José Aboulker (5 March 1920 – 17 November 2009) was a French Algerian Jew and the leader of the anti-Nazi resistance in French Algeria in World War II. He received the U.S. Medal of Freedom, the Croix de Guerre, and was made a Companion of the Liberation and a Commander of the Légion d'honneur. After the war, he became a neurosurgeon and a political figure in France, who advocated for the political rights of Algerian Muslims.
André Essel (4 September 1918 – 31 March 2005) was the co-founder of Fnac, originally Fédération nationale d’achats des cadres, or National Purchasing Federation for Middle Managers, alongside Max Théret. He was also an anti-fascist activist and a believer in Trotskyism.
André Leroi-Gourhan (; French: [ləʁwa guʁɑ̃]; 25 August 1911 – 19 February 1986) was a French archaeologist, paleontologist, paleoanthropologist, and anthropologist with an interest in technology and aesthetics and a penchant for philosophical reflection.
Pierre Charles Albert Marie Langlais (2 December 1909 – 17 July 1986) was a senior French military officer who fought in World War II and the First Indochina War. Hailing from the Brittany region of France, Langlais was known as a tough and uncompromising character with an "unflagging devotion to his men."After serving the majority of his career in France's North African colonies before the Second World War, Langlais became best known for his role in the Indochina War where he commanded paratroop forces and became the de facto commander of the French garrison in the midst of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
André Lalande (26 May 1913 – 19 October 1995) was a French Army officer and general in the Chasseurs Alpins and French Foreign Legion. He fought during the World War II at the heart of the Free French Forces, then in Indochina and Algeria.
Jacques Marie Alfred Gaston Faure (2 March 1904 – 9 April 1988) was a French Army general and skier. He was the leader of the French national Olympic military patrol team in 1936 which placed sixth and in 1961 one of the masterminds of the Algiers putsch.
Valérie André (French pronunciation: [valeʁi ɑ̃dʁe] ; born 21 April 1922) is a veteran of the French Resistance, a neurosurgeon, an aviator and the first female member of the military to achieve the rank of General Officer, in 1976, as Physician General. In 1981, she was promoted to Inspector General of Medicine. A helicopter pilot, she is the first woman to have piloted a helicopter in a combat zone. She is also a founding member of the Académie de l'air et de l'espace.As a member of the military, she is not addressed as "Madame la Générale" (a term reserved for spouses of generals) but as "General".She started as a Medical Captain in Indochina in 1948, already a qualified parachutist and pilot, in addition to being an army surgeon. While in Indochina, she realized that the most difficult part of her duties was retrieving the wounded, who were often trapped in the jungle. She returned to France to learn how to pilot a helicopter, then flew one to Indochina. From 1952–1953, she piloted 129 helicopter missions into the jungle, rescuing 165 soldiers, and on two occasions completed parachute jumps to treat wounded soldiers who needed immediate surgery.One typical mission occurred on 11 December 1951, when casualties were in urgent need of evacuation from Tu Vu on the Black River. The only available helicopter, stationed near Saigon, was dismantled, flown to Hanoi by a Bristol Freighter and reassembled. Captain André then flew into Tu Vu despite heavy mist and anti-aircraft fire. There, she triaged the casualties, operated on the most pressing cases and then flew the urgent wounded back to Hanoi, two at a time. Later, she was put in command of a casualty evacuation flight.
She continued in Algeria as a Medical Commander in 1960, where she completed 365 war missions. She rose to the rank of Medical Lieutenant Colonel in 1965 then to Medical Colonel in 1970. She had a total of 3200 flight hours, and received 7 citations of the Croix de Guerre.
She has written two collections of memoirs : Ici, Ventilateur! Extraits d'un carnet de vol. (Calmann-Lévy, 1954) and Madame le général (Perrin, 1988).
She is one of eight women to hold the Grand-croix (Great Cross) rank in the Legion of Honour, with Germaine Tillion, Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz, Jacqueline de Romilly, Simone Rozès, Christiane Desroches Noblecourt, Yvette Farnoux and Gilberte Champion.
She is the aunt of politician André Santini.
She turned 100 on 21 April 2022.
Felix Laurence Sparks (August 2, 1917 – September 25, 2007) was an American attorney, government official, and military officer from Colorado. A veteran of World War II, he attained the rank of brigadier general in the Colorado Army National Guard and received the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. Sparks also served as District Attorney of Colorado's 7th Judicial District, an Associate Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, and the longtime director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
A native of San Antonio, Sparks was raised and educated in Arizona and served as an enlisted soldier in the United States Army from 1936 to 1938. He then attended the University of Arizona, where he maintained his military interest by taking part in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps and several Citizens' Military Training Camps while also serving in the Army Reserve. In 1939, he was called to active duty for World War II, and in 1940 he received his commission as a second lieutenant. Assigned to the 45th Infantry Division, Sparks served with the division's 157th Infantry Regiment throughout the war, from its arrival in North Africa through combat in Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. Near the end of the war, Sparks was commander of the 157th Infantry's 3rd Battalion, which he led during its participation in the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. For his wartime service, Sparks was twice awarded both the Silver Star and the Purple Heart, as well as the French Croix de Guerre.
After the war, Sparks graduated from the University of Colorado Law School, was admitted to the bar, and practiced in Delta, Colorado. A leader of the local Democratic Party, Sparks served a term as District Attorney of Colorado's 7th Judicial District (1949–1953), and briefly filled a vacancy as an Associate Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court (1956). In 1957, Sparks was appointed attorney for the Colorado Water Conservation Board. In 1958, he became the board's director, and he served in this position until retiring in 1979.
In addition to pursuing careers in law and government, Sparks continued to serve in the military. Assigned as executive officer of the 157th Regimental Combat Team (RCT), a unit of the Colorado Army National Guard, Sparks subsequently commanded the RCT's 1st Battalion. He commanded the 169th Field Artillery Group as a colonel in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including recall to active duty for several months during the Berlin Crisis of 1961. Sparks was promoted to brigadier general in 1968 and assigned as the Colorado National Guard's assistant adjutant general for army and commander of the Colorado Army National Guard. Sparks served in the National Guard until reaching the mandatory retirement age in 1977.
Sparks died in Lakewood, Colorado, on September 25, 2007. He was buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.
Gilbert Durand (1 May 1921 – 7 December 2012) was a French academic known for his work on the imaginary, symbolic anthropology and mythology.According to Durand, Imagination and Reason can be complementary. He defended the status of the image, traditionally devalued in Western thought, particularly in French philosophy. He advocated a multidisciplinary approach.
He distinguished between two regimes: the diurnal and the nocturnal, to classify symbols and archetypes.
Jean Lartéguy (5 September 1920 in Maisons-Alfort – 23 February 2011) was the pen name of Jean Pierre Lucien Osty, a French writer, journalist, and former soldier.Larteguy is credited with first envisioning the "ticking time bomb" scenario of torture in his 1960 novel Les centurions.