Young lieutenant in the fighting of 1914-1918

Roger Baudoin, born in 1896, distinguished himself as a young lieutenant in the battles of 1914-1918 and was decorated with the Croix de Guerre and promoted to Knight of the Legion of Honor. 

Between the two wars, this polytechnician became a specialist in cryptography, recognized worldwide, and whose work Elements of cryptography is still a reference today.

His grandson, Stéphane Baudoin, commander of the air force, confides:

 “On June 13, 1940, he left to join General de Gaulle in London and took charge of the decoding service of the intelligence services. He was promoted to Commander in 1943. He trained the mathematician, Alan Mathison Turing, a computer pioneer, in cryptography, who participated in the decoding of German messages. My grandfather studied Hitler's personality by reading Mein Kampf. He deduced how to deceive Hitler and participated in Operation Forfitude, disinformation and diversion operations which made the Germans believe that the landing would take place in Pas-de-Calais and not in Normandy. "

And he adds:

“On April 14, 1944, (*) during a secret flight which was to take him from London to Algiers, his plane crashed at sea for a cause which remains shrouded in mystery.  He perished with ten other of his companions.

His funeral took place in Westminster Cathedral, in the presence of Winston Churchill and General de Gaulle. He is buried in a London cemetery."

It was at the request of Stéphane Baudoin, his grandson, and members of the family, that the elected officials of La Chapelle-Yvon, the veterans' associations and the prefecture accepted that Roger Baudoin, whose parents married in the commune be honored and inscribed in the memory of La Chapelle-Yvon.

 * (The flight was actually delayed in leaving RAF St. Mawgan on its way to Gibraltar carrying several SOE Officers and agents and various couriers with highly secret correspondence and documentation, and eventually departed shortly after midnight on 17 April 1944.)