The Cruel Victory: The French Resistance, D-Day and the Battle for the Vercors 1944

COPYRIGHT

William Collins

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London W6 8JB

WilliamCollinsBooks.com

First published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2014

Copyright © Paddy Ashdown 2014

Maps by Harriet McDougall

Paddy Ashdown asserts his moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Cover photographs © Musée départmental de la Résistance du Vercors, Vassieux-en-Vercors

Maps by Harriet McDougall

Source ISBN: 9780007520800

Ebook Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9780007520824

Version: 2014-11-28

DEDICATION

To the boy in the white shirt

EPIGRAPH

In war, young men go out to die for old men’s dreams

Anon

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

A Note on Usages

Preface

Dramatis Personae

List of Maps

Prologue

1 The Vercors before the Vercors

2 France from the Fall to 1943: Setting the Scene

3 Beginnings

4 The Army Goes Underground

5 Camps and Plans

6 Exodus and Folly

7 Expectation, Nomadisation and Decapitation

8 Retreat, Retrenchment and Reconstruction

9 Pressure and Parachutes

10 The Labours of Hercules

11 January 1944

12 Of Germans and Spies

13 February 1944

14 March 1944

15 Weapons, Wirelesses, Air Drops and Codes

16 April 1944

17 A Basket of Crabs

18 May 1944

19 The First Five Days of June 1944

20 D-Day: 6 June 1944

21 Mobilization

22 The First Battle of Saint-Nizier

23 The Second Battle of Saint-Nizier

24 Respite and Reorganization

25 A Damned Good Show

26 Mixed Messages

27 The Republic

28 Action and Expectation

29 Bastille Day: 14 July 1944

30 Pflaum’s Plans and People

31 The Rising Storm

32 The End of Dreams: Friday 21 July 1944

33 Fighting On: Saturday 22 July 1944

34 The Final Battles: Sunday 23 July 1944

35 Retreat and Refuge

36 The Harrowing of the Vercors

37 Resurgence and Revenge

38 Aftermath and Afterlives

39 Postscript

Annex A

Annex B

Annex C

Acknowledgements

Notes

List of Illustrations

Bibliography

Picture Section

Index

Also by Paddy Ashdown

About the Author

About the Publisher

A NOTE ON USAGES

In this text I have not included dialogue unless it comes from a source who I have reason to believe might have been present at the time or it has been noted down as dialogue in the course of taking testimony from a living witness.

Since this story concerns primarily military operations, I have used the twenty-four-hour clock throughout. In 1943 and 1944 all British forces in the European theatre used Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) plus one hour (UK Single Summer Time) from 16 August to 3 April, and GMT plus two hours from 4 April to 15 August (UK Double Summer Time). The time used in all German-occupied western European territories was Central European Time (CET), which in that era was UK Single Summer Time plus two hours. Since this story takes place primarily in France, all times in the text are given in, or adjusted to be consistent with, CET.

For a similar reason, units of measurement have been converted, where appropriate, to the metric scale.

Readers may want to know what the wartime franc was worth. Prices more than doubled during the four years of the German occupation of France, and inflation was very much worse on the black market. But one can get a rough idea of money values if one thinks of 1,000 francs in 1943–4 as the equivalent of 250 euros or £200 today.

Except where otherwise stated the translations of French source documents into English are those of the author. Where the original French was in a written formal document I have tried to make the translation as precise as possible. Where the original source is oral (for example, the oral evidence of witnesses) I have allowed myself greater latitude to cope with the differences in sentence formation between spoken French and English in an attempt to preserve the original sense and colour, while conveying this to the English reader in the most readable fashion.

