Henri Rol-Tanguy

Henri Rol-Tanguy (12 June 1908 – 8 September 2002) was a French communist and a leader in the French Resistance during World War II.

Henri Tanguy was born on 12 June 1908 in Morlaix, Brittany to a family of a sailor. Aged 14, he moved to Paris to work as a foundryman. In 1925, he joined the Young Communists and ended up as a secretary. He did his military service in 1929 with the 8th Régiment de Zouaves in Oran, Algeria; on his return, he became an activist with the local metal workers union.

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1937, Tanguy joined the International Brigades to fight for Spanish Republic. He was political commissar of the André Marty Battalion (made up of Franco-Belgian volunteers) which was part of the XIV International Brigade. He was wounded in the Battle of the Ebro in 1938. After the war, he returned to France.

At the outbreak of World War II, Tanguy was conscripted into the French Army. After the surrender, he went underground with his wife Cécile Le Bihan. He became one of the leaders of communist resistance in Paris and organized a group that became Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP). Tanguy used a nom de guerre of "Colonel Rol", after a close friend who had died in Spain.

In June 1944, Tanguy took command of the group the French Forces of the Interior in the Île-de-France. When Allied armies begun to approach Paris, they were part of the forces that began the liberation of Paris.

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