General Louis Dio (born October 14, 1908 in Vannes and died June 15, 1994 in Toulon), is a French military personality.
When he left Saint-Cyr in 1928, he chose the colonial army.
In 1939, captain commanding the nomadic group of Tibesti, he was transferred to Douala in Cameroon, to set up a company intended to be sent as reinforcements in mainland France. The armistice of June 1940 surprised him in French Equatorial Africa
On August 26, 1940, he offered his services to Commander Leclerc who arrived from London to tip French Equatorial Africa into the camp of Free France.
In 1943, then a colonel, he took command of the Chadian marching regiment which had just been created in Morocco by General Leclerc. In August 1944 this unit landed in Normandy and took part in the liberation of France within the 2nd DB.
In June 1945 Louis Dio succeeded General Leclerc at the head of the 2nd DB and, in October of the same year, he became the youngest brigadier general in the French army.
After the war, he was appointed civil and military commander of southern Tunisia before serving in the Far East from 1951 as commander of the troops and high commissioner of the Republic in Cambodia.
He was promoted to the rank of general of division in 1955. He then held the positions of senior commander of the Forces in French Equatorial Africa and, after being appointed general of the army corps in 1958, chief of staff of the overseas forces.
From 1962 to 1969, he was president of the Free French Association.
In 1965, he was promoted to the rank of army general and became inspector general of the Army.
Louis Dio retired in 1969 and retired to Toulon where he died in 1994.