Last modified: 2005-04-02 by ivan sache
Keywords: free french naval forces | forces navales francaises libres | cross of lorraine (red) | de gaulle (charles) | muselier (emile) | letters: cg (red) | jack | combattante (la) |
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![[FNFL ensign]](../images/f/fr~fnfl.gif)
by Žejlko Heimer
See also:
The ensign of the Forces Navales Françaises Libres (FNFL) is a Tricolore flag with a white lozenge in the middle, charged with a red cross of Lorraine.
Today, ships that have a name previously belonging to a ship that joined the FNFL use the FNFL ensign as honour jack.
Source: Album des Pavillons [pay00]
Ivan Sache, 14 February 1997
![[Jack of La Combattante]](../images/f/fr~jcomb.gif)
by Ivan Sache
The escort destroyer La Combattante was transferred by the Brits to the FNFL. She patrolled the Channel from March 1943 onwards and joined the Normandy landing on 6 June 1944. She conveyed General de Gaulle for his first travel to liberated France on 14 June 1944. She blew up on a mine on 23 February 1945.
The jack has the same pattern as the ensign of the FNFL, but is nearly square (2.10 m x 2.25 m - so the above square image is slightly incorrect). Height of the cross is 1.65 m and its longer horizontal arm is 1.05 m. The flag is preserved at the Liberation Order Museum (a section of the Army Museum, Hôtel des Invalides, Paris).
Source: L. Philippe, Franciae Vexilla [frv] #14/60 (1999)
De Gaulle's landing took place on the western beach of Courseulles-sur-Mer, then in the Juno Beach sector (Anglo-Canadian sector). Since this was the most secured place at the time, it was used for the landings of Winston Churchill (12 June), General de Gaulle (14 June, on his way to Bayeux), and King George VI (16 June).
A big iron cross of Lorraine was built on the landing place, and the flag of Free France flies on a pole near the cross. Near the beach, a st