Date of birth:

July 24th, 1916 (Montmorillon, France)

Date of death:

June 13th, 1944 (Plumelec, France)

Nationality:

French

Bernard Harent began his military career in 1935 with the Colonial Infantry in Lebanon. He refused to accept the French surrender in June 1940 and joined the Free French Forces, fighting alongside the British Army in North Africa, among other places.

In 1942, he volunteered for the French Airborne Infantry Battalion, an elite unit that was later integrated into the SAS. On 10 June 1944 and thereafter, the French section of the SAS was dropped in Brittany with the aim of joining the Maquis in that region and thus disrupting the German counter-reaction after D-Day as much as possible.


On 13 June 1944, Bernard Harent led a reconnaissance mission in the Plumelec region. After being warned of a group of Germans who had barricaded themselves in a café in Plumelec, he decided to attack with his men. The operation went well until Harent was hit by a burst of machine-gun fire as he left the café and was killed instantly. He was taken back to the Saint Marcel camp, where he was buried.

He was later reburied in his native village of Montmorillon, where he is remembered by a memorial and a street named after him.

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• - Bernard HARENT | L'Ordre de la Libération et son Musée
  

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