Date of birth:

March 31st, 1921 (Istanbul, Turkey)

Date of death:

May 28th, 2018 (Clamart, France)

Nationality:

French

He was preparing for the Colonial School competition when war broke out in September 1939.

Although not of French nationality, he obtains to take the competitive examination of the National School of France d'Outre-Mer (where he will be received in October 1940) and tries to engage with the gendarmerie of his home in June 1940. In vain.

Having been advised by the gendarmes to go down to Bordeaux where the government had withdrawn, he went there by bicycle, leaving the capital on June 12, 1940. Arrived in Bordeaux on June 15, he left for the South. west thinking of reaching Morocco to engage there.

Refusing defeat, Yves de Daruvar manages to embark clandestinely in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, on June 21, 1940, on the Batory, a boat repatriating Polish troops to England. Arrived in Plymouth on June 23, he was able to disembark on the 25th and proceeded to London where, at Olympia Hall, he enlisted in the Free French Forces on July 1, 1940.

Assigned to the Battalion of Hunters of Camberley, it enters, on December 10, 1940, with the platoon of aspiring pupils of Camberley. Promoted aspirant, he left England and landed in Pointe-Noire in the Congo in June 1941.

Assigned to Largeau, Chad, to the 1st Company of Discovery and Combat (2nd Platoon) of the Senegalese Tirailleurs Regiment du Tchad (RTST), he participated with her in the first Fezzan campaign (February-March 1942) under the orders of General Leclerc.

Yves de Daruvar distinguished himself during the 2nd Fezzan campaign, with the Nomadic Group of Tibesti, by fulfilling to perfection the missions entrusted to him during the investment of the fortified position of Gatroun.

He took part in the campaigns of Tripolitania and Tunisia in 1943, where he led a long distance night patrol towards Oued El Hallouf and brought back very interesting information. He was twice wounded by shrapnel at Jebel Garci: to the head on April 21, 1943, and very seriously to the face and legs four days later.

Hospitalized in Egypt at Heliopolis, he interrupted his surgical treatment to be present during the campaign in France; he joined the recently formed Chad Marching Regiment (RMT) in Temara in Morocco on April 8, 1944 and left for England with the whole of General Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division as Colonel Dio's orderly officer.

Yves de Daruvar landed in Normandy at the beginning of August 1944 with the staff of the Division. Asking to resume combat activity, he was placed at the head of a section and fought in Normandy. After the liberation of Paris, at the head of the 1st section of the 10th company of the RMT, he distinguished himself magnificently by his audacity and calm in Andelot where, despite strong enemy resistance, he trained his men and crossed the city of 'an irresistible surge, taking many prisoners.

Seriously wounded in the legs on September 17, 1944 in Châtel-sur-Moselle, he could not finish the campaign.

Naturalized French in November 1944, Lieutenant Yves de Daruvar could then resume his studies at the Colonial School from which he graduated as a major. Demobilized in February 1946, he obtained a scholarship to study in the United States for six months.

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• - Yves DARUVAR (de) | L'Ordre de la Libération et son Musée