Alain Le Ray, French resistance leader, Nazi-prison escapee

PARIS - Gen. Alain Le Ray, a leader in the French Resistance during World War II whose escape from a notorious Nazi prison forged his image and career, has died, his family said yesterday. He was 96.

Le Ray, who died Monday, fought later in France's colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Le Ray "incarnated the highest French military values." He "leaves for current and future generations a grand lesson of dignity and of courage," the French leader said in a statement.

The career military officer was captured in June 1940, and become the first to escape from the infamous Colditz prison in Germany less than a year later. The Nazis had touted the jail as escape-proof, and Le Ray's exploits were recounted in the 1976 book "Premiere a Colditz" ("First in Colditz").

Back in France, Le Ray entered the Resistance, and the expert mountain climber helped in an operation in the Alpine region of Vercors, becoming the first military chief of the Vercors network in May 1943.

Le Ray rose within the Resistance to command the French Forces of the Interior in the Alpine Isere region. In 1945, his force moved to Mount-Cenis, where it drove the Germans from their last French mountain strongholds. He organized the liberation of the Isere area with Allied troops.

He later was named a lieutenant-colonel, taking part in the 1953-54 Indochina campaign.

In 1956-58, Le Ray was chief of staff of the paratrooper division in Algeria, the North African colony that was waging a war for independence.

He then was named military attache in Germany. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1961, and a year later made commander of the 27th Alpin Division in Kabylia, in Algeria.

Le Ray was named general in 1968, two years before retiring.

"He was an excessively courageous man, always a step ahead of others," said fellow Resistance member Pierre Fugain, who served under Le Ray at Vercors.

He praised Le Ray's organizational and leadership skills at Vercors, noting that he "knew how to bring together these guys with different ambitions and ideas."

Survivors include his wife, Luce, daughter of famed French writer Francois Mauriac.

A religious ceremony is planned for Monday at Saint-Louis Cathedral at the Invalides, site of Napoleon's tomb, with burial the following day. *