Qualla: Battle of Reunion

Battle of Reunion: Introduction

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thierry Caro, CC BY-SA 3.0. The destroyer Leopard slipped out of Mauritius on the night of November 26, 1942, carrying 74 troops and a mission that Charles de Gaulle considered urgent: reclaim the tiny Indian Ocean island of La Reunion before the British or Americans did it for him. What followed was one of the strangest liberations of World War II -- an invasion opposed more by bureaucratic face-saving than by military force, where the most consequential shot was fired not at the invaders but at an engineer trying to broker a ceasefire.

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Image: Thierry Caro | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Reunion: An Island Between Loyalties

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bagauzere, CC BY-SA 3.0. Since France's defeat in 1940, Reunion had drifted in a peculiar limbo. The Compiegne Armistice had stripped the island's military to a skeleton force: three officers, a doctor, eleven non-commissioned officers, and about 270 men, of whom only 23 were professionals. The coastal a...

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Image: Bagauzere | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Reunion: A Destroyer in the Dark

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bagauzere, CC BY-SA 3.0. Leopard arrived off Saint-Denis at eleven o'clock on the night of November 27, captained by Commander Jules Evenou, who used the nom de guerre Jacques Richard. Two launches went ahead with a five-man party to scout a landing spot. By 2:30 in the morning, about 60 troops had come ...

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Image: Bagauzere | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Reunion: The Battery at Le Port

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy, Public domain. The following day brought the operation's only real violence. Communist cells under Lepervanche seized the Hotel de Ville and arrested the mayor, then attempted to capture the 95-mm coastal battery at Le Port commanded by Lieutenant Emile Hugot, a committed Petainist. They failed...

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Image: U.S. Navy | Public domain

Battle of Reunion: Rice Daddy

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy, Public domain. The surrender was formalized on November 30 at 8:45 in the morning. Within days, Pillet, local army commander Artignan, and their wives were discreetly smuggled aboard Leopard to avoid popular retaliation. Aubert followed the next day. The destroyer then made itself useful in a w...

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Image: U.S. Navy | Public domain