"Pour La Patrie"

New Caledonian Free French Killed

From Our Own Correspondent

Noumea, June 29.

THE first list of those killed in action while fighting with the Free French forces at Bir Hakheim, in the Libyan desert, includes men of the Free French Pacific Battalion. Among these is the name of the battalion commander, Lieut.-Colonel Felix Broche, former troop commander in Tahiti and New Cale donia, where he spent several months before the contingent left for Australia in May, 1941.

Marcel Kollen, a Noumea post office employee, who was right in the fore front of the Free French movement here from June, 1940, and who leaves a widow and three young children, was also killed (on June 1).

Young ‘cadet officers missing include Andre Petre, a Noumea magistrate, and G. Payonne, English teacher at the Noumea secondary school (College de la Perouse), a man with a real knowledge and love of the English language and the English people, gained from some years of residence in Leicester. His striking radio talks before the contin gent left are remembered here.