2nd Armored Division

There are running battles.

Um, you will see members of the famous French Second Armored Division, which we'll get to, it's one of my favorite units of World War II, who fired on American troops in Operation Torch.

Uh, and particularly the naval service.

Uh, you see this in Madagascar as well.

I think most famously, the, the two units that were considered the Gaullist units stay in today in historiography as the two most famous French divisions of World War II.

One is the First Free French Division.

These are the guys who have fought through the desert, um, in Egypt, and then, uh, around the basis of Leclerc's forces, you get the Second Free French Division, which are later renamed the Second Armored Division, and they're gonna end up going under American command through Normandy and liberating Paris, most famously.

But, so now you've got this, this created French army, and slowly but surely, politically, Giraud, who's kind of a, a, a guy who loves the spotlight, is, uh, lost out to de Gaulle.

I'm talking about Baccarat the town now.

It's an interesting place because on October 31st and November 1st, 1944, La Voix de la Deuxième Division, General Leclerc, so a French general, and his 2nd Armored Division, they were the first French free division to land in France at Utah Beach on August 1st, 1944.

They were serving in Patton's 3rd Army, and they reached Baccarat in the fall of 1944.

And there was an attack on October 31st that was guided by the local resistance intelligence.