In Memoriam - Hilaire du Berrier passed away in Monaco on October 12, 2002.

Follow this Link for an article about Hal du B. and a brief interview.

An article in The Alphian from 1938 describes some of Hal's overseas activities.

Autobiographical listing by H. du Berrier, written 25 June 1941 in Shanghai, China:

• "Member of L'ACTION FRANCAISE, the French Monarchist Party
• Order of the Star of Ethiopia
• Order of St. George and the Dragon, of Ethiopia
  Captured by the Italian advance guard, May 4, 1936
• Adopted of the tribesmen of the Cherif, Said Abdulla Mohammed, the Yemenite, descended of Mohammed and defender of the faith.
• The only American authority on French Somaliland
• Saw service and arms in the Balkans.
• Was chief of Protocol and advisor to H.H. Yusaff, Nawaub of Tygre.
• Pursuit pilot with the rank of Lieutenant in the Spanish Civil war, '36, '37.
• Went to China to fight the Japanese. Charged with being a Japanese spy, was sacrificed in a typical Chinese political passe-passe in Hankow, November 1937, and dismissed from Central Government service. Barely escaped from the interior.
• Became Lieutenant-General and Chief of Staff for Air, under Gen. Yeh Peng, in the army of Wang Ching-wei. Resigned at the end of one year."

"Harold was an adventurer. He was a pilot and flew in the Spanish Revolution and later for Haile Sellassie... He was a spy for the French during WW II and was captured by the Japanese and tortured...He calls himself Hal du Berrier; this is because he did some research on the Berrier family and claims they were French...He now lives in Monaco and publishes a monthly newsletter giving world news as he sees it."

-- recollection of Joseph F. Chamberlin, May 1995.

"[Hal] is and was a character. He was hard to handle as a child. They sent him to a military school in Minnesota - he ran away and came to our house. He ran out of money and borrowed 50 cents from my father. He bought water paints and made signs for windows etc. for lawyers and such. Collected; the first rain all signs were gone and so was Hal.

"He came to Iowa from Chicago; he was a stunt performer on flying airplanes. Parachute jumps, standing on wings, hanging on a rope ladder...He put on a show at Ft. Dodge Iowa and took me with him. It was a day to remember."

-- recollection of John E. Chamberlin, April 1995.

"In 1924, a month before graduation, the Pillsbury headmaster looked down through his pince-nez glasses and said: 'Berrier, you are the most worthless boy I have expelled from this school since I expelled Harry Williams.' (Harry Williams wrote 'It's a Long, Long Way to Tiperarry,' which the British adopted as a marching song in World War I).

"My mother saw nothing humorous about it and did not live to see the school invite me back for a reunion in the 80s. I replied that I felt honored by the invitation but thought it would be bad form to accept since, when I left, it was between two lines of jeering students. They told me all that was forgotten, and I had a charming week-end in which they gave me one of the old form diplomas and a piece published in the school paper on me in 1938..."

-- e-mail from Hal du Berrier, Jan. 2001