Escadron de Chasse 2/30 Normandie-Niemen Air Base (BA 118). During the rallying of général Charles de Gaulle through the Appeal of 18 June 1940 inviting Frenchmen to join him in London, some went on to Great-Britain in order to continue the fight with the Allies. Great-Britain became the most important « Free French military base and rallying point. Following the rupture of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact by Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941, representatives of Vichy were declared as Persona non grata by the Soviet Authorities and were asked to return to France. Colonel Charles Luguet, the air attaché of the Vichy Government in Moscow, changed
Armistice of 22 June 1940 Germans thought the occupation would be a provisional state of affairs and last only until Britain came to terms, which was believed to be imminent. For instance, none of the French delegation objected to the stipulation that French soldiers would remain prisoners of war until the cessation of all hostilities. Nearly one million Frenchmen were thus forced to spend the next five years in prisoner of war camps (about a third of the initial 1.5 million prisoners taken were released or exchanged as part of the "Service du Travail Obligatoire" forced labour programme by the Germans, before the war ended).