Long forgotten, the child-resistant Marcel Pinte, accidentally killed at the age of 6 on August 19, 1944, will have his name inscribed on a monument to the dead in Aixe-sur-Vienne (Haute-Vienne) during the ceremonies of the 11 -November.
Fallen at the age of “6 years, 4 months and 6 days” according to the Mémoire des Hommes site, Marcel Pinte is among the some 600,000 names of resistance fighters identified on this platform of the Ministry of the Armed Forces, which since 2018 has been collecting the archives of the Resistance during World War II.
“Quinquin” came from a family of resistance fighters
Nicknamed “Quinquin” (“little child” in ch’ti), a reference to his northern origins and to the lullaby “Le P’tit Quinquin” of the Lille poet Alexandre Desrousseaux, he is considered “the youngest of the resistance fighters” to the Liberation, and was “symbolically promoted to the rank of sergeant” after his death, according to the specialized military site Opex360.
Born in 1938 in Valenciennes, Marcel Pinte and his family were part of a pocket of resistance in Aixe-sur-Vienne. His father, Eugene, aka Commander Athos, was a figure of the movement, working for the Secret Army, the Army Resistance Organization (ORA) and the French secret service in London, the BCRA (central intelligence office) and action).
Marcel Pinte had been killed by accidental shooting from Sten, a British submachine gun, during a parachute drop on August 19, 1944. He was buried on August 21 with the honors reserved for the resistance fighters, in the presence of many resistance fighters.
It is the work of Alexandre Brémaud, descendant by marriage of Eugène Pinte, father of Marcel, which is at the origin of this posthumous tribute in Haute-Vienne.
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