Word: bigeard
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...their frustrating and interminable war in Algeria, where cruelty answers cruelty, and heroism has its ugly necessities, the French have found one continuing source of solace: the dramatic exploits of a tough, leathery colonel named Marcel Bigeard. The son of a railway mechanic, Bigeard was a humdrum bank clerk in Toul when he was called up just before World War II. Today, a weatherbeaten and wiry 41, he is a legend...
...Bigeard first made a name for himself as a sergeant in 1940 when he held out in a Vosges dugout five days after the rest of the army had surrendered to the Nazis. After escaping from a German prison camp, he joined De Gaulle, eventually took charge of the resistance in the Ariège department in the south of France. At Dienbienphu, in 1954, he characteristically fought until his last round was spent, then walked out of his bunker to surrender with his hands stuffed ostentatiously and contemptuously in his pockets...
...informer, two companies of French paratroopers boxed in Mourad and Ramel on the third floor of a once ornate, four-story, Turkish-style house in the Casbah. Firing, their burp guns, the two rebels held out for an hour. Then one shouted. "We'll surrender, but only if Bigeard signs a safe-conduct saying that we won't be tortured." Down in the street, tough French Paratroop Colonel Marcel Bigeard ordered a ceasefire, and then watched as the terrorists lowered a small bundle by string to the street. Two French officers and a noncom walked over to inspect...
...patrols are sent out into the hills to act as moving targets, inviting attack. Supporting them are teams of helicopters scattered in impromptu bases. When an attack comes, the patrol radios to the base. In a typical grenouillage operation last week, a call came in to Lieut. Colonel Marcel Bigeard, established in a burned-out farmhouse south of Bone. Within minutes, Bigeard had seven helicopters loaded up; he took off, returned with 15 captured rebels, three mortars and 60 rifles...