Events from the year 1944 in France.
Incumbents
Events
- 15 March â The National Council of the French Resistance approves the Resistance programme.
- 1 June â BBC transmits coded messages (including 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 â 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.
- At 10:15 p.m. local time, the BBC transmits coded messages including 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 â Operation Overlord, code named D-Day, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy.
- Battle of Cherbourg begins.
- 7 June â Bayeux liberated by British troops.
- 9 June â Over 200 people are killed by 2nd SS Panzer Division ("Das Reich") in the Tulle massacre
- 10 June
- 642 people are killed by 2nd SS Panzer Division ("Das Reich") in the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre.
- Battle of Carentan begins.
- 13 June â Battle of Bloody Gulch, near Carentan, United States forces victory.
- 14 June â Battle of Carentan ends with Allied victory.
- 26 June â American troops enter Cherbourg.
- 30 June â Battle of Cherbourg ends with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces.
- 9 July â British and Canadian forces capture Caen.
- 9 August â ' declares the Constitutional Law of 1940 issued by the Provisional Government void ab initio.
- 12 August â The world's first undersea oil pipeline is laid, between England and France in Operation Pluto.
- 15 August â Operation Dragoon lands Allies in southern France.
- 19 August â Liberation of Paris: The city rises against German occupation with the help of Allied troops.
- 20 August â American forces defeat German forces at Chambois. This victory closed the Falaise Gap.
- 24 August â Liberation of Paris: The Allies enter Paris, successfully completing Operation Overlord.
- 25 August
- German surrender of Paris: General Dietrich von Choltitz surrenders Paris to the Allies, in defiance of Hitler's orders to destroy it.
- Maillé massacre: 129 civilians (70% women and children) are massacred by the Gestapo at Maillé, Indre-et-Loire.
- The Red Ball Express convoy system begins operation, supplying tons of materiel to Allied forces in France.
- 26 August
- Toulon liberated in Battle of Toulon (1944).
- Ordonnance instituting Indignité nationale.
- 28 August â Marseille liberated in Battle of Marseille.
- 8 September â Menton is liberated from Germany.
- 11 September â Northern and Southern France invasion forces link up near Dijon.
- 24 September â 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 â Royal Canadian Air Force pilots shoot down the first German jet fighter over France.
- 31 October â Mass murderer Marcel Petiot is apprehended in a Paris Métro station.
- 9 November â Collaborationist Georges Suarez becomes the first journalist executed during the épuration légale.
- 23 November â Liberation of Strasbourg.
- 19 December â Newspaper Le Monde first published in Paris.
- Toymaker Jouef established.
Arts and literature
Births
January to June
- 17 January â Françoise Hardy, singer (died 2024)
- 26 January â Louis Gallois, businessman
- 10 February â Jean-Daniel Cadinot, film director and producer (died 2008)
- 25 February â François Cevert, motor racing driver (died 1973)
- 7 April â Jean-Pierre Brucato, soccer player (died 1998)
- 22 May â Henri Guédon, percussionist (died 2006)
- 25 May â Pierre Bachelet, singer songwriter (died 2005)
- 26 May â Laurent-Michel Vacher, philosopher, writer and journalist (died 2005)
- 22 June
- Pierre Goldman, left-wing intellectual, convicted of several robberies and assassinated (died 1979)
- Gérard Mourou, electrical engineer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
- 24 June â Ticky Holgado, actor (died 2004)
July to December
Full date unknown
Deaths
- 14 January â Eugène Louis Bouvier, entomologist and carcinologist (born 1856)
- 31 January â Jean Giraudoux, novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright (born 1882)
- 4 February â Yvette Guilbert, singer and actress (born 1865)
- 24 February â Fanny Clar, journalist and writer (born 1875)
- 5 March â Max Jacob, poet, painter, writer and critic (born 1876)
- 22 March â Pierre Brossolette, journalist and Resistance fighter (born 1903)
- 30 April â Paul Poiret, fashion designer (born 1879)
- 20 May â Fraser Barron, New Zealand bomber pilot at Le Mans (born 1921 in Dunedin)
- 6 July
- Andrée Borrel, French World War II heroine (executed) (born 1919)
- Sonia Olschanezky, German-born French Jewish World War II heroine (executed) (born 1923)
- 7 July â Georges Mandel, politician and Resistance leader (executed) (born 1885)
- 15 July â Joseph Sadi-Lecointe, aviator (born 1891)
- 31 July â Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, pilot and writer (born 1900)
- 1 August â Jean Prévost, writer, journalist and member of the Maquis (born 1901)
- 17 August â Paul Wormser, Olympic fencer (born 1905)
- 9 September â Robert Benoist, motor racing driver and war hero (executed) (born 1895)
- 11 September â Yolande Beekman, World War II heroine (executed) (born 1911)
- 13 September â Madeleine Damerment, World War II heroine (executed) (born 1917)
- 1 November â Lucien Cayeux, sedimentary petrographer (born 1864)
- 5 November â Alexis Carrel, surgeon and biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (born 1873)
- 13 December- Wassily Kandinsky, artist (born 1866)
- 30 December â Romain Rolland, writer, Nobel Prize in Literature (born 1866)
See also
References