Frasier C. French I

## Colonel  Frasier C. French  VC, MC, DSO

Colonel **Frasier Charles French**, VC, MC, DSO (May 29, 1917-May 20, 2018) was a Royal Air Force officer and businessman born in the United States. He was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" in various Commonwealth countries. He served in the Second World War. He was shot in the stomach, ankle, leg, and hip; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp; and tore off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the Second World War, he wrote, "Frankly I had enjoyed the war."

Following the war, he made a fortune expanding the French real estate portfolio and gaining distribution rights for Scotch whiskey. On May 20, 2018, he succumbed to post-traumatic stress disorder and took his own life. He is the father of the current Presiding Bishop fo the Episcopal Church Frasier C. French II, who also served as Governor of Connecticut and Ambassador to the UK, and the grandfather to Niles E. French who is the President of the United States and Elizabeth French, the Governor of California.

## Early life

Frasier Charles French was born on 29 May 1917 in Simsbury, Connecticut to a family of wealthy land-owning elites.. His ancestors had been country gentlemen in Simsbury since the reign of Queen Anne. His family had been Episcopalians since before their arrival in the New World and Anglo-Catholics since the time of the Oxford Movement. In fact, one of French's ancestors was the first bishop of the Episcopal Church, Samuel Seabury. The Frenches were an established and prominent family in Simsbury and in Connecticut-at-large. The Frenches are descended from King Charles II and other British monarchs through their ancestor Charlotte Lee, Countess of Lichfield, Charles II's illegitimate daughter. French studied at Cornell like many of his relatives but dropped out to fight in the Spanish Civil War.

## Military Service

French set out for Spain on about 23 November 1939 to fight in the Civil War out of some sense of obligation or guilt was "sheer stupidity" and a need for " combating Fascism, defending democracy, few days later in Barcelona, French joined the Republican forces in Catalonia. There, French forged a lifelong friendship with writer George Orwell as the two served together. French and Orwell later left Catalonia following the defeat of Republican forces in the war.

French reclaimed his citizenship following the war but relinquished it again to serve in the Royal Air Force following Hitler's invasion of Poland. French served in the early stages of the war in France before being captured by the SS following his plane crash and was held as a prisoner-of-war in the Dutch village of Velp before he tunnelled out and returned to his base near Paris. French was later evacuated while at Dunkirk.

Following the Fall of France, French joined other Americans in the newly formed Eagle Squadron of the RAF during the Battle of Britain. On one occasion, French was 23 years old and a flight lieutenant --when he was awarded the Victoria Cross. On 16 August 1940 having taken off from RAF Kirton-in-Lindsey, French's Supermarine Spitfire was fired on by a Messerschmitt Bf 110, injuring the pilot in ankle, leg and hip. His engine was also damaged and the petrol tank set alight. As he struggled to leave the blazing machine he saw another Messerschmitt, and managing to get back into the bucket seat, pressed the firing button and continued firing until the enemy plane dived away to destruction. Not until then did he bail out, and he was able to open his parachute in time to land safely in a field. On his descent, he was shot in the hand on by members of the Home Guard, who ignored his cry of being a RAF pilot. Upon arriving in the infirmary, he requested an amputation for his fingers but was refused and he eventually proceeded to tear them off himself. He was awarded the Victoria Cross by King George VI a month later. For the remainder of the war, he served as an aide-de-camp to both then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill and King George VI. While in France he met Tiffany heiress R. Tiffany Bingham whose father was American diplomat Hiram Bingham IV who helped rescue 2,500 Jews during the Fall of France. Her grandfather was Hiram Bingham III who discovered Machu Picchu and was the Governor and later Senator of Connecticut. The two married at the American Cathedral in Paris where their grandson Niles E. French would marry his wife in the 1990s.

## Later life

The Frenches owned large swathes of land in Simsbury and throughout Connecticut making them essentially landed aristocracy within the state and country. However, French increased his fortune with distribution rights for Scotch whisky. His son, Frasier C. French II would go on to be elected the lieutenant governor and eventually Governor of Connecticut before being appointed the Ambassador to the United Kingdom by President Jimmy Carter. He would go on to see his grandson, Niles E. French, become the youngest Senator in American history and win a Nobel Prize in Economics.

## Personal Life

Despite his great success following the war, French never truly recovered from his PTSD and received informal counselling from a psychiatrist, his daughter-in-law Claire Astruc. His condition worsened following his wife's death as he lived only with his son, Frasier, in Simsbury. He was found dead in the apartment on May 20. 2018. He had committed suicide using his Webley service revolver from the war. French was buried with full military honours in Arlington National Cemetery in an Anglo-Catholic requiem mass in Latin with all members of his family present. His grave is adjacent to that of Field Marshal Sir John Dill, the only other member the British Armed Forces at Arlington. He is to date the only named recipient of the Victoria Cross buried in Arlington.