Lyon

Plaque in homage to  Albert Chambonnet

A career officer in aviation, Captain Albert Chambonnet was transferred to the technical section at the Bron airport outside Lyon in March 1941 because of his political, secularist and Masonic commitments. After making contact with Lucien Degoutte and Claudius Billon, he corresponded with the Petites Ailes (a clandestine newspaper, predecessor of Combat), took care of border crossings into Spain, a participated in sabotaging the armistice commissions. He joined the Combat movement and was soon appointed chief of staff of the organization that became the Secret Army. In May 1943 he participated in the creation of the United Resistance Movements and the Infiltration of Public Administrations. As regional chief of the Secret Army beginning in November 1943, he implemented the union of Resistance in the Army Organization to create the Unified Secret Army, then with the FTPF (Franc-Tireurs et Partisans - one of several resistance organizations) to create the FFI (French Interior Forces), and became the regional chief. 

After an informer turned him in, Chambonnet was arrested by the Gestapo on June 10, 1944 in Lyon. After being tortured and interned at Montluc prison, he was tried and sentenced to death. Having been identified as the chief of the regional resistance, he was designated as a hostage after the attack on the café Le Moulin à Vent during the night of July 26, 1944. In reprisal for that action, that targeted Germans and their French auxiliaries, he was murdered at the corner of the place Bellecour and rue Gasparin along with Gilbert Dru, Francis Chirat, Léon Pfeffer and René Bernard.

Gilbert Dru, Francis Chirat, Léon Pfeffer et René Bernard.

Source : Bruno Permezel, Résistants à Lyon, Villeurbanne  et aux alentours : 2824 engagements, BGA Permezel, 2003.

Carte des lieux de mémoire de la ville de Lyon