Leger was probably the first Rhode Islander lost in the European Theater during WWII. Trained as a gunner, he deployed to Palestine. Within two weeks of his arrival he was dead. Staff Sergeant Rene A. Leger was killed on August 9, 1942, when his Palestine-based B-24 went down during a raid against Rommel’s supply line in North Africa. He was likely the first Air Corps crew member from RI to lose his life in the European Theater during WWII. He is buried in the perfectly manicured grounds of the 27-acre North Africa American Cemetery in Tunisia.

Rene was born in Pawtucket on May 12, 1920, third of five children. Their father Andre, born in France in 1897, came from a family of lac workers in Calais. The family emigrated to America in 1913.