Coquoin, Roger

Date of birth:: March 14th, 1897 (Gagny, France)
Date of death:: December 29th, 1943 (Paris, XVIe, France)
Nationality:: French

Biography

After obtaining the baccalaureate, he was called up in January 1916 in the artillery.

It stands out in Verdun and on the Somme.

Demobilized as a second lieutenant, he returned to work at the end of hostilities and began studying pharmacy and, at the same time as the examination for the Internship, he successively prepared at the Sorbonne certificates in general chemistry, general physics and physical chemistry.

In 1921, he became the intern of Doctor Meillière at the Laënnec hospital; in 1922, he was chosen by Professor Carnot to be his head of laboratory at the Hôtel-Dieu. He is a laureate of the Faculty and of the Boarding school, and the silver medal of the Boarding school and befriends Professor Richet, who will enter into resistance at his side.

During the declaration of war in 1939, Roger Coquoin refused to be assigned to Scientific Research while, since 1929, he had directed the chemistry laboratory at the Academy of Medicine in Paris and joined the 237th Regiment as a reserve officer. heavy artillery (237th RAL) in Dijon.

Captain during the French campaign, he commanded the 13th battery of the regiment (155 guns) which, on the Somme during the German offensive, put five enemy tanks out of action. Wounded on June 5, 1940, he only consented to be evacuated when his men were safe. Hospitalized near Paris, soon to be invaded, he escaped the Germans by gaining the south of France by makeshift means.

Demobilized on July 27, 1940, Roger Coquoin returned to the capital where he resumed his duties as head of his laboratory. Refusing defeat, he soon looks for a way to get in touch with Free France.

In January 1941 he met Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves, the first envoy sent from London and responsible for the Nimrod intelligence network. It was from this time that Roger Coquoin - alias François - organized clandestine centers responsible for transmitting information on the occupying army to London. At the same time, he strives to recruit men, sure and determined, for direct action. But the arrest, on January 22, 1941, of d'Estienne d'Orves made connections with London very difficult.

At the beginning of 1942 Roger Coquoin met Maurice Ripoche, founder a year earlier of the resistance movement "Those of the Liberation" (CDLL) and, under his command, extended the action of the movement, gathered new volunteers in Paris and in the provinces, especially in Normandy, Champagne, Burgundy, Vendée. He came into contact with other clandestine groups in the occupied zone and even in the southern zone. The links by radio and airdrops are becoming more and more regular and arrests more and more numerous.

In addition, its capabilities in chemistry allow it to develop detonators and abrasive pellets intended for German trucks and the laboratory at the Academy of Medicine luis regularly serves as a clandestine meeting place with those in charge of the movement, Ripoche and Médéric. .

In March 1943, the arrest of Maurice Ripoche, executed in Cologne on July 20, left Coquoin, alias Lenormand, solely responsible at the head of CDLL. He tries in vain to get Maurice Ripoche to escape and goes into hiding, quitting his job; Faced with the threats hanging over him, he must also abandon his home, never staying in one place for very long.

Lenormand organizes action and sabotage groups with a constant concern to unify the various movements, thus immediately rallying the views of "Max" - alias Jean Moulin - creator of the National Council of the Resistance (CNR) within which Coquoin was the representative for CDLL from its first meeting in Paris rue du Four on May 27, 1943.

From June 1943, he federated to the groups of free corps already constituted in CDLL those of the group "Vengeance" of Dr Vic Dupont and Wetterwald.

When the Secret Army (AS) was created in the northern zone in the summer of 1943, Coquoin was given command of Region P which, in addition to Paris, included nine departments. He acts in close liaison with André Boulloche, military delegate for Region P, who arrived from England in mid-September 1943.

While the grip of the Gestapo tightens around him (search of his laboratory and of his relatives) Roger Coquoin goes, on December 29, 1943, to the home of one of his deputies in the building at 4 rue des Frères Périer in Paris. It's a mousetrap. He tries to flee. A burst of submachine guns hit him, fatally injuring him. Transferred to the Hôpital de la Pitié, he died there the same day; His body has never been found.