Military history of France during World War II the end of the war in Europe (May 1945), the Free French forces comprised 1,250,000, including seven infantry and three armoured divisions fighting in Germany. Other Free French units were directly attached to Allied forces including the British SAS, RAF and the Soviet air force. The "Forces Expéditionnaires Françaises d'Extrême-Orient" (FEFEO) was a French expeditionary corps created on 4 October 1943 to fight in the Asian theatre of World War II and liberate French Indochina which was still occupied by the Japanese since 1940. Recruiting posters of the FEFEO depicted a US-built M4 Sherman tank of general Leclerc's Free French
T-43 medium tank based on reports about Soviet tank research. T-43 medium tank The T-43 medium tank was a prototype Soviet medium tank developed during the Second World War as a possible replacement for both the T-34 medium and KV-1 heavy tanks. The project's aim was to build a medium tank with heavier armour, but German advances in tank technology proved better countered by a more heavily armed T-34-85 and the T-43 was cancelled. The T-34 medium tank was the mainstay of Soviet mechanized forces in World War II, produced in huge numbers. In May 1942, Soviet forces started encountering German tanks armed