The word ‘maquis’ has subtly different meanings in English and French. The word originates from the Corsican term for the dry scrub which covers the hills of southern and Mediterranean France, but even more so from a Corsican expression prendre le maquis, which means to shelter in the woods to escape the authorities or a vendetta (to go underground). Even today, the word is used by the French primarily to describe those who resisted the Germans by going into the countryside and especially the wilder places. They formed into groups which sometimes took the name of the area they operated in – for instance, le maquis du Vercors. The term maquisard in French denotes someone who belonged to a maquis cell, usually in a rural area. In French the term is not normally taken to apply to those who belonged to urban Resistance groups (for example, in Paris or Lyon). In modern English usage, however, the word Maquisard has become, for all practical purposes, synonymous with that of a Resistant, whether urban or rural. Since this is an English book the word Maquis is used in the English sense, except where it is plainly inappropriate to do so.

One of the problems with writing this book has been the story’s high degree of complexity and detail. In an attempt not excessively to confuse the reader, I have tried to keep the personal names of those who played a minor role in the story out of the main text. For those interested, these, where known, are given in the Notes. Similarly, I have removed from the main text as many of the military unit names as possible; these too can be found in the Notes. And finally, in the same endeavour, I have submerged some of the myriad organizations involved in both London and Algiers. Thus the main directing French organization in London, the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action (BCRA), is referred to simply as ‘London’ or ‘de Gaulle’s headquarters in London’, while the main Algiers organization for directing the Resistance in southern France, the Special Projects Operations Centre (SPOC), becomes just ‘Algiers’.

For the same reason and in the hope it will make them more accessible to the reader, I have tried to simplify the references by providing abbreviations for the main archives which I have consulted (such as TNA for the British National Archives at Kew, and NARA for the US National Archives and Records Administration). A key giving each of these abbreviations can be found at the start of the Notes section.

PREFACE

I first became fascinated by the wartime epic of the Vercors in the early 1970s when I worked in the United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations in Geneva. I was drawn to it because of the tragedy and the horror of the story. But also because it struck me as a powerful example of a subject that has always fascinated me: the consequences for those on the front lines of conflict when those at the top know too little about the harsh realities of war, or think too little about what their decisions mean on the ground.

This is a French story, of course. But it is also a very human epic which has lessons for us all. The strong are not always wise. The simple not always stupid. The weak do not always lose. In most cases, the final determiner of outcomes rests, not with machines, or might, or well-laid plans, but with how individuals behave at the moment of trial.

This story has another function too. In this, the year of the seventieth anniversary of D-Day, it is as well to remember that the Normandy invasion was about more than what happened on the Normandy beaches, most of which is minutely documented and recorded. This is the hidden story of D-Day, when thousands of ordinary, untrained and in most cases crudely armed French men and women put their lives at risk quite as much as those who stormed the beaches, because they were determined to help throw out a hated occupier and join the fight to liberate their country.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

BENNES, Robert (BOB)*

Zeller’s radio operator and commander of La Britière radio house.

BILLON, Francis (TARTANE)

Parachuted in with Tournissa. Injured. One of those shot at the Grotte de la Luire.

BLAIN, Léa

Cipher and coding assistant to Eucalyptus. Runner for Jean Prévost.

BLANC, Paul (JEAN-PAUL)

Commander of the Trièves Maquis unit on the Pas de l’Aiguille.

BOIRON, Victor

Tractor driver in Vassieux.

BOISSIÈRE, Gustave (BOIS)

Speleologist and liaison officer to the Eucalyptus Mission.

BORDENAVE, André (DUFAU)

Commander of 6th BCA.

BOURDEAUX, Louis (FAYARD)

Commander of a Maquis company in Royans.

BOURGEOIS, Maurice (BATAILLE)

Maquis leader who accompanied Vernon Hoppers on the Lus-la-Croix-Haute ambush.

BOURGÈS-MAUNOURY, Maurice (POLYGONE)

Military delegate of R1, then National Military delegate.

BOUSQUET, René (CHABERT)

Huet’s deputy.

BUCKMASTER, Colonel Maurice

Head of SOE’s F Section.

CAMMAERTS, Francis (ROGER)

SOE F Section Organizer of Jockey circuit.

CATHALA, Gaston (GRANGE)

Maquis leader in the west of the plateau.

