fight against the Nazis. Already obsolete at the start of the war, she remained in Martinique for the next four years, her aircraft rusting in the tropical climate. Many men in the French colonies felt a special need to defend France, and eventually made up two-thirds of ’s Free French Forces. Among these volunteers, influential psychiatrist and decolonial philosopher Frantz Fanon from Martinique joined ’s troops at the age of 18, despite being deemed a ‘dissenter’ by Martinique's Vichy-controlled colonial government for doing so. Colonial African forces The contribution to France's liberation made by African colonial soldiers, who comprised 9% of the French army, was long overlooked. The North African units, dating from 1830 and grouped into the XIX Army Corps in 1873, formed part of the French Metropolitan Army. De Gaulle made a base in African territory, from which he launched the military liberation. African troops who made the largest contribution by colonial troops to the liberation. On the eve of the Second World War, five regiments of Tirailleurs Sénégalais were stationed in France in addition to a brigade based in Algeria. The 2e division colonial senegalaise was permanently deployed in the south of France due to the potential threat of invasion from Italy. The Armée d’Afrique (Army of Africa) was formally a separate army corps of the French metropolitan army, the 19th Army Corps (19e Corps d'Armée) so named in 1873. The French Colonial Forces on the other hand came under the Ministry of the Navy and comprised both French and indigenous units serving in Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere in the French colonial empire. Intelligence set up his Free French intelligence system to combine both military and political roles, including covert operations. He selected journalist Pierre Brossolette (1903–44) to head the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action (BCRA). The policy was reversed in 1943 by Emmanuel d'Astrier, the interior minister of the exile government, who insisted on civilian control of political intelligence. Allied forces The "Big Three" Allies of World War II, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States, all fought Germany in World War II, but Soviet Union fighting on the Eastern Front played no direct role in the liberation of France, but the second front contributed to Nazi defeat. The United Kingdom and the United States fought on the Western Front, with contributions from Canadian and Australian soldiers who landed in Normandy on