Date of birth:

January 9th, 1905 (Saint-Dié, France)

Date of death:

July 26th, 1978 (Bourgoin-Jallieu, France)

Nationality:

French

Candidate Reserve Officer in Saumur in November 1924, he left it as a second lieutenant and finished his military service as an officer with the 29th Dragons in Provins.

Agent of the Compagnie de culture cotonnière du Niger in Diré, Sudan, he was on leave in France when war was declared.

Mobilized as lieutenant, Julien Chabert is sent to Batié in Ivory Coast, to the 33rd Company of BTS n ° 6 for the supervision of the reinforcement detachments.

He heard the appeal of June 18 and decided to rally the Free French Forces.

On July 11, 1940, he went to the English Gold Coast with all the European officers and non-commissioned officers of Batié (for this reason he was sentenced to death in absentia in December 1941 by the Clermont-Ferrand military court).

Arrived in free French Cameroon, Julien Chabert was first assigned to the Cameroon police force and then, on October 1, 1940, to the 1st Cameroon Rifle Regiment (1st RTC) in training in Douala. From November 5 to 20, 1940, he took part in the capture of Libreville at the end of the Gabon campaign and received a citation to the order of the Regiment.

Back in Cameroon, the Battalion became March Battalion No. 4 (BM 4) in January 1941 and, after spending five weeks in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, reached Palestine.

With his unit, Lieutenant Chabert took part in operations in Syria in June 1941 then was sent with his unit to Ethiopia from August 1941 until May 1942.

Promoted in the meantime captain in March 1942, he reached the Levant in June 1942 until BM 4 joined the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Free French Division (1st DFL) in Libya in January 1943.

Captain Chabert, company commander, fought in Tunisia, taking an important part in the battle of Takrouna on May 11, 12 and 13, 1943.

During the Italian campaign, during the fighting of Monticelli near Pontecorvo, on May 19, 1944, he succeeded in keeping his skirmishers nailed to the ground by enemy fire in place, thereby decisively influencing their success. of the day. Seriously wounded by gunshot during this operation, Julien Chabert only allowed himself to be evacuated after having passed the instructions to his replacement.

He joined the BM 4 as soon as his wound had healed, and took part in the Provence landings in August 1944, where he served as the battalion's liaison officer, then in all the battles of the 1st DFL as far as the Rhine.

Julien Chabert was then demobilized and resumed his place at the Niger office.

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• - Julien CHABERT | L'Ordre de la Libération et son Musée