Koufra Oath Marker

In early 1941, a motorized column of Free French forces, commanded by General Leclerc and equipped with very limited military resources, left Chad to attack an Italian fort in Libya near the Koufra oasis.

After intense fighting and the surrender of the Italian forces, on March 2, 1941, Leclerc and his men took a solemn oath: they would not lay down their arms until the French flag flew again over Strasbourg.

Three years later, in 1944, the 2nd Armored Division (2e DB), joined by soldiers from the Army of Africa, escapees from France via Spain, French from North Africa, Spanish Republicans, and volunteers of all origins and beliefs, fought fierce battles in Lorraine to liberate Strasbourg and fulfill their promise.

The "Koufra Oath" markers, or "The Path of the 2nd Armored Division," trace the route of this emblematic division during the Liberation of France in 1944. This project, launched in 2004 by the commune of Saint-Martin-de-Varreville in Manche—where the 2nd Armored Division landed in August 1944 on Utah Beach—was supported by the Marshal Leclerc de Hauteclocque Foundation.