Vocation : Military : Military career

Henri_Vanwaetermeulen

Henri Alexis Joseph Vanwaetermeulen (14 July 1862 – 16 July 1918) was a French general of the First World War who began his career as a private soldier. Enlisting into a line regiment in 1883 Vanwaetermeulen was promoted to sergeant major within two years and received his commission within five. He transferred to the Troupes de marine and saw service in several French colonies. In Tonkin Vanwaetermeulen was mentioned in dispatches for leading assaults on two forts and received the Colonial Medal. He saw further service in Madagascar, Senegal and Mauritania, much of it under the command of Joseph Gallieni, and by the outbreak of the First World War was a lieutenant-colonel.
Soon after the start of the war Vanwaetermeulen was promoted to colonel and received command of a colonial regiment. He saw action in all the major French operations of 1914–16, was mentioned in dispatches at the Second Battle of Champagne and the Battle of the Somme and received the Croix de Guerre. Promoted to général de brigade by 1917 he was mortally wounded during French counter-attacks following the German spring offensive. He was posthumously appointed a commander of the Legion of Honour.

Jens_Henrik_Nordlie

Jens Henrik Nordlie (18 January 1910 – 2 April 1996) was a Norwegian military officer, resistance fighter from World War II and businessperson. He participated in the Norwegian Campaign in 1940, and was a member of Milorg's leadership in 1941. He worked for the Norwegian High Command in London from 1943, leading one of the two sections of department 4 (FO IV). He contributed to the post-war investigation committee, Undersøkelseskommisjonen av 1945, where he wrote the appendix on the fighting in Norway in spring 1940. He was operative leader of the clandestine Stay behind in Norway. He was CEO of the company Narvesen from 1957 to 1975, and a co-founder of the organization Fritt Ord.

Arvid_Storsveen

Arvid Kristian Storsveen (9 July 1915 – 27 April 1943) was a Norwegian Military Officer and organizer of the secret agency XU, the main intelligence gathering organisation within occupied Norway during World War II.

Michel_Roquejeoffre

Michel Roquejeoffre (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl ʁɔkʒɔfʁ]; born 28 November 1933) is a retired French Army general. He commanded Operation Daguet, the French operations during the Gulf War. French forces, a part of the coalition forces, counted 18,000 soldiers and took a direct involvement in the battles with Iraqi forces, both on Kuwait and Iraqi territories.
Before that Roquejeoffre participated in the Algerian War and later missions in Chad, Lebanon and Cambodia. He entered Saint-Cyr in 1952. He retired in 1991.
Allied commander, U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. described Roquejeoffre in his memoirs as one of his most trusted confidants during the war. Roquejeoffre was awarded the Legion of Merit by the United States for his services in the Gulf War.

Pierre_Alexis_Ronarc'h

Pierre-Alexis Ronarc'h (French: [pjɛʁ alɛksi ʁɔnaʁ(k)]) was a French sailor and admiral, born on 22 November 1865 in Quimper and died 1 April 1940 in Paris.He is notable for commanding the French Brigade de Fusiliers Marins at the Battle of the Yser in 1914 during the First World War. Between 1915 and 1919 he was in command of the naval forces between Nieuwpoort (Belgium) and Antifer (north of Le Havre), called the Zone des Armées du Nord (ZAN). Based in Dunkirk, his mission was to keep German Navy ships and submarines out of the Dover Channel, in close collaboration with the British Dover Patrol.
In May 1919, the ZAN was dissolved and Ronarc'h became Chief of Staff of the French Navy, a post he held until 1 February 1920, when he was replaced by Henri Salaun.

Auguste_Léopold_Protet

Auguste Léopold Protet (Chinese: 卜羅德; 1808 – 1862) was a French Navy admiral. He fought in the Second Opium War, and was killed in the Taiping Rebellion at the Fengxian District of Shanghai on the afternoon of 17 May 1862.
He was born at Saint-Servan, France, and at sixteen he was admitted into the naval school of Angoulême. When he was 38, he received the commission of captain in the royal navy. At this time the English and French governments combined their efforts to put an end to the slave trade on the African coast, and Protet was employed in that service. After cruising three years on the coast of Africa he was appointed governor of Senegal, where he remained from 1850 to 1855. He served during the war with China, and was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral. He subsequently joined the expedition against the Taiping, who threatened an attack upon Shanghai, and he was killed during the engagement at Nanjao (南橋).
The French troops massacred 3,000 men, women and children in a nearby Chinese village in revenge for his death.The French aviso (corvette) Protet (F742) was named after him and saw active service until the 1980s.

Charles_Platon

René-Charles Platon (19 September 1886 – 28 August 1944) was a French admiral who was responsible for the Colonial Ministry under the Vichy government.
He was a passionate supporter of the Révolution nationale (National Revolution) of Vichy France, which he wanted to export to the colonies.
He was hostile to elected bodies, anti-Semitic, anti-Masonic and supported the back-to-the-soil movement.
He saw Britain as the enemy of France. After the Allied invasion of Normandy, he was captured by French partisans in the summer of 1944, given a summary trial, and executed.

François-Edmond_Pâris

François-Edmond Pâris (6 March 1806 in Paris – 8 April 1893 in Paris) was a French admiral, notable for his contribution to naval engineering during the rise of the steam, for his books, and for his role in organising the Musée national de la Marine.

Eugène_Mage

Eugène Abdon Mage (30 July 1837 – 19 December 1869) was a French naval officer and explorer of Africa. Mage published the first detailed description of the Toucouleur Empire created by El Hadj Umar Tall.