In November 1942, the Brits had around 600 Vichy French Navy POWs in their custody at Grizedale Hall in England. These men had been captured in the assorted brushes around Africa and the Middle East in the awkward period between the British raid on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir in July 1940 and the Torch Landings that, in effect, ended the Vichy regime.
One of those men in the brig was Capitaine de corvette Raymond Emile Charles Maggiar, the former XO of the Vichy auxiliary cruiser Bougainville, which had been sunk in a one-sided battle with the Royal Navy off Diégo-Suarez, Madagascar in May 1942. A career officer who had entered the Naval Academy in 1922, Maggiar had previously served on the battleships Courbet and Bretagne, the torpedo boat Mistral, the destroyer Valmy, and the cruiser Suffren. Earlier in the war, while an officer on the merchant cruiser Ville d’Alger, he fought in the Narvik campaign, in the evacuation of Dunkirk, and in the spiriting away of the French national gold supply from Brest to Dakar.
With the Torch Landings and the general burying of the hatchet between those in the French military who were still hosed off at the British betrayal and the Western Allies, Maggiar, along with 44 other officers and 333 enlisted POWs, approached the Brits with an offer to volunteer to head to Algiers, place themselves under RADM Lemonnier, and create a battalion of Marine Fusiliers to capture and hold the coastal artillery batteries at Bizerte in Tunisia– emplacements of which many of the men were well acquainted.
With the offer accepted, the ad-hoc “Bataillon de Bizerte” was created and dispatched to Algeria on a British transport. There, they were armed from French stocks in North Africa with Great-War era Lebel rifles, 11 assorted machine guns of three different types, a single 81mm mortar, a 37mm M1916 popgun, and eight mules. Folded into the Corps Francs d’Afrique, they were involved in the push into Tunisia and, true to their mandate, were used to capture Bizerte.
Curiously, they never became part of the “official” Free French Naval forces (FNFL) and were an orphan unit.
Then, in September 1943, the Bataillon de Bizerte, its numbers swelled to over 900 (including no less than 106 naval officers) by escapees from occupied France, Corsicans, Pieds-Noirs, and Algerians, but not needed to man the few active ships in the Free French fleet, it was decided to make the unit a tank destroyer unit equipped with M10 Wolverines.
With that, the Régiment Blindé de Fusiliers-Marins was born.
Moved by train to Casablanca in December 1943 to receive training alongside the 11e régiment de chasseurs d’Afrique, the Marines of the RBFM inherited the “well-broken in” M10s, M3 scout cars, jeeps, motorcycles, and M2/M3 half-tracks of the 11 RCA when that latter unit, part of the “official” Free French (Forces Françaises Libres, or FFL) forces, was shipped to England to become a full-fledged M4 Sherman tank outfit.
The RBFM, as with the vehicles they drove, typically wore American uniforms with French insignia– note the fusiliers marins crossed anchors
The RBFM’s M10s were all, in naval parlance, fantastically named with monikers borrowed from cats, sea creatures, famous French Naval ships (Richelieu, Le Fantasque, Tourville, Milan, et. al), swashbuckling soldiers (Lansquenet, Corsaire) and types of storms (a traditional French naval vessel naming convention for destroyers). When a vehicle was destroyed, its replacement would pick up the same name but with a #2 (e.g. when Souffleur was destroyed on 29 Jan 1945, its replacement was named Souffleur 2).
1st Sqn
Flamme (Flame)
Foudre (Lightning)
Tonnerre (Thunder)
Eclair (Flash)
Tourville
Suffren
Narval (Narwal)
2nd Sqn
Lynx
Leopard
Lion
Jaguar
Morse (Walrus)
Phoque (Seal)
Marqouin (Porpoise)
Souffleur (Blower)
Milan
Epervier (Hawkward)
Albatross
Vautour (Vulture)
3rd Sqn
Le Terrible
Le Fantasque
Audacieux (Bold)
Le Malin
Flibustier
Corsaire
Mameluck
Lansquenet
Richelieu
Dunkerque
Jean Bart
Strasbourg
4th Sqn
Orage (Thunderstorm)
Bourrasque (Squall)
Tempete (Storm)
Ouragan (Hurricane)
Typhon
Tornade
Tramontane
Trombe
Siroco
Cyclone
Simoun
Mistral
The unit’s badge included an M10 tank destroyer, the Cross of Lorraine, and the traditional crossed anchors of the Fusiliers-Marins. Likewise, each vehicle flew a crossed anchor tricolor pennant.
