For the 75th Anniversary of General Leclerc’s death, a commemoration was held at the General Leclerc memorial next to Porte d’Orléans in Paris. A parade is to follow next. For the occasion, UNIVEM came with a lot of heavy vehicules: Sherman tank, 3 Half-Track (M3, M5 & M16), M8 Armored Car, M3 Scout Car, Diamond T M20, Ward-La-France Heavy Wrecker M1A1, GMC CCKW-353 tanker, Ford Canada F15, 2 Dodge Command Cars, 2 Jeeps and many other personal Jeeps from our members. More than 30 vehicles!
Start from Satory at 8:00 am. Every vehicle goes by its own power, exept the Sherman of course, loaded on a low-bed. First stop in Châtillon for an exhibition.
After an one hour pause and a huge success among the public, the convoy is back on the road. Next stop, Porte d’Orléans! Arrival at noon. An old Renault TN4H city bus, belonging to an association preserving the vehicles of the Paris’ City public transport network, joined us.
At 3:00pm, the ceremony took place in front of the memorial.
At 4:00pm, start of the parade! Objective: Denfert-Rochereau.
It took more than 45 min to arrive at Denfert-Rochereau. A very dense crowd was all along the route. Vehicles were parked around the Lion statue to be exhibited. The International M425 and its semi-trailer had been brought here in the morning to prepare it to host an orchestra
At 7:30 pm, it was time to leave. Time to load the tank on the trailer and go back to Satory after a busy day! But successful nonetheless!