CHAMBONNET, Albert (DIDIER)

Commander of the Secret Army in the Lyon area.

CHAMPETIER DE RIBES, Maude (DANIELLE)

Milice spy and mistress of Dagostini.

CHAVANT, Eugène (CLÉMENT)

(Le Patron) Political leader of the Vercors.

CONSTANS, Jean (SAINT-SAUVEUR)

Responsible for assistance to the Vercors in Algiers.

CONUS, Adrien (VOLUME)

Member of Eucalyptus Mission. Sent by Huet to get help from Bauges Maquis on 21 July.

COSTA DE BEAUREGARD, Roland (DURIEU)

Responsible for the northern sector of the Vercors.

COULANDON, Émile (GASPARD)

Resistance leader on the Mont Mouchet.

CROIX, Yves (PINGOUIN)

Eucalyptus Mission radio operator.

CROUAU, Fernand (ABEL)

Commander of Compagnie Abel.

DAGOSTINI, Raoul

Milice Chief.

DALLOZ, Pierre (SENLIS)

Conceived Plan Montagnards in 1942.

D’ANGLEJAN (ARNOLLE)

One of Huet’s staff officers. He organized the counter-attacks in Vassieux.

D’ASTIER DE LA VIGÉRIE, Emmanuel (BERNARD)

Senior French Resistance official in London and Algiers.

DARIER, Albert (FÉLIX)

Member of the Mens section of the Compagnie de Trièves.

DELESTRAINT, Charles (VIDAL)

General. Head of the Secret Army in southern France. Captured and died in Dachau.

DESCOUR, Jacques (LA FLÈCHE)

Marcel Descour’s son. Killed at Vassieux, 21 July 1944.

DESCOUR, Marcel (BAYARD and PÉRIMÈTRE)

Chief of Staff of the Secret Army in R1 and FFI Commander of Region 1.

DESMAZES, Marie Alphonse Théodore René Adrien (RICHARD)

Secret Army conspirator with Delestraint in Bourg-en-Bresse.

DROUOT, Jean (HERMINE)

FFI leader in the Drôme.

EYSSERIC, Gustave (DURAND)

Maquis commander at Malleval.

FARGE, Yves (GRÉGOIRE and BESSONNEAU)

Commissioner of the Republic.

FISCHER, Dr Ladislas

Doctor in Saint-Martin and Grotte de la Luire. He sometimes used the false identity Lucien Ferrier while in the Vercors.

GANIMÈDE, Dr Fernand

Doctor in Saint-Martin and Grotte de la Luire.

GARIBOLDY, Paul (VALLIER)

First leader of Groupe Vallier.

BLUM-GAYET, Geneviève (GERMAINE)

Early Vercors Resistant activist.

GAGNOL, Abbé

The priest of Vassieux.

GEYER, Narcisse (THIVOLET)

Maquis commander. Responsible for the southern sector of the Vercors.

GODART, Pierre (RAOUL)

Maquis commander at Malleval.

GRANVILLE, Christine (née Krystyna SKARBEK) (PAULINE)

SOE F Section courier for Jockey circuit.

GUBBINS, Brigadier Colin

The operational head of SOE.

GUÉTET, Dom (LEMOINE)

Marcel Descour’s counsellor/monk.

HAEZEBROUCK, Pierre (HARDY)

Commander of the defence of Vassieux. Killed 21 July 1944.

HOPPERS, Vernon G.

Commander of the US Justine Mission.

HOUSEMAN, John (RÉFLEXION)

Member of Eucalyptus Mission.

HUET, François (HERVIEUX)

Commanded the Maquis on the Vercors.

HUMBERT, Jacques

Retired General who walked to the Vercors to join the battle on 21 July 1944.

JACQUIER, Paulette (MARIE-JEANNE and LA FRETTE)

Leader of Maquis group in the Chambarand forest.

JOUNEAU, Georges (GEORGES)

Garage owner and head of the Motor Transport Depot on the Vercors.

KALCK,* Louis (ANDRÉ and JOB-JOB)

Commander of Compagnie André defending the eastern passes.

