Date of birth:

September 10th, 1920 (Guingamp, France)

Date of death:

January 16th, 1989 (Quimper, France)

Nationality:

French (1870-present, Republic)

He prepares the Normal School and then undertakes on April 3, 1939 at the 2nd colonial infantry regiment in Brest.

Fighter in a frank body, Corporal René Crocq stands out from March 9, 1940, capturing three men of an enemy patrol.

Seriously injured on March 17, 1940, however, it manages to join the French lines located 2 km from the place of the action.

He is decorated with the military medal and, evacuated on the Autun Hospital and then on Brest where he joined the 2nd Ric in May 1940 and participates in the defense of Landerneau.

Refusing the defeat, René Crocq embarks on June 19, 1940 in Conquet (North Finistère) for England and commits July 1st in French forces. It is sent in convalescence to Wellinborough and assigned to the hunter battalion in Camberley.

Promu Sergeant in August 1941, he leaves for the AEF and participate, under the orders of Leclerc, with the 12th Company of the Senegalese tirailleurs regiment of Chad (RTST), to the Fezzan campaigns.

He then fights in Tripolitan and Tunisia where he is cited for the cool of which he shows with his men during a violent bombardment on May 9, 1943.

He then took part, within the 2nd DB, with the 2nd company of the 1st Battalion of the Chad Walk Regiment (RMT), in the Normandy campaign. It is then distinguished during hard fights of the 10th and 11th of August, causing several times his men on nests of enemy machine guns and during the battle of Paris.

René Crocq participates in the Campaign des Vosges then to that of Alsace where he is illustrated once again on December 2, 1944, during the attack of the village of Friesenheim where he is the first to enter, after losing the two-thirds of the staff of his group. He is himself seriously injured by attacking Germans entrenched in a cellar.

He joined his unit on February 7, 1945 and participates in the German campaign until the end of hostilities.

Chief Sergeant at the end of the war, he was promoted submir. September 25, 1946.

From 1947 to 1949 it serves as lieutenant in Madagascar where he was cited in the order of the division and, from 1951 to 1953, Indochina, at the Vietnam and Tonkin Center where he receives two new quotes.

Promoted Captain in 1954, René Crocq was then in AEF (1956-1959) and in Algeria (1959-1962)

In 1964 René Crocq was promoted to the battalion before retiring the following year.

Promoted Lieutenant Colonel de Reserve in 1971.

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• - René CROCQ | L'Ordre de la Libération et son Musée