They were an eclectic unit, to say the least, and its members included ensign Philippe de Gaulle, son of that De Gaulle, who would command the 1st platoon of the 1st squadron.
And French movie star Jean Gabin (Jean-Alexis Moncorgé), shown in the center, who, at 40, was the oldest M10 commander in the unit if not the French military as a whole. Gabin, who had served in the Marines in his 20s, at the time had an extensive cinema career and was Marlene Dietrich’s boyfriend.
Gabin is considered one of the greatest stars in French cinema but took time off from the silver screen to command Souffleur and Souffleur 2 in the RBFM during the war. Ever the sailor, when he died in 1976, he had requested that his ashes be scattered by a navy ship at sea.
Another oddity of the RBFM was its Marinettes, a group of female ambulance drivers that accompanied the unit across Europe.
Assigned to Général Leclerc’s 2e Division Blindée for the liberation of France, the RBFM loaded on three vessels for Britain in late April 1944 and by May were cooling their heels at Sledmere in Yorkshire, getting ready for the big push through Normandy.
Landing on Utah Beach on 2/3 August 1944, they saw their first combat north of the Ecouves Forest ten days later and would remain engaged for the rest of the war, taking part in the liberation of Alençon, Paris, Strasbourg, and Colmar; fighting in the Battle of Dompaire– where they were credited with zapping 13 Panthers in 48 hours of uninterrupted combat– and ending the conflict at Dolphy’s mountain hideaway, the Berchtesgaden.
Liberation of Paris – August 25, 1944, a jeep of the RBFM– note the bachi caps of the sailors and their M1 Carbines– passing in front of the M4 Sherman “Picardie” tank of the 12th RCA on rue de Tilsit, 8th arrondissement, Paris.
TD M10 “Corsaire” of the 3/RBFM of the 2nd DB on Boulevard Raspail, at the intersection with Rue de Vaugirard, Paris
Albatros in Versailles, 25 August 1944. The Tank Destroyer “Albatros” belonged to the 3rd combat platoon of the 2nd squadron of the Marine Rifle Regiment (2nd DB). Tank Commander: Second Master Combeau. Gunner: Sailor Robin. Driver: Quartermaster Rieutord. Radio: Sailor Feigne
Régiment blindé de fusiliers marins RBFM M10 MISTRAL et à sa droite l’Arc de Triomphe
Régiment Blindé de Fusiliers-Marins M10 TERRE-357-L8589
Régiment Blindé de Fusiliers Marins (RBFM) Paris. Le Terrible of the 3rd sqn in the foreground.
M10 Terrible 2 advancing through the ruins of Royan. Note the French navy bachi caps of its crew.
RBFM was inspected in late in the war. Besides the traditional French navy bachi caps the crews over American kit, note the six “kill” rings on the barrel of Mistral and nine on Sirocco.
They were credited with taking 430 German prisoners, destroying 41 panzers, 16 artillery pieces, and 43 trucks while only losing 10 of their M10s in combat. Not a bad record for such a motley crew!
Soon disbanded after the war, the RBFM would be reformed for brief service in Indochina but has since faded into history.
Maggiar, who lost the sight in his right eye in the liberation of Paris, would retire as an admiral in 1955 and write a book about the RBFM, He passed in 1994
Their wartime banner is preserved, as is Sirocco— the highest-scoring M10 with 9 “kills.
A portrait of Maggiar hangs over the banner
Sirocco is now preserved in the Armored Vehicles Museum in Saumur
One of the last vets of the RBFM, Admiral Philippe de Gaulle, passed earlier this month at age 102.
He retired from the French Navy in 1982 and entered politics, serving as a senator from Paris until 2004.
He was honored in a state ceremony this last week