November 27th, 2009 | 
Author: 
Always interested in the “Tour de France” bicycle race I came across this rare picture of the “Tour” held in 1940! It was by the way won by a “German Feldwerbel” named Helmut Braun shown here leading the pack in one of hilly sections outside Paris. The course that year started in the Ardennes forest and ended at the “Arc de Triumph” in Paris. It was also one of the only two years that the Race allowed participants to carry guns! the other gun carrying year was 1944 and everyone knows that year was won by an American named “Kilroy Washere” although French Bicyclist Charles DeGaulle always claimed that the Free French team was first into Paris. Many believe that this is where the term “the Gaul of that man” came from….
The race years of 1941, 1942, and 1943 were strictly German French affairs with competition between the German “Fortress Europe” team and the French team “Partisans” quite fierce! The British did try and send a team but in a classic British “goof” sent the team to “Dieppe” and were promptly sent home by the Germans for not “having their papers in order”
Posted in History
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