1944 in France

See also: 1943 in France, other events of 1944, 1945 in France.

Events from the year 1944 in France.

Events

• 15 March - The National Council of the French Resistance approves the Resistance programme.
• 1 June - BBC transmits a coded message (the first line of a poem by Paul Verlaine) to underground resistance fighters in France warning that the invasion of Europe is imminent.
• 2 June - The provisional French government is established.
• 5 June - More than 1000 British bombers drop 5000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.
• 5 June - At 10:15 p.m. local time, the BBC transmits the second line of the Paul Verlaine poem to the underground resistance indicating that the invasion of Europe is about to begin.
• 6 June - Battle of Normandy begins - Operation Overlord, code named D-Day, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allies troops on the beaches of Normandy.
• 6 June - Battle of Cherbourg begins.
• 7 June - Bayeux liberated by British troops.
• 10 June - 642 men, women and children are killed in the Oradour-sur-Glane Massacre.
• 10 June - Battle of Carentan begins.
• 13 June - Battle of Bloody Gulch, near Carentan, United States forces victory.
• 14 June - Battle of Carentan ends with Allied victory.
• 26 June - American troops enter Cherbourg.
• 30 June - Battle of Cherbourg ends with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces.
• 9 July - British and Canadian forces capture Caen.
• 12 August - World's first undersea oil pipeline laid, between England and France in Operation Pluto.
• 15 August - Operation Dragoon lands Allies in southern France.
• 19 August - Paris rises against German occupation with the help of Allied troops.
• 20 August - American forces successfully defeat German forces at Chambois. This victory closed the Falaise Gap.
• 25 August - Surrender of occupying German garrison in Paris.
• 8 September - Menton is liberated from Germany.
• 11 September - Northern and Southern France invasion forces link up near Dijon.
• 24 September - The U.S. Army 45th Infantry Division takes the strongly defended city of Epinal before crossing the Moselle River and entering the western foothills of the Vosges.
• 5 October - Royal Canadian Air Force pilots shoot down the first German jet fighter over France.
• 31 October - Mass murderer Marcel Petiot is apprehended in Paris Métro station.

Births

January to June

• 17 January - Françoise Hardy, singer.
• 10 February - Jean-Daniel Cadinot, film director and producer (d.2008).
• 25 February - François Cevert, motor racing driver (d.1973).
• 7 April - Jean-Pierre Brucato, soccer player (d.1998).
• 22 May - Henri Guédon, percussionist (d.2006).
• 25 May - Pierre Bachelet, singer songwriter (d.2005).
• 22 June - Pierre Goldman, left-wing intellectual, convicted of several robberies and assassinated (d.1979).
• 24 June - Ticky Holgado, actor (d.2004).

July to December

• 12 July - Jean-François Jenny-Clark, double bass player (d.1998).
• 9 August - Patrick Depailler, motor racing driver (d.1980).
• 14 August - Jean-François Bizot, journalist and writer (d.2007).
• 2 September - Gilles Marchal, songwriter and singer.
• 6 September - Christian Boltanski, photographer, sculptor and installation artist.

Full date unknown

• Jean-Jacques Le Chenadec, urban violence victim (d.2005).
• Laurent-Michel Vacher, philosopher, writer and journalist (d.2005).

Deaths

• 31 January - Jean Giraudoux, novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright (b.1882).
• 4 February - Yvette Guilbert, singer and actress (b.1865).
• 5 March - Max Jacob, poet, painter, writer, and critic (b.1876).
• 22 March - Pierre Brossolette, journalist and Resistance fighter (b.1903).
• 30 April - Paul Poiret, fashion designer (b.1879).
• 20 May - Fraser Barron, New Zealand bomber pilot at Le Mans (born 1921 in Dunedin)
• 6 July - Andrée Borrel, French World War II heroine (executed) (b.1919).
• 6 July - Sonia Olschanezky, German-born French Jewish World War II heroine (executed) (b. 1923)
• 7 July - Georges Mandel, politician and Resistance leader (executed) (b.1885).
• 31 July - Antoine de Saint-Exupery, pilot and writer (b.1900).
• 9 September - Robert Benoist, motor racing driver and war hero (executed) (b.1895).
• 11 September - Yolande Beekman, World War II heroine (executed) (b.1911).
• 13 September - Madeleine Damerment, World War II heroine (executed) (b.1917).
• 1 November - Lucien Cayeux, sedimentary petrographer (b.1864).
• 5 November - Alexis Carrel, surgeon and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b.1873).
• 30 December - Romain Rolland, writer, Nobel Prize in Literature (b.1866).

Full date unknown

• Eugène Louis Bouvier, entomologist and carcinologist (b.1856).

References