Military Figure. He was a Free-French general during World War II, who was known simply as "Leclerc." He is considered a war hero and achieved fame as the liberator of Paris from Nazi Forces. In 1939 he was wounded during battle and captured by Nazis, but escaped to London where he helped to rally the Free French Force under Charles de Gaulle. He was one of the French officers who refused to accept the defeat of 1940 and continued to fight in the ranks of Free France. To protect his family in France from harm of any retaliation by the Nazis, he used the name "Leclerc" instead of his surname de Hauteclocque. He married Therese de Gargan on August 11, 1925 and the couple had six children. Upon joining with de Gaulle, he was given the rank of colonel, ascending the ranks steadily. After receiving military victories in French Equatorial Africa, his men made a spectacular 1,000-mile march from Chad to Tripoli in Libya, joining the forces of the British Eighth Army. While in route, his men captured Italian garrisons. He was promoted to major general in 1943. As commander of the Free French 2nd Armored Division, he led his men in the Normandy Invasion in 1944. On August 20th, the 2nd Armored Division was ordered by Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower to liberate Paris and on August 25th the commander of the German garrison in Paris surrendered to Leclerc. The next day Leclerc and de Gaulle formally entered Paris in triumph. He led his men through France into Germany by the end of the war in May of 1945. They were the first to enter Adolph Hitler's Eagle's Nest in Bavaria. In July of 1945 he was named commander of the French Far East Expeditionary Corp. Upon arriving, he assessed that the problems in Indochina as political and not military, thus "negotiations were needed not combat". On September 2, 1945 he was present at the Japanese Instrument of Surrender in Tokyo Bay. In July of 1946 he became inspector general of the French forces stationed in North Africa. The First Indochina War began in December of 1946. Born Philippe François Marie Leclerc de Hauteclocque, into an aristocratic family, he graduated from the French Military Academy in 1924, ranking 5th in his class of 344. He frequently walked with a cane as he fractured his leg in two places with a fall from a horse in 1936. In 1945 at the end of World War, II, he legally changed his name to Jacques-Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, using his wartime name. He was killed with his staff in Algeria in an airplane crash. His state funeral was held at Notre Dame de Paris and for the last time, his remains were transported under the Arc de Triomphe. In 1952 the French government posthumously named him marshal of France. For his service in World War II, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Besides many plaques in France honoring him, he has a larger-than-life-size statue at Douala in Africa.