Date of birth:

January 12th, 1913 (Caen, France)

Date of death:

April 19th, 1980 (Farnham, United Kingdom)

Nationality:

French

He was secretary of commercial attaché in Vienna (1932) before performing his military service with the 24th Infantry Regiment in 1934.

He resumed his functions of commercial attaché in Chicago (1935) and in The Hague (1938).

On September 3, 1939, he was mobilized in the 205th IR. In February 1940, he was transferred to the Air Force as a student pilot in Pau, in Battalion 136. In August, he was demobilized and was offered a post at the Ministry of Industry.

In March 1941, he joined the network of Free France "Ali-Tir" as agent P.2, but he was arrested on December 6 and remained in prison in Fresnes for almost a year.

Released on November 17, 1942, he managed to reach London by a pick-up operation on Lysander on December 22. Incorporated into the Free French Air Forces (FAFL) on January 12, 1943, he was seconded to the Central Intelligence and Action Bureau (BCRA) and completed internships at the parachute school and in several units of the Royal Air Force.

On August 16, 1943, he parachuted into France, as head of the Air Operations Office (BOA) of region B (Bordeaux). Chargé de mission of 2nd class, with the rank of commander and under the pseudonym of "Mariotte" (physicist of the 17th century), he fully organized the structure of his service and succeeded in receiving consignments of arms and equipment. He mounted several operations to evacuate or accommodate resistance fighters wanted by the authorities. He is helped for this by his younger brother Daniel and Claude Bonnier (Hypotenuse) or Jacques Nancy (Sape).

Following the arrest of the military delegate and many local leaders during the winter of 1943-1944, including Hypoténuse, Guy Chaumet hurriedly left Bordeaux. On February 25, 1944, his work was no longer possible.

In March 1944, he was appointed, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, first class official, military delegate for region A (Lille), the holder of which had just been arrested. Under dangerous conditions, Chaumet, under the pseudonym of "Cissoide", reorganized the networks for which it was responsible.

After the landing, he personally directed sabotage operations on the northern canals, organized the maquis of the Aisne and managed to protect the coal mines as well as the main industrial establishments in the region. Wounded while on duty in the Aisne in July, he was put on sick leave in October 1944.

Commercial attaché in London in 1945, then in Moscow in 1948, he became commercial advisor in Jakarta (1951), head of the economic expansion services in India (1953) before being assigned to Lisbon in 1957.

Head of the trade mission to Cairo in 1961, then to Warsaw the following year, Guy Chaumet was, in 1965, permanent delegate of France to the executive secretariat of the general agreement on tariffs and trade (GATT) in Geneva.

From 1966 to 1971, he was Senior Commercial Advisor in Washington and ended his career in Lisbon (1971-1978).

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• - Guy CHAUMET | L'Ordre de la Libération et son Musée