Admiral d'Argenlieu

Remarkable Career of Rear- Admiral d'Argenlieu

rE published report that Rear- Admiral Thierry d’Argenlieu. Free French High Commissioner in the Pacific, had left New Caledonia, after a dispute with M. Henri Sautot, was refer red to in June “PIM”.

It was emphasised that neither Rear- Admiral d’Argenlieu nor M. Sautot had weakened in his allegiance to Free France and the cause of the Allies.

Rear-Admiral d’Argenlieu, in 1914-18, was a famous huntef of U-boats; and in 1919-1939 he was a Carmelite monk.

The following is from an article pub lished recently in Melbourne:— At the outbreak of the present war, he put aside his habit and became again Commander Thierry d’Argenlieu of the French Navy. He was given charge of the arsenal at Cherbourg and, after refusing to obey his superior’s order to hand over the stores to the Germans in June, 1940, he put up a defence with a handful of loyal marines.

The Nazis captured him, and he was placed in one of a convoy of ships bound for Germany. Escaping on the way, he appeared a few days later on the south coast of England, wearing the blue cot ton shirt and the wooden shoes of a Norman peasant. In London, he met General de Gaulle and, as senior chap lain to the Free French Navy, toured Great Britain, cheering French sailors who had become dejected at France’s fall.

He figured in the Dakar incident, land ing unarmed under a flag of truce, and was wounded by Frenchmen firing from