Paulin Colonna d'Istria (27 July 1905 – 4 June 1982) was a French Gendarmerie officer, awarded the Compagnon de la Libération after playing a major part in the liberation of Corsica.
In 1940, learning of the Appeal of 18 June, he joined the Resistance and was sent by Henri Giraud to relieve two of the four first agents from Operation Pearl Harbour who returned to Algeria on 14 March aboard the Casabianca.
[1] He was secretly landed on the east coast of Corsica by a British submarine on 4 April 1943 and travelled to Niolo, where he set up a temporary command post.
[2] The National Front rose from 2000 to 12000 volunteers that September and was able to create more than fifty parachute landing zones for arms drops, despite repression by Italian occupying troops.
[3] In November 1943 Colonna d'Istria joined the staff of the Free French forces in the United Kingdom and entered Paris on 25 August 1944 as part of General Leclerc's 2nd Armoured Division.