Colonna d'Istria, Paulin

Date of birth:: July 27th, 1905 (Petreto-Bicchisano, France)
Date of death:: June 4th, 1982 (Toulon, France)
Nationality:: French

Biography

He also intended for a military career and, after having followed the courses of the college of Autun then those of the school of officers of Saint-Maixent, serves in North Africa during the campaign of Rif until 1926.

Lieutenant in 1930, he chose the Gendarmerie.

Promoted captain, he was posted in 1936 to North Africa where he was at the time of the declaration of war in September 1939.

He did not accept defeat and, having heard General de Gaulle's appeal on June 18, 1940, he looked for a way to act.

In January 1943, when he had just been appointed deputy commander of the Gendarmerie in North Africa, he was appointed to replace the commander of Saule at the head of a secret mission (Pearl Harbor) in Corsica, with the British services agreement.

He formed a Franco-English team in which he enrolled two of his parents. He is ready to leave but, held in hospital for health reasons, his cousins and an English radio leave without him. In March 1943, Paulin Colonna d'Istria got in touch with Commander Lejeune, liaison officer between General Giraud's office and the British SOE, and formed with him a second team with the mission of unifying and coordinating the movements of Resistance in Corsica.

On April 4, 1943, he landed clandestinely, via an English submarine, on the Corsican eastern coast and, through the maquis and the mountains, joined the Niolo region where he established his provisional headquarters. It relies on the Front National movement to unify the various resistance movements which are very divided. The FN will go from 2,000 to 9,000 members in May. They will be 12,000 and more in September, at the time of liberation.

In parallel with the work of unifying the movements and the recruitment of snipers, the equipment work continues through many difficulties. The radio link is established with North Africa. More than fifty parachuting fields are spotted and signaled. The weapons are received by air and by sea in a context of arrests and repression. Wanted by the Italians, often detected, sometimes actually pursued, Paulin Colonna d'Istria escapes arrest.

On June 9, 1943, he fortuitously left with a British submarine for Algiers. Accompanied by a radio operator, Luc Le Fustec (alias Michel), he brings back to Corsica, 3 weeks later, on the night of July 2 to 3, with the Casabianca submarine, 12 tons of weapons and various materials. . He joined the departmental committee of the National Front and organized the preparatory struggle for the landing which took place on September 11, 1943 in Ajaccio and which liberated, with the insurrection of the resistance, the territory of Corsica.

The squadron leader Colonna d'Istria was then placed by the French Committee for National Liberation (CFLN) at the disposal of the Prefect of Corsica before being seconded, in November 1943, to the command of the French Forces in Great Britain then to enter Paris with General Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division on August 25, 1944.

After the war, he was assigned to the command of the gendarmerie in Algiers then in Lyon. Promoted colonel of the Gendarmerie in 1947 then brigadier general in 1956, he then commanded the gendarmerie of the French Forces in Germany. RPF candidate in 1951, he was elected deputy for Algiers but he quickly resigned from his mandate.