reported he fought in a boxing match on deck against the European champion Francis Jacques. He participated in the East African campaign fighting with the 1st Free French Division as a motorcycle reconnaissance notably during the battles to take the towns of Keren and Massawa in Eritrea in April 1941. At the end of April the division sailed on the cruise-liner Paul Doumer, to join a camp in Qastina, Palestine in preparation for the Syria–Lebanon campaign. On the June 8 he became one of the first to cross the Syrian border, on June 18 he obtained the surrender of a Vichy military unit which was carrying a white flag of truce and whilst returning to his motorcycle was shot in the back. He was taken to hospital in Damascus where he died two days later, and was buried in Ramleh, Syria. The telegram signed by de Gaulle on 2 August 1941 informing of his death reads "Adjutant Legion Jacques Tartière blessé neuf [sic] juin au cours mission périlleuse reconnaissance exécutée avec bravoure décédé hôpital Sarafand Palestine suite blessure STOP a gagné admiration de tous par courage et résignation sort fatal" (). Family His half-brother, Philippe Keun, also joined the French Foreign Legion at the outset of the war and then went on to become an agent for the Secret Intelligence Service. He was betrayed and captured by the Gestapo and hung at the concentration camp of Buchenwald. His wife Drue Leyton was also a member of the French Resistance and assisted allied airmen shot down in France to escape. She was captured and sent to a concentration camp but managed to escape by feigning cancer. His uncle Thierry de Martel who was the chief surgeon at the American Hospital in Neuilly on the outskirts of Paris committed suicide on June 14, 1940 as he could not stand the idea of living under Nazi occupation. Filmography 1942 : La Loi du Nord by Jacques Feyder Awards Legion of Honour Compagnon de la Libération Croix de guerre 1939-1945 with 2 palms Notes and references External links Notice sur le site de l'Ordre de la Libération Notice sur 1dfl French military personnel killed in World War II Free French military personnel of World War II Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France) Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur Companions of the Liberation American male actors French male actors Deaths by firearm in Syria