Yankee Fighter

John Hasey was an American who worked as a salesman at Cartier Paris on the rue de la Paix in the late 1930s. When France fell in 1940, he became the first American to volunteer for de Gaulle's Free French Forces, serving with the Foreign Legion in Africa and the Middle East. He was severely wounded and received the Croix de Guerre.

The memoir, written during the war with the journalist Joseph Dinneen, covers Hasey's Paris life before the war, his decision to enlist, and his combat experiences. The early chapters provide a rare glimpse of daily life inside the Cartier Paris salon in the years leading up to the war, including the atmosphere on the rue de la Paix and the clientele of the period.

Relevance to The Cartiers

Hasey's account is one of the few first-hand sources from inside the Cartier business during the Second World War period. His descriptions of the Paris salon and of Cartier London (which he also visited) offer a salesman's-eye view of the house at a moment of crisis, as the Cartier family navigated the fall of France and the occupation.