Jean Leune

Jean Victor Charles Edmond Leune (28 December 1889 – 13 May 1944) was a French war correspondent, writer, press photographer, military aviator and member of the French Resistance. Jean Leune was born on 28 December 1889 in Saint-Quentin (Aisne), France. He was the son of Alfred Leune (2 September 1857, Rouen, Normandy – 9 December 1930, Paris) and Céline Blanche "Léonie" Daix (1871–1942). The couple had three children. In 1902, Jean obtained a government scholarship to attend the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. On 7 February 1911, Jean Leune married Hélène Vitivilia in Paris, at the townhall of the 16e arrondissement in Paris. Leune studied in the faculty history at the Sorbonne in Paris and graduated in 1912. It was likely there that he met his future wife, Hélène, who graduated from the same faculty in 1909. Leune travelled to the Balkans as a journalist (grand reporter) for the Parisian newspaper L'Illustration during the First Balkan War in 1912–1913. He and his wife arrived in Greece in mid-October 1912 to cover the imminent war. After temporarily residing in Athens, the couple left that city on 27 October for Larissa to follow the Greek Army. After the Greek Army took Thessaloniki, Leune and his wife travelled to Preveza to follow the Army of Epirus. The Leunes arrived in Preveza on 24 November 1912. The Leunes accompanied the Greek Army in the field in different campaigns, and their many articles and photographs provide a vivid testament to the valor, horrors and hardship of that war from the perspective of both combatants and civilians. In 1913, Jean and Hélène both contributed chapters to the book Dans les Balkans, 1912–1913 : récits et visions de guerre, that describe their wartime expériences. The following year, Jean wrote Une revanche, une étape : avec les Grecs à Salonique par Athènes et la Macédoine, campagne de 1912. Leune was an Infantry Captain with the French Army during World War I, serving in the technical service of aviation (capitaine d'infanterie au service au service technique de l'aéronautique).