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(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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France, like England, declared war on Germany on September 1, 1939. After the invasion by Germany in May 1940, the Vichy government in France signed an armistice the following month that consigned the northern half of the country to German occupation; this became a full occupation in late 1942. Meanwhile, an underground resistance movement developed in France which culminated in the English proclamation of the Committee of National Liberation. The resulting Free French force participated in the Allied D-Day invasion and subsequent liberation of France. This is a picture of German prisoners of war in Lyon, France, in 1945, from Frank Dahowski's WWII scrapbook.

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