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D-Day is perhaps the most famous single day of WWII. Part of the operation codenamed ‘Overlord’, 6th June 1944 saw the largest seaborne invasion in history land more than 132,000 Allied troops on five Normandy beaches, and over 18,000 paratroopers into drop zones across Northern France. This operation marked the beginning of the liberation of occupied France, and the eventual Allied victory in Europe.
In August 2024 the eyes of the world are upon Paris as it hosts the Olympic games, 100 years exactly since it last did so in 1924. Yet 80 years ago, in August 1944, Paris caught the world’s attention for very different reasons- her liberation from the Nazis after 4 years of occupation.
Paris had fallen to Nazi Germany on 14th June 1940, after the German army stormed across the continent, surprising and confusing the Allied forces with the speed of their advance. With the German military governing Paris, a puppet French state was set up and stationed in Vichy. General Charles de Gaulle fled to London and the French Resistance sprang up in occupied France to resist Nazi and Vichy rule. What followed for the population of Paris was four years of curfews, rationing, and fear.
Hope finally arrived in the shape of the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6th June 1944; D-Day. The French 2nd Armoured Division, led by General Leclerc, and the 4th Infantry Division of General Patton’s 3rd US Army advanced on the city on 22nd August. In Paris itself the French Resistance had launched an uprising a few days earlier against the 20,000 German troops still stationed there under the command of General van Choltitz.
On 24th August the 2nd Armoured Division crossed the Seine and reached the Paris suburbs, where they were greeted by joyous civilians, and on 25th August they achieved the objective for which they had been formed; the liberation of Paris. Choltitz, who had been instructed by Hilter to raze Paris to the ground, had laid explosives under bridges and many landmarks but ultimately disobeyed the order to destruct Europe’s ‘City of Light’. He formally surrendered Paris to de Gaulle’s provisional government in the afternoon of 25th August, and on the 26th de Gaulle and Leclerc led a triumphant liberation march down the Champ d’Elysees, to the exultant cheers of the liberated French.
Churchill received a flurry of telegrams from world leaders in the wake of Paris’ liberation, congratulating him for the part played by the British. The archive includes a wealth of these telegrams from individuals such as the Maharaja of Bikaner, the Emperor of Abyssinia, the President of Syria and others. The document shown here is from Chiang Kai Shek, the President of China, offering his ‘hearty congratulations’ and ‘warm greetings’ to their ‘British comrades whose heroic exploits on the far-flung battlefronts of this global war have long been an object of our deep admiration’.
Today, as the Champ d’Elysees is again lined with cheering crowds, these documents remind us of the sacrifices made by the people of Paris 80 years ago, as they struggled against tyranny and oppression, and fought for a better future for their City of Light.
