Date of birth:

December 26th, 1897 (Rouen, France)

Date of death:

March 1st, 1956 (Paris, Ve, France)

Nationality:

French

Mobilized in January 1916 to the 5th Colonial Infantry Regiment, he left for the front in March 1917.

He received a citation to the order of the army corps for his attitude during the fighting in the Marne in July 1918. He then followed the EOR courses at Saint-Cyr and was appointed midshipman in February 1919.

Demobilized in October 1919, he studied philosophy at the Grand Séminaire de Rouen. Very quickly he was destined for the priesthood and in 1921 entered the novitiate of Grignon.

He was ordained a priest on July 13, 1924 and in 1926 obtained his doctorate in theology. He was appointed to his post in Rome as bursar of the seminary and vice-procurator of the congregation.

In 1932 and 1933, he was appointed prosecutor. The following year, he was attached to the apostolic vicariate of Brazzaville, where he was mobilized in 1939 with the rank of lieutenant. Assigned to the Régiment de tirailleurs Senegalais du Tchad (RTST) in April 1940, he joined the Free French Forces on August 27, 1940, at the same time as the Middle Congo.

Promoted captain in September 1940, he was appointed, on March 1, 1941, to head the 3rd company of Marching Battalion No. 4 (BM 4) created in December 1940. He then took part in the fighting in Syria in June 1941.

In July 1941, he left for East Africa with his battalion responsible for monitoring Djibouti.

Returning to Lebanon in July 1942, he then took part in the campaign in Tunisia. On May 11, 1943, in Takrouna, training his men to attack, he was seriously wounded by shrapnel; however, he manages to remove the target goal with a single impulse and stay there for a whole day. Evacuated successively to hospitals in Tripoli, Alexandria, El Kantara and finally Beirut, he needed three months of care to get back on his feet. He was then decorated with the Cross of the Liberation by General de Gaulle.

Arrived in Brazzaville in November 1943, he was placed on special assignment and joined the mission of Monsignor Biechy in the Middle Congo.

Demobilized in October 1945, Raymond Defosse returned to his mission in Brazzaville. In 1951 he was appointed military chaplain in Mauritania, north of Senegal. At the cost of a thousand difficulties, he manages to build a chapel in Atar in the center of the country. But seriously affected by the disease and despite his physical courage, he was forced to return to France in September 1955.

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• - Raymond DEFOSSE | L'Ordre de la Libération et son Musée