André Louis Arthur Zirnheld (March 7, 1913 – July 27, 1942) was a French paratrooper, a member of the Free French Air Force, and a member of the French Squadron, Special Air Service during World War II. He is famous for being the first French paratrooper officer killed in action, and is presumed to be the author of the poem "The Paratrooper's Prayer".
Roland Paulze d'Ivoy de la Poype, (28 July 1920 – 23 October 2012) was a Second World War fighter ace, a member of the Normandie-Niemen fighter group that fought on the Soviet front.
He was also a politician, a pioneering industrialist in the plastics industry and the founder of the Antibes Marineland in 1970.
Capitaine Raymond Dronne (8 March 1908, in Mayet, France – 5 September 1991, in Paris) was a French civil servant and, following World War II, a politician. He was the second Allied officer to enter Paris as part of the liberation forces during World War II. A volunteer who joined the Free French Forces in Africa in 1940. Later, he was assigned as commanding officer of the 9e Compagnie, Régiment de Marche du Tchad (Ninth Company, Regiment of March of Chad), known as "La Nueve" as it was mainly composed of Spanish republicans. The 9th Company was a unit of the 3rd battalion RMT, part of the French 2nd Armored Division.
During the move on Paris, due to combat conditions and poor road progress, General Philippe Leclerc, commanding general of the Second Armored, ordered Dronne to form an advance party, go to Paris and let the Resistance know that the Second Armored would be in Paris in 24 hours.
His advance party, the 9th Company, consisted of 15 half tracks (M5s and M5A1s), and three Sherman tanks from 501 RCC of the division, plus engineer units. The H/Ts included those called Les Cossaques, Guadalajara, Madrid and Ebro and the added Sherman tanks were called Montmirail, Romilly and Champaubert.
Pierre-Henri Clostermann (28 February 1921 – 22 March 2006) was a World War II French ace fighter pilot.
During the conflict he achieved 33 air-to-air combat victories, earning the accolade "France's First Fighter" from General Charles de Gaulle. His wartime memoir, The Big Show (Le Grand Cirque) became a notable bestseller. After the war, he worked as an engineer and was the youngest Member of France's Parliament.
Jacques Pâris de Bollardière (16 December 1907 – 22 February 1986) was a French Army general, famous for his advocacy of non-violence during the 1960s.
Jacques Andrieux (15 August 1917 – 21 January 2005) was a French fighter ace of the Second World War credited with 6 aerial victories.
Émile Allegret (24 April 1907 – 22 November 1990) was a French soldier and member of the French Resistance during World War II.
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 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.
Major André Édouard Turcat (23 October 1921 – 4 January 2016) was a French Air Force pilot and test pilot celebrated for flying the first prototype of Concorde for its maiden flight.Turcat was born on 23 October 1921 in Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône) into a family in the automotive industry. He studied at Ecole Polytechnique.