François-Henry Laperrine

Laperrine entered the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr in October 1878 and became a captain in the 2nd Dragoons in November 1891. Laperrine organized the Compagnie Méharistes Sahariennes in 1897.[1][2] He was a friend of Charles de Foucauld who was killed in 1916 in Tamanrasset.[3][4] The two were honored on a stamp of Algeria in 1950.

Laperrine died after a plane crash (a Breguet) in the Sahara in 1920. His companions, Lieutenant Bernard and mechanic Marcel Vasselin survived and recorded Laperrine's last words, "People think they know the desert...People think I know it. Nobody really knows it. I have crossed the Sahara ten times and I will stay here."[1] Bernard and Vasselin buried Laperrine near the plane, but when a rescue party arrived he was disinterred and buried in Tamanrasset next to Foucauld. The fort was named for Laperrine.

• Grand officier de la Légion d'honneur
• Croix de guerre 1914-1918
• Médaille coloniale avec agrafes Algérie, Soudan, Sénégal, Sahara, AOF
• Croix de guerre belge 1914-1918 avec palme

• Germain, José; Stéphane Faye (1922). Un fils de France : le général Laperrine, grand Saharien. Paris : Plon.
• Gorée, G.; Thiout, M. (1948). Laperrine: la plus belle amitié saharienne du pére de Foucauld. B. Arthaud.
• Lehuraux, Léon. Laperrine, le saharien. Paris: Éditions de l'Encyclopédie de l'Empire français, 1947.
• Porch, Douglas (2005). The conquest of the Sahara (1st pbk. ed.). New-York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0374128791.
• Smith, Tony (1978). The French stake in Algeria, 1945-1962. Ithaca: Cornell U.P. ISBN 978-0801411250.

• Works by or about François-Henry Laperrine at Internet Archive