Charles Mast was a major general who participated in the liberation of North Africa in 1942 and was Resident General of France in Tunisia between 1943 and 1947.
Background
Charles Mast was the son of Michel-Edmond Mast, officer, and Jeanne Gouat, from Brumath, Alsace. Among his ancestors were Protestant pastors from the Rhenish Palatinate or Baden-Wuerttemberg who had sought refuge in France in the seventeenth century, one of them being Andreas Cellarius.
Education
Before World War II, Colonel Mast was the French military attaché in Tokyo in 1937.
Career
Starting in 1922 he had three tours of duty in Japan, the last as MA. Col Mast commanded the 3d North Africa Div when the Germans attacked France on 10 May 40. Having been promoted, General de Brigade Mast became a POW in June. (Larousse.) Repatriated in 1941 he became CofS to Gen Louis Marie Koeltz, who was commander of the Algiers (or XIX) military region and director of armistice services. Later that year 1941 Mast took command of the Algiers Div. Described as a “neat, stocky” little general, “very correct”, he already was involved in plotting an insurrection when he met and favorably impressed Robert MURPHY. In Apr 1942 he helped engineer GIRAUD’s escape from Germany and represented that general at the Cherchell conference, 22 Oct 1942. Mast was promoted to general de division in Dec 1942 but, vulnerable to charges of treason, held missions in Libya and Egypt before ending up in the Levant. He was named governor general of Tunisia in Aug 1943 with the rank of general de corps d armee. Four years later he was appointed director of the national defense center of higher studies with the rank of full general. He retired in 1950 on reaching the age limit.
Connections
Charles Mast married in 1913 to Suzanne Bigault of Casanove. They had a son, George Mast (1914-1978), Ecole Polytechnique, promoting, 1936. He divorced and remarried 14 May 1935. His second wife, Marie-Madeleine Leroy, was a very close friend of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.