André Pommiès was born at Bordeaux on June 9, 1904.

At 20, he entered the Saint-Cyr special military school, after which he was posted to the 144 th I.R. and became second lieutenant in 1926.

Ten years later, he graduated from the Ecole supérieure de guerre (Advanced School of War) and was promoted to the rank of captain, and then transferred to Prague as a teacher in the Czechoslovakian Advanced School of War.

In 1938, he was appointed to head the Intelligence Bureau, after which he was transferred to the Headquarters of the XV Military Region, in Lyon , where he founded an important counter-intelligence centre at the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Schlesser.

In January 1940, he went and met the latter in Paris ; and thus was able, when the time came, to save a good number of archives from destruction.

After France had been defeated, he was put in command of the 5 th Company of the 18 th I.R. in Pau . Having accepted to organize the secret mobilization, he was sent in October 1942 to the Headquarters of the 5 th Division in Toulouse .

In November 1942, the armistice army was dissolved and German troops invaded the free zone. Having been promoted to major sometime earlier, Pommiès continued in the seemingly civilian life he was henceforth leading to maintain all his military contacts.

Corps Franc "Pommiès" (C.F.P.)

Within the framework of the Army Resistance Organization (O.R.A.), he clandestinely constituted the Corps Franc “P”.

For two years, he put up fierce resistance against the occupant. Beginning June 6, 1944 , the maquis, who had been fighting underground, came to the open and waged intensive guerilla warfare against the Germans, taking control of several cities in the South West. It was in this context that C.F.P. men fought 9 serious battles, carried out 102 affronts and attacks, and were 20 times victims of encirclements.

However, thanks to their training and discipline, coupled with their strategy of operating only in small groups, the Corps Franc volunteers almost always outwitted the enemy, thereby limiting losses on their side.

Integrated as soldiers into the regular army, Pommiès Corps Franc volunteers joint the Bayonne regiment, the 49th I.R., and continued amid intense fighting to advance courageously until the final victory in Germany , on May 8, 1945 .

They paid a very heavy price: over 3000 injured, 156 captured and put into concentration camps, 575 dead or missing, including 260 in the Resistance.

On September 7, 1945 , André Pommiès ended this heroic adventure by leading a triumphant march of his men of the C.F.P. 49th I.R. in the capital of defeated Germany .

From 1946 to 1947, André Pommiès commanded the Ecole des troupes aéroportées ( Airborne Troops School ) in Pau , and later on the 4th Cuirassiers Regiment. From there he became auditor of the Institut des hautes études de la Défense nationale (High Institute of National Defence). He subsequently occupied various command posts, including that of the Pau Subdivision.

From 1956 to 1958, he served in Algeria , where he was put in charge of the Tiaret Sector. He later on became the assistant of the general who was commanding the 5 th D.B. in Germany , before being promoted to the rank of brigadier general. Shortly thereafter, he requested to quit the army, and settled in Pau with his family.

André Pommiès died at Arbus, a neighbouring locality, on September 16, 1972.