As a child, during the war of 1914–1918, he spent a few years in Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, in the Limousin, where his mother settled, while his father was engaged in the Atlantic then in the Mediterranean and France.
He then becomes the director of the School of the cadres of Uriage, which he creates immediately after the defeat of 1940 with the support of the secretariat to the Youth of the Vichy regime.
At the closing of the school by the Laval government at the end of 1942, he went into hiding and his team spread in many maquis (the Vercors, the Paris region, Brittany, the North ...).
Subsequently, he himself took command of the French Forces Interior (FFI) Zone A Tarn with which it frees the cities of the region (Castres, Mazamet, Béziers).
Constituting his troops in regiment (the 12th Dragons), he took Autun, entered Nevers to join with the 1st Army of General de Lattre.