KNAB, Werner

Commander German Sipo/SD Lyon area.

KOENIG, Marie Joseph Pierre François (known as Pierre)

Appointed by de Gaulle as CO of FFI.

LASSALLE, Pierre (BENJAMIN and BOLIVIEN)

Descour’s radio operator at La Matrassière and La Britière.

LE RAY, Alain (BASTIDE and ROUVIER)

Vercors military commander until January 1944 and then FFI commander of Isère Department.

LONGE, Desmond (RÉFRACTION)

Leader of Eucalyptus Mission.

MARTIN, Léon Dr

One of the founders of Grenoble resistance in the Café de la Rotonde.

MAYAUD, Charlotte (CHARLOTTE)

Early Vercors Resistant and organizer in Villard de Lans. Also a courier and liaison agent.

MOCKLER-FERRYMAN, Eric

Director for SOE operations in western Europe.

MONTEFUSCO, Mario (TITIN and ARGENTIN)

Radio operator at La Britière.

MOULIN, Jean (REX, MAX and RÉGIS)

De Gaulle’s representative in southern France and the architect of the unified southern Resistance.

MYERS, Chester L.

Hoppers’ second-in-command on the Justine Mission.

NIEHOFF, Heinrich

German military commander southern France.

ORTIZ, Peter Julien (CHAMBELLAN and JEAN-PIERRE)

US Marine parachuted in with the Union Mission and subsequently the head of Union II.

PECQUET, André Édouard (BAVAROIS and PARAY)

Eucalyptus Mission radio operator.

PFLAUM, Karl Ludwig

Commander 157th Reserve Division.

PINHAS, France

Nurse at the second Battle of Saint-Nizier.

PRÉVOST, Jean (GODERVILLE)

Writer and friend of Dalloz. Commander of Compagnie Goderville in the north of the Vercors.

PROVENCE, Mireille

Milice spy.

PUPIN, Aimé (MATHIEU)

Early Vercors Resistance leader.

RAYNAUD, Pierre (ALAIN)

An agent of Cammaerts and commander of a Drôme Maquis unit.

REY, Fabien (MARSEILLE and BLAIREAU)

Expert in and author of Maquisard guide to the the flora and fauna of the Vercors.

REY, Sylviane

Nurse and friend of Francis Cammaerts.

RITTER, Stefan

Commander No. 8 Company Reserve Gebirgsjäger Battalion II/98.

ROMANS-PETIT, Henri (ROMANS)

Resistance leader in the Jura.

ROUDET, Marcel (RAOUL)

Corrupt Lyon policeman who led his own ‘Raoul Maquis’.

SALLIER, Ferdinand (CHRISTOPHE)

Maquis leader in the west of the Vercors.

SAMUEL, Dr Eugène (JACQUES and RAVALEC)

Early founder of the Resistance movement in Villard-de-Lans.

SCHÄFER, Friedrich

Commander Kampfgruppe Schäfer.

SCHWEHR, Franz

Commander Kampfgruppe Schwehr.

SEEGER, Alfred

Commander Kampfgruppe Seeger.

SOUSTELLE, Jacques

Confidant of de Gaulle and head of the French Directorate for Intelligence and Special Forces.

STÜLPNAGEL, Carl-Heinrich

German military commander for all France.

TANANT, Pierre (LAROCHE)

Huet’s Chief of Staff.

THACKTHWAITE, Henry (PROCUREUR)

British member of the Union Mission.

TOURNISSA, Jean (PAQUEBOT)

Landing-ground expert sent in to build an airstrip at Vassieux.

ULLMAN, Henri (PHILIPPE)

Commander of Compagnie Philippe.

ULLMANN, Dr Marcel

Doctor in Saint-Martin and Grotte de la Luire.

VILLEMAREST, Pierre FAILLANT de (FRANTZ)

Maquis intelligence expert and later commander of the Groupe Vallier.

VINCENT, Gaston (AZUR and PIERRE)

OSS agent in Saint-Agnan.

