on reaching england he learned that général de gaulle, whom he had come across during the fighting in northern france, was already on london. on 19 june 1940 claude hettier de boislambert became the first french officer to offer his services to france's self-appointed wartime resistance leader in london. he was invited to participate in the construction of the general's first staff team and join his first "cabinet". before the war hettier de boislambert had come to know africa well thanks to his regular hunting trips. de gaulle now teamed him up with resistance commanders rené pleven and philippe leclerc for a mission to french equatorial africa and cameroon. they embarked on 6 august 1940. their objective was to rally the french colonial forces to back général de gaulle rather than the vichy puppet government under philippe pétain that was being set up in southern france with german backing. by the end of 1940 french equatorial africa had become the strategic centre of free french activities in africa, but that was only achieved after several months of fighting against forces backing the vichy regime. hettier de boislambert took command responsibilities successively in douala and in cameroon. he took the command at pointe-noire under extremely difficult conditions and managed to capture five or seven large cargo ships which now passed to allied control. the success of the mission provided the allies with the means to deliver desperately needed fighter aircraft to the syria-lebanon ("proche-orient") front. he was later made a as a result of this action.