Maquis

Yeah, yeah.

I wish they had included the Maquis as well.

Well, they're under...

Partisans.

For full access to our archive, visit patreon.com slash oldtimeretroradio.

In occupied northern France in 1944, American OSS agents Duke and Hill parachute behind enemy lines to organize a small Maquis force and disrupt German transport and supply routes ahead of the Allied invasion.

This is Escape, Episode 2, Operation Fleur-de-Lys, first heard on CBS July 14, 1947.

Jack Webb plays Duke, with Elliott Lewis as Hill and Harry Bartell as Alcine.

William N. Robson adapted the drama from a contemporary story by Stuart Alsop and Thomas Braden.

The action begins in London and moves into rural Maquis territory near Grandmont, where a security breach threatens the local resistance network.

And now, the original broadcast.

Escape.

According to author Brian Moynihan in his book Forgotten Soldiers, Darnand's best friend was a witness at his execution.

Father Bruckberger was another old soldier who'd fought with Darnand in 1940 and had later fought against the Milice as a Maquisard in the Resistance.

Father Bruckberger, quote, bore his old comrade no malice, end quote.

Questions, comments, or concerns? Please don't hesitate to contact me at VerdunPodcast at gmail.com.

Yes, Alcine Dutant.

He's leader of the local Maquis.

He's expecting you.

Mm-hmm.

Paris was trembling on the edge of liberation.

The Nazis were retreating, the Allies were advancing, and Papa Hemingway, armed with a press pass, a stubborn streak, and a small band of Maquis fighters, decided he wasn't going to wait for permission to enter the city.

He had a mission of his own.

He wanted to save the Paris Ritz.

After day one, they were still only 50% sure.

Once he was on land, Hemingway was, of course, given strict orders to follow all the rules that correspondents had to live by, those being not to carry a gun, to stay with the group he was assigned to, and to follow orders from anyone who outranked him.

Determined to fight his way all the way to Paris for the express purpose of liberating the Ritz bar, which held years of memories for him, Papa Hemingway used his bluster and personal powers of persuasion to surround himself with a volunteer cadre of independent warriors, including a colonel in the OSS, two military historians, two seasoned resistance fighters, and a dozen or so Maquis guerrilla fighters, men who had escaped the Vichy government and fled to the hills to fight Nazis.

Then he loaded a motorcycle and sidecar with whiskey and weapons and headed toward Paris.

I should also say that when the French forces do land, and, and after Operation Dragoon, the Allies become very well established across France.

French army goes through what they call the blanchissement, the literally the whitening, and this is where they send many of the African, particularly sub-Saharan, but also some Algerian soldiers back to Africa, and they integrate the French resistance members, the Maquis members, into the French army.

And it is, it is, uh, still a very interesting coin in the end.

The native troops, the, uh, Maghrébins, the Senegalese, still I don't think have gotten their due, especially in English language history, let alone in, in French language history, because they make up a vast part of the Free French forces, uh, throughout the war.

And lots of young men said, "Well, stuff that.

I'm not doing that." And they literally disappeared into the forests, into the mountains all over France to join up with groups who had already perhaps been arrested or who were on the run and were hiding out from the German authorities and became what was known as the Maquis.

So the Maquis was the beginnings of the French Resistance, which was a lot of young men particularly, and eventually a lot of young women too, who were either on the run or were avoiding forced labor and created their own fighting force in the forest.

And they, they became extremely important throughout the war and also particularly when D-Day happened and the Allied forces were moving across France, who received a lot of help from the Resistance.

So that's, that's the process that we see happening in the novel on the ground amongst these four friends.

Yes, facilitate D-Day, and, and what happened after D-Day, and also the, the, the, the invasion of Provence as well.

So the, the, the Maquis had, had been armed m- mainly by the British, I mean, they were ... and organized and were ready to come out into the open.

So, you know, what they'd been doing before then was, was good for French morale and, uh, pa- perhaps bad for German morale, I don't know.

It probably n- didn't make all that much difference, but, you know, producing underground newspapers, um, having radio broadcasts, all that helps to keep spirits up.

And that brings us full circle because the Allies are actually working directly with the French Resistance.

British and American operatives from the two nations' brand new espionage organizations, the United Kingdom's Special Operations Executive and the United States Office of Strategic Services, created in 1940 and 1942 respectively, are parachuting into France, bringing arms, radios, and other needed supplies to the Maquis to help them harass the Germans from behind the lines, weakening the occupation and preparing the fallen Republic to rise anew and fight the moment that the Allies take those daring and deadly first steps on Normandy's beaches.

Roughly one-third of OSS agents are women.

And one in particular will go to extreme lengths in service to her country.

When her first stint of wartime espionage as an SOE agent ended in her needing to hightail it across the Pyrenees and into Spain, Virginia did it, hobbling her way over the mountains.

Now she's back in France as an operative of her own nation's even newer OSS.

As for the cows and the cheese, look, Virginia's a fine farmhand, but it's all an excuse to scope out fields as potential parachute zones, to sell delectable dairy products to Nazi soldiers while eavesdropping with her perfect German, to help the Maquis, and finally, to radio her intel back to London in preparation for Operation Overlord.

But Virginia has to be careful.