103-Year-Old Moroccan WWII Veteran Honored in Casablanca on V-E Day

On the program for this anniversary day, the park street of the French Consulate General in Casablanca will be officially named after Hammou Moussik, who fought alongside French soldiers during World War II. The 100-year-old Moroccan is announced to be present at this ceremony during which the plaque bearing the name of this officer of the Legion of Honor will be unveiled in the presence of the French Ambassador to Morocco, Hélène Le Gal, the French Consul General in Casablanca, Serge Mucetti, but also many Moroccan and French personalities. In between, the film Baroud: From the Atlas to Alsace, 1943-1945, made by the audiovisual section of the Lyautey high school, will be screened in the presence of students.

According to Le Figaro, the ceremony, although simple, has a historical dimension, in the sense that it celebrates the Franco-Moroccan brotherhood of arms in a country whose King Mohamed V was decorated by General de Gaulle with the Cross of the Liberation. It is also an opportunity to "pass the torch" to the younger generation, the newspaper notes, noting that it is also the response "to the call launched on August 15, 2019 by President Emmanuel Macron on the occasion of the commemorations of the 75th anniversary of the Provence landings, to the mayors of France to make the streets and squares of France live by the name in memory of these valiant men who make all of Africa proud".

Born in 1918, the bronze star enlisted in 1941. From the Tunisian front (May 1943) to the fighting in the Vosges in August 1944, through the liberation of Corsica (September 1943) and the island of Elba in June 1944, the Moroccan goumier demonstrated his determination and daring. Hammou Moussik finished the war against Nazism in Germany. Then it was Indochina, from June 1950, and a citation to the order of the army, on January 29, 1951. In 1952, he left the army and became a policeman in Casablanca.

On November 18, the hero is cited to the order of the group by Pierre Boyer de Latour, because he "particularly distinguished himself in the combat of Ramonchamp (Vosges), on October 8, 1944, contributing by his personal action to the rout of a German detachment and the capture of its machine gun".

Croix de Guerre 1939-1945 (with bronze star) and Croix de Guerre des Théâtres d’Opérations Extérieures (TOE), with palm, he has been made an officer of the Legion of Honor since 2013.