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NOT French Foreign Legion but Moroccan Tirailleurs
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Out of patriotism, he commits himself,April 1943, in the French fighting forces of General de Gaulle to liberate his country. Embarked as a gunner, gunner on the tanker Élorn , he crossed the Atlantic in a convoy bound for Casablanca . The convoy was attacked by submarines and German aircraft on the approaches to the Mediterranean and off Cape Ténès . Volunteer with the 1st Armored Marine Regiment , he is at his request a tank commander , aboard the M10 Wolverine Souffleur II , under the orders of the ensign and future vice-admiral André Gélinet . He then belonged to the 2nd squadron of the armored marine rifle regiment of the famous 2nd armored division of General Leclerc .
In the spring of 1945, he participated in the liberation of the Royan pocket then in the German campaign which led him to Hitler 's Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden . At the end of the war, he was decorated with the Military Medal and the Croix de Guerre .
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Two smiling soldiers of (probably) the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division of the 1st French Corps, fill the hands of American soldiers of the 12th U.S. Armoured Division with candy, in Rouffach, France, after the closing of the Colmar pocket. February 5, 1945
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Jean Gabin indeed was a fame as an actor well before the war broke out. Playing in movies now considered classics and even abroad.
He was living in Los Angeles for a few years just past the invasion of France. He was offered to play for the propaganda of the Third Reich but instead gave them the finger, declined and exiled for a bit in and around Hollywood, where he played in a few movies that went mostly unnoticed.
In 1943 the tide was turning against the Reich and his decision to go fight firstly landing in North Africa until everything you accurately mention was courageous and bold.
I’ve read a lot about him, because he’s one of the best French actor, at least of his era.
But he was anything but easygoing. I remember about a paragraph in an old book about him ordering some simple « private » to clean the toilets otherwise he’d take seven days, to which the private replied he « wouldn’t do it because he wasn’t used to being talked to on a threatening tone. »
Result: seven days plus cleaning up the pan each morning for the guy. At least he got the punishment by a fame of French cinema then.
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