France hunts down the last of the liberators

They are a Czech, a Latvian, possibly a Canadian, and a man of no known nationality. The American died. They are France's lost Liberation heroes, and the country has embarked on an eleventh hour mission to track them down. The four men were awarded the Cross of the Liberation in the 1940s, personally decorated with France's highest World War II medal by Charles de Gaulle.

They had all signed up early to his Free French, and performed feats of bravery in Norway, Africa and France. But with war's end they returned to civilian life and disappeared.

Sixty years on the Order of the Liberation needs to find them. Of its thousand or so original members only 59 are known to be still alive: any last survivors have suddenly become very important.

"The Order as it now stands will disappear when there are only 15 cross-holders left. So we need to know exactly how many 'compagnons' there are. If by next year we have no news of these men, they will be officially declared dead," said Colonel Loic Le Bastard, the Order's secretary-general.