Raphaël Onana Military person

Raphaël Onana, born on 14 July 1919, at Poupouma, in Nkol Okala a village in the Province du Centre to the north-west of Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, and died 11 November 2002, at Yaounde, was a Free French soldier of Cameroonian origin, naturalised French.On 17 June 1939, he enlisted voluntarily as a sergeant in the Cameroon militia, due to his imposing stature (1.88m) and his strategic skills, to the 1er régiment de tirailleurs du Cameroun (First Regiment of Cameroon Rifles); and later as a staff sergeant in the Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit. After the war, he married in the Christian tradition Rita Essah Tsimi, with whom he had ten children (Casmile, Jeanne, Etienne, Agrippine Awoundza, Lazare Ekongo, Métila Françoise, Essah Nathalie, Zobo Ostomac, Akamba Marie-Solange, and Nsing Marius Patrice). He was made a French citizen in 1951 by President Charles de Gaulle.