Some 25,000 Frenchmen served as volunteers in the SS Westland Division. Though the colonial authorities in a handful of France’s African possessions “rallied” to de Gaulle in London, most did not. Even after the United States entered the war, French soldiers, sailors and airmen continued to resist the Allies. In May 1942, when the British invaded Vichy Madagascar to preempt a possible Japanese descent on the strategic island, there was protracted fighting.