VINCENT-BEAUME, André (Capt. VINCENT and SAMBO)

Head of Huet’s 2nd Bureau (intelligence).

WINTER, Anne

Nurse at the Grotte de la Luire.

ZABEL

Commander Kampfgruppe Zabel.

ZELLER, Henri (FAISCEAU and JOSEPH)

Chief of Resistance in south-east France.

* Aliases in brackets.

* There are several versions of this name, including Calke and Calk. I have used the one given in the journal of the 11th Cuirassiers and Robert Bennes’ memoirs.

LIST OF MAPS

Map 1: The Vercors

Map 2: Occupied Territories 1942

Map 3: Camps of the Vercors 1943

Map 4: Drop Sites

Map 5: German Operations 1944

Map 6: Options for the Southern Invasion

Map 7: The Battle of Saint-Nizier

Map 8: Huet’s Dispositions and Early German Probes

Map 9: Pflaum’s Plan

Map 10: The Battle for Vassieux

Map 11: Battle of the Passes

Map 12: The Battle of Valchevrière

Map 13: Flight and Refuge

PROLOGUE

Above the city of Grenoble, at Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte, the sun rose into a perfect sky at 04.48 on the morning of 13 June 1944. For the 700 young men who had spent the previous night under the summer stars, strung out along a 3-kilometre defensive line on the Charvet ridge, it bought a welcome warmth against the damp early-morning chill. Bees hummed among the flowers and grasses and everywhere little birds darted from clump to bush, seeking out insects. High above the early lark let down her string of liquid notes. Below them, the Grésivaudan valley, bounded by the Chartreuse massif on one side and the Bauges and Oisans ranges on the other, glowed with the colours of high summer. And in the distance, like a great white whale, the snow-covered hump-back of Mont Blanc sparkled in the sunlight. In normal times this would have been good day for lovers – and country walks – and family picnics. But this was not a normal time – and this would not be a normal day.

Modern-day soldiers almost always fight and die miles from home. But these young men – many little more than boys – looked down that morning to see their home city laid out as plain as a street map. They knew its every nook and cranny. There was the park where they had played football with friends. There the school they had attended. There the square in which they had hung around, watching the girls go by. There the café where they had met a lover. And there the rented flat where wives and children still slept this summer morning, as they lay out in the dew-soaked grass, waiting for the enemy to come.

Whatever politicians say, soldiers do not die for their country. They die, mostly, for the man next to them – the comrade they know will lay down his life for them. And for whom they, too, will lay down theirs in their turn – if required to do so. But most of these young Maquisards lying out this warm summer’s morning on the Charvet hill, in the same clothes – even the same white shirts – in which they had left home only days previously, were different. Young, naive, unpractised in the use of arms, inexperienced in the terrors of war, they had come to the plateau out of a genuine sense of patriotism mixed with romance and adventure. Their youthful enthusiasm remained undimmed by the dull, mind-numbing routines of the professional soldier. How were they to know that their proudly acquired Sten guns would be little more than pop-guns against the steel-clad might and majesty of the world’s finest army, now massing invisibly below them? How were they to know, plucked so suddenly out of comfortable city lives, what it would be like to watch a friend cough out his life’s blood on the grass next to them? These things were literally beyond their imaginings.

And so, in ways unknown to the common soldier, they lay there, waiting for their enemy – apprehensively of course – but in their innocence also proudly, bravely, determinedly, ready to carry out what they believed was a glorious duty on behalf of their long-oppressed country. ‘It’s the morning of Austerlitz!’ declared one, referring to Napoleon’s great victory over the Austrians in 1805.

Suddenly, there was a new noise punctuating the early-morning hum of the city, drifting up to them on a light summer breeze. It was the insistent thump of a German heavy machine gun somewhere in the woods and meadows below them. Little flowers of dirt started sprouting among them in the long grass where they lay. Looking to the foot of the hill, they could make out tiny dots of field grey spreading out as they started to move slowly up towards them.