert. Some rumors says it was sabotaged on De Gaulle's orders. True or not, fact is that the flight registered a total of 12 men, including Leclerc, but the corpse of  the 13th passenger, unknown, was found inside and never explained... a winkle of Destiny!

Source:